Advice on make a natural moisturizing soap?

[kuurt]

I'm new to soap making and I want to make my own soap that is natural, has oils that are good for you, and is moisturizing.

Natural in the sense that it's made from natural ingredients instead of some of these store baught brands that are not actually soap but detergent bars.

With oils that are good for you like olive oil, which has to be better for you then some of these other oils.

And moisturizing is important to me because with some soaps my skin feels dry.

So I was thinking I should make an olive oil soap which is natural, has anti-oxidents that are probably good for your skin, and is supposed to be moisturizing. I was going to making a 100% olive oil soap until I read in a book on soap making that you shouldn't do that. It said you should have at least 10% coconut oil in your olive oil soaps. I think the reason was that it helps to create a lather (suds).

So now I'm thinking, 90% olive oil and 10% coconut oil.

What do you think? Any advice for a new soap maker?

 

[zeoplum]

100% Olive Oil is going to be the most gentle. I've never heard that you "shouldn't" make it but after experimenting with different percentages, I found that it was just too slimy for my taste. I actually make mine with 85% OO and 15% CO and that seems just right for my family and friends.

As for the issue of it being "moisturizing", I've heard it said that the best you can hope for is that it doesn't leave your skin dry. And if you want moisturized skin, you'll need a leave-on product such as lotion or body butters. Soap is a wash-off product. But I would imagine that the amount of lye discount you use could affect whether any unsaponified oils are left behind on your skin. There are other soapers here who are much more experienced than I am so wait to hear from them before making any decisions. Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes.

zeo

 

[Genny]

I'm a soaper that believes that soap doesn't add moisture to our skin, that it just doesn't strip the natural oils from our skin that many store bought soaps can. If you want to add moisture to your skin, use lotion.

I make castile (100% olive oil) soap. It is a bit slimy but the longer you let it cure, the less slimy it is when you use it.
Also, I get a good amount of bubbles with my castile. I get even more when I use a soap saver with it.

But there's also nothing wrong with adding coconut. It will help harden up the bar sooner. 100% olive oil takes quite a while to get really hard.

 

[TeriDk]

I get even more when I use a soap saver with it.

What is a soap saver?

 

[Genny]

This is a soap saver:



It's a cloth bag (knitted, crocheted, mesh, etc) that you slide soap into for using in the shower. It helps build up lather the same way a washcloth would. You can also use it for all those little slivers of soap that you have left over.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

This is where knowing the Fatty Acid make up of your oils and what they can do for the finished soap comes in handy.

I like 100% Olive Oils soaps just fine. I take a very heavy liquid discount for the lye solution and let them sit a good 6-8 weeks before using them. Abundance of low lather that is not slimy.

As for a moisturizing soap, like others have said, soap isn't moisturizing, but you can control which oils you use that won't strip off a lot of your natural oils. For me, this means keeping my palmitic fatty acid down and increasing my linoleic fatty acid. This can be tricky since higher linoleic & oleics can mean a soft bar that melts quickly