2 week old soap still very harsh.

[gestmte]

You guys are probably rolling your eyes and saying "duh" right about now, but I really am curious about the timeline from harsh to mild and when these changes take place.

I made a lovely tallow, coconut, and olive oil soap about 2 weeks ago scented with orange EO. I could not resist washing my hands with a tiny bit of it I shaved off when planing. I was surprised to find out that the soap is still very harsh. My hands felt very tight after using it and my skin was shiny (I assume due to all the oils being stripped off).

When does a soap become mild enough to REALLY use? Ok ok, so I know it is often quoted 4 to 6 weeks and you'll end up with a beautifully cured soap. I just have a difficult time imagining this harsh soap will be a nourishing, lathering, wonderful experience in just two more weeks. Can it really be?

Patience is not my strong point and in the back of my head I'm now thinking "did I screw something up in the formula?" but maybe 2 more weeks really will make all the difference. Any ideas/resources are greatly appreciated.

 

[Obsidian]

Care to share your recipe? A lot has to do with the actual recipe, a high cleansing soap most likely will never be mild.

I have to cure soap for minimum 8 weeks before I use it. Even a very gentle recipe needs a nice long cure.

 

[gestmte]

Care to share your recipe? A lot has to do with the actual recipe, a high cleansing soap most likely will never be mild.

I have to cure soap for minimum 8 weeks before I use it. Even a very gentle recipe needs a nice long cure.

I just ran this through soapcalc's calculator, unless something is off it came back with 23 cleansing and 48 conditioning. This was the recipe:

23 oz recipe:
40% olive oil
30% beef tallow
30% coconut
1.2oz orange eo
6 oz water
3.15 oz lye

What do you think? Would different ingredients have been better or am I missing something? I just went home for lunch and washed with another sliver of it, same thing! My hands are very dry and shiny too and irritated as well, just really not pleasant at all. I am confident everything got mixed in OK and it was poured at a medium trace.

 

[Nanette]

Hmmm I cant do anything more than a cleansing of 17, or no more than 25% coconut...and it does take 8 weeks, maybe even 10 or 12 for soap to really get nice...salt bars take a year, castile takes a couple months even if its Zany's recipe...patience. Your bars are going to be very cleansing but should mellow with time. IMO

 

[IrishLass]

For someone like me who can tolerate higher cleansing formulas than most on the forum, your recipe is just a tad bit more on the cleansing side than what I can normally tolerate with only a superfat of 5%, but I think it would not be too bad for me with a superfat of at least 8%. Normally, with a 5% superfat I can go as high as 21% on the cleansing just as long as the conditioning is no lower than 50%. If the cleansing is higher, I have to bump up my superfat to compensate.

Everyone's skin is different in how much cleansing it can tolerate, but two weeks is definitely way too early to make a final judgement on your formula. You need to give it at least 4 to 8 weeks. My own soap, which is a little less cleansing than yours, does not feel anywhere near as mild to me at two weeks as it does at 4 weeks. It gets a tad further milder by 6 to 8 weeks, but I am able to start using it at 4 weeks without trouble.


IrishLass

 

[Obsidian]

Yep, that is way too cleansing for me. I use 15-20% coconut max. With your 30% along with tallow that will also increase the cleansing number, it would be a good machanics hand soap.

I'm also sensitive to olive oil, more then 25% makes my skin tight.

Are you willing to try lard? This is the recipe I use. 5% superfat

Lard 50%
Olive 25%
Coconut 20%
Castor 5%

 

[gestmte]

Shoot! I think I might have screwed this one up. All a learning experience but I'll be sure to stick to a tried and true recipe next time.

Yep, that is way too cleansing for me. I use 15-20% coconut max. With your 30% along with tallow that will also increase the cleansing number, it would be a good machanics hand soap.

I'm also sensitive to olive oil, more then 25% makes my skin tight.

Are you willing to try lard? This is the recipe I use. 5% superfat

Lard 50%
Olive 25%
Coconut 20%
Castor 5%

Thank you very much for the recipe, I'm going to try it again using these oils!

 

[TheGecko]

Shoot! I think I might have screwed this one up. All a learning experience but I'll be sure to stick to a tried and true recipe next time.

No...experimenting is good. I started with a recipe that I knew worked without fail, but oh my...so many other oils and all those butters...I played. Sometimes the results were good, and some were...not so good, and some looked fantastic...and then literally shattered when I tried to cut it. And one soap that I was sure I had completely wreaked...turned put to be one of my favorites.

I currently have two recipes...one for my regular soap and one for my goat milk soap. I picked up a small bottle of Avocado Oil to try a new recipe for a customer who cannot use Shea Butter (in both of my soaps). I’ll make a couple of small test batches and see how it goes.

As for your recipe, consider this. Lard + Lye + Water = Soap and soap cleans. Unless you have a reason to need a super ‘cleansing’ soap...fisherman, diesel mechanic...anything above 15%-20% is going to ‘clean’ [strip] all the natural oils from your skin and leave it feeling dry and tight.

 

[shunt2011]

It may be just fine for you. I would set it aside and let it cure for 8 weeks or so. I'm like IL I can do 21% with no issue. You may like it. You can always shred it up and add it to a batch that is less cleansing if you just don't like it.

 

[IrishLass]

No...experimenting is good. I started with a recipe that I knew worked without fail, but oh my...so many other oils and all those butters...I played. Sometimes the results were good, and some were...not so good, and some looked fantastic...and then literally shattered when I tried to cut it. And one soap that I was sure I had completely wreaked...turned put to be one of my favorites.

Ditto what TheGecko said.....experimentation is good! My early years of soaping were nothing but a continual series of experiment after experiment as I flew by the seat of my pants. lol Some turned out to be awesome keepers that I continue to make, and some were fails, but I was always able to salvage the failures in one way or another..... either by rebatching or shredding them up as soap confetti to toss in another batch as decoration. Nothing ever got wasted......except for one batch that was extremely lye-heavy, but looking back on it now, I know I could've saved that one too.... or at least I would've tried instead of tossing it immediately like I did.

As I experimented along, I eventually learned how to formulate for my skin via using SoapCalc's quality numbers as guide of sorts, i.e.. although the numbers don't exactly reflect the whole story, they are consistent enough in a certain way that you can use them as a reliable plumbline in finding the numbers that work for your individual skin-type as you play around with designing formulas. In other words, as I bumbled along, I began to see a pattern with those numbers. The batches that felt great to my skin always fell within certain ratios of the cleansing and conditioning percentages, and so now when I formulate, I do quite reliably well as long as I stay within those parameters.


IrishLass