Looking for feedback on my recipe:

Since I'm still pretty new at soaping, I was hoping to get some feedback before trying this recipe I've put together. I'm looking for a morning shower soap that is very moisturizing/ conditioning since our winters here in Wisconsin are very drying! Here is the recipe I've put together so far:

Lemongrass and Mint Morning Soap

Coconut Oil: 25%
Olive Oil: 40%
Shea Butter: 20%
Castor Oil: 7%
Coco Butter: 8%

12% Superfatting

Additives:
20% weight of oils in Celtic Sea Salt
1 TBS colloidal oatmeal
1 tsp lemon zest

Thank you for any feedback or help you can give me!

Catherine

I think that looks like a lovely moisturizing bar, Catherine. I also like using Shea and cocoa butters in my soaps for winter, but generally only go up to around 20% for both ..... (I'm not sure why - probably just habit!)


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I have really dry skin and that recipe would be too drying for me. I'd lower the coconut to 20% and increase olive oil to 45%. I'd also leave the salt out. Soap doesn't suds in salt water unless its heavy in coconut oil. Most salt bars are 100% coconut with 20% SF to counter the high cleansing/drying properties but still supply a nice bubbly lather.

The lemon zest won't add much either unless you want it for scrubbies. I used lime zest in my shampoo bars and it just turned into brown specks.

OK, I made this "soap." Why the quotes? Because, I totally screwed this up. On the plus side, my house smells fantastic!

Here's what happened. I measured out my lye, had it cooling in the sink, measured out my oils and my colors and got everyone in my mixing cup. I'm mixing and mixing and mixing... the motor on my stick blender is getting pretty hot and it won't go to trace! I look back at my recipe and realize that I THINK I was supposed to add 72 g's of lye and I added 25. I'm not sure that's what I did but remembering back I think that I looked at ounces and measured that in grams. Bottom line, I think I have to add 47 g's of lye to my mix. I'm right in the middle of everything how on earth am I going to do this? I remember that I have some frozen ice cubes of buttermilk and if I use just one of them then maybe I can get my lye dissolved quickly and to temp right? So I do that and my lye won't dissolve. Scrap that. I decide to dissolve my lye in an extra ounce of water and hope it won't screw up my recipe. So, I do that get it completely dissolved and add it. It came to trace very quickly. Like only about 2 mins. That makes me wonder, "did I mess up the measurement of my lye?" So, I decide this soap is a goner and I may as well try to make it a learning experience. I separate my mixture into two cups, color one yellow and the other white and layer it into a mold. Oy. Thankfully, I mess up a lot in life so I kept a level head and a sense of humor the whole time.

rats. It was going to be really amazing too.

Catherine

Obsidian, thank you for your suggestions. I upped the coconut oil because I was adding the salt. I have two salt bars and found that they make my skin so soft! One of my batches I added pink Himalayan salt and that bar is fantastic! I know salt is a suds killer so everything I've read says to counteract that you want to add more coconut oil. The articles I've read suggest 80% coconut and up to 100% of the oil weight in salt. I was hopeful that by adding less salt I would be able to reduce the coconut oil but still get the softness of adding salt. Unfortunately, after my lye measuring episode I won't be able to tell on this batch. Maybe next time.

C

I wouldn't give up on your soap yet. Once its unmolded and cut, let it sit for a couple days then zap test. It might turn out wonderful

I'm so sorry it all went wrong ....... Sometimes I feel like a batch is jinxed because everything seems to go wrong - but I've only ever ended up with 1 completely unusable soap (which was a red wine soap that smelled so AWFUL I couldn't even bring myself to give it away!).

BTW - I think that the CO of 25% is fine in this recipe, because you've included high proportions of the 2 butters and a good amount of castor oil, which are all really moisturizing - so I doubt that the soap will be drying. Lets just hope that it works out OK in spite of the problems you had.


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Thanks! It wasn't a total loss, it smells fabulous and in the worst case I would put it under the seat of my car as a freshener. I learned a lot! We'll see how it turns out.

C

Since there is salt in it, I pulled it from the mold and cut it. This is my first 2 color soap attempt.


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It looks like it came out ok!!! Yeah!! Did you do a zap test?