Analyzing soap performance

[SoapDaddy70]

I started making soap at the end of September and have started using different bars from my first few recipes. I obviously have the recipes saved and can see the number differences in cleansing, conditioning, etc and how the recipes are different. My problem is that I really don't know how to analyze what I am feeling when using them. I can't say to myself.."This soap had more bubbles", "This soap feels more conditioning", "This one has creamier lather", "This soap is less drying". All of these first recipes have different combinations of Olive Oil, Coconut, Castor and then some have Shea Butter, some have Shea and Cocoa Butter, some just Shea and no Cocoa. To be honest they all feel the same to me My more recent recipes have Palm Oil so I am hoping to see the difference between my soap with Palm and without. Sometimes I think people talk about soap the way wine drinkers talk about wine with a lot of buzz words just to sound fancy. How did other people out there learn how to critique a bar of soap in order to make adjustments to their recipes?

 

[GemstonePony]

Have highly sensitive skin that wants you to be miserable. J/K, but it does help if your skin is at least somewhat sensitive.

You don't say by how much your recipe changed, so it's possible the changes were too small to make a noticeable difference.

Bubbles and lather can be harder to judge without a side-by-side comparison over time. Especially if you have hard water, the lather for any one bar can vary from use to use as hard water deposit/water hardness messes with the lather unreliably, so you kind of have to keep track of the average for each bar in order to judge. As mentioned, minor differences in the recipe may be harder to perceive.

Dryness/moisturizing- if you've never had a bar that DIDN'T dry out your skin, this one's hard. I judge this based on if my skin feels as soft or softer 5 minutes after washing and drying it. If it doesn't I either consider it not ready, or a bathroom/kitchen hand soap only if the reverse effect is mild. If it leaves a greasy/oily feeling after being rinsed, I consider it an incompetent hand soap, and it fails up into bath bar or facial bar only status, depending on the level of failure.

Tightness is a more immediate reaction for me, and I don't consider any bar that does it ready for use.

 

[Megan]

Have highly sensitive skin that wants you to be miserable. J/K, but it does help if your skin is at least somewhat sensitive.

~ Relatable~
Funny enough: I didn't even know my skin was sensitive till I started using homemade soap and basically all of my skin problems went away! Ha!

Lather is really the one thing that gets me sometimes. Like I can tell if a bar has bad lather....but as far as good lather...I'm like "it's bubbly!" without really knowing the degree or how it compares to other "bubbly" soaps.

I would say, trying out other maker's soaps helps a lot. I know there haven't been any big trades on here recently, but FB has several groups you can join...or just purchasing several bars from different artisans. I have tried several of the "famous" soaper's soaps, and some local.
I mean you won't get a feel of how recipe affects soap so much this way (except for the ingredient list), but you can get a good feeling of how different handmade soaps can be. I've found some definite bad (for me at least, no shade on any maker) ones out there and some pretty good ones too.

 

[SoapDaddy70]

It's weird because I do not think I have sensitive skin so I have not experienced any dryness or tightness with any of the bars I have been using so far. My issue is that it can be intimidating thinking about what makes a solid recipe. Not to mention all the different things you can add or not add. I feel like I can make a thousands tweaks and try a thousand different things and still get the same experience when using the soap. I guess I am hoping for that "aha" moment that lets me know that a particular recipe is one that I want to stick with. Not even remotely talking about selling. I just want to be able to say to myself..."I like this type of bar over another type" I guess that will come with experience. So many different things to try that it becomes overwhelming at times. Beer, aloe vera juice, goats milk, beeswax, honey....the list is endless. I just hope that at some point I will be able to tell what the differences are when using or not using certain ingredients. Sorry for the rant

 

[KimW]

I'm with @GemstonePony. If you're only making minor adjustments, it might be difficult to discern differences. If you aren't prone to sensitive/irritated skin, then it may be well difficult to analyze a soap. Also, as you're finding, analyzing soap is subjective. Bubbles can be a little more objective as far as copious bubbles vs few bubbles, but even that depends greatly on the environment, like hardness of water, and method, like using just your hands or a wash rag. Finally, and this is the really fun part, a soap's properties/qualities continue to change as it cures/ages over time. A soap that's drying with low bubbles on week 6, can often turn out to be gentle with acceptable bubbles on month 6.

My like/dislike of a soap comes down to if it makes my skin feel tight or dry, but I have sensitive skin. When that happens, I shelve it for a few months and try it again.

My hubby has yet to notice a difference in any of my soaps other than the fact that some last longer in the shower than others. I've found that this also changes slightly as a bar cures/ages.

I do a strange test on new recipes that have appropriately cured for 4-6 weeks. I wash a few dishes with the soap. Rub a wet sponge on the soap, wash the dishes, rinse the dishes, allow to air dry. This allows me to quickly see how clean it rinses (I do rub the dish as I am rinsing to help it along), how much soap scum it produces in the sink, and if it is drying to my hands. It also lets me know if I like a scent I used without getting it all over my body in the shower. Not a fan of Patchouli in soap (sad, right?)...just sayin'!

 

[Zing]

I know what you're saying. I have to rely on the numbers that I plug into soap calc. From time to time I'll experiment with various ingredients and ratios but invariably when I use it, I totally forget what I did differently!

However, I do notice bubbles and lather quality. When I use any butters, the lather is lotion-y to me. My wife loves it, I don't. Daddy here loves his bubbles!

I occasionally use the soap of a local soaper here whose ingredients are similar to mine. In the shower, I immediately notice that my skin feels dryer and tighter after use so now I use it just as hand soap.

Before I started using my own soap, I just thought that I had particularly rashy skin and just lived with it and had tried every product and prescription. Now my skin has never been healthier. Not bragging but just stating that the difference compared to commercial brand soap is night and day.

 

[Megan]

I just want to be able to say to myself..."I like this type of bar over another type" I guess that will come with experience.

That's something that will develop over time...and will probably change as you learn more as well.

For instance, I thought I hated salt bars...because I started off doing 100% coconut oil salt bars. After browsing here and trying a shea/coconut and salt recipe...well, guess who has been using salt bars now for over a month exclusively? To be fair, if I didn't have a batch completely fail on me, I probably wouldn't have even really tried this recipe because I thought I just didn't like salt bars...but it's unsellable in its current state and I hate to waste.

 

[AliOop]

I agree that only small tweaks aren't going to be noticeable to some people's skin. Maybe you can shift your experiments so that you are testing wildly different soaps, like high butter, then high lard, then high OO, etc.

Just be sure to keep good notes. My very favorite soap EVER is one that I didn't document because I changed my plans mid-stream, and then didn't write down the changes. Of course, I didn't remember them when I tried the soap eight weeks later and loved it. I'm still trying to recreate that one!

 

[hlee]

I understand this completely. I know my soap is kind to my skin as the eczema on my legs is gone but I have used many recipes over the years and have a really hard time analyzing them. Usually the best I can do is decide if I like it or not.

 

[TheGecko]

I just want to be able to say to myself..."I like this type of bar over another type" I guess that will come with experience.

You really don't need "experience" to like one thing more than another. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a wine connoisseur, I can't sip a glass and tell you were the grapes were grown, or even what kind of grapes (except maybe white or red), or if the barrel had whiskey in it previously or is brand new, or whatever else...I just know whether whether I like it or not.

And it's kind of the same way with soap...unless you are making a huge change in your recipe from one soap to another (Red vs White or even Chablis vs Chardonnay), you're really not going to know the difference between say 20% Cocoa Butter vs Almond Butter or 10% Sweet Almond Oil vs Avocado Oil or 5% Argan Oil vs none.

I can make a good quality bar of soap with just four oils, but I choose to add in a couple of butters. If I was only making soap for my household, I'd probably just stick with the four oils since I can get them all locally, but I want to sell my soaps and I want to sell more than just soaps, so the butters are good for other products. So what it came down to was...what ingredients did I want to use?

 

[SoapDaddy70]

You really don't need "experience" to like one thing more than another. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a wine connoisseur, I can't sip a glass and tell you were the grapes were grown, or even what kind of grapes (except maybe white or red), or if the barrel had whiskey in it previously or is brand new, or whatever else...I just know whether whether I like it or not.

And it's kind of the same way with soap...unless you are making a huge change in your recipe from one soap to another (Red vs White or even Chablis vs Chardonnay), you're really not going to know the difference between say 20% Cocoa Butter vs Almond Butter or 10% Sweet Almond Oil vs Avocado Oil or 5% Argan Oil vs none.

I can make a good quality bar of soap with just four oils, but I choose to add in a couple of butters. If I was only making soap for my household, I'd probably just stick with the four oils since I can get them all locally, but I want to sell my soaps and I want to sell more than just soaps, so the butters are good for other products. So what it came down to was...what ingredients did I want to use?

Thanks. This makes a lot of sense to me. I think when I am able to test one of my Palm Oil soaps I will be able to garner whether I like a Palm free soap better than one with Palm. All of my beginning recipes were all just small tweaks to basically the same few ingredients (Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, and Castor Oil) with a specialty oil like Hemp or Tamanu thrown in once or twice. I thinks it's all the additives or water replacements that I feel overwhelmed sometimes. For example, are soaps with a certain thing like beer or goats milk that much better than just using just regular distilled water. Sometimes I think people just add stuff because someone else did and/or they read something about it. Can someone really tell when using a soap which one was made with water or aloe vera juice or apple cider vinegar or any other thing like clay, silk, etc? I am just being the cynic that I am, so excuse me for being long winded.

 

[AliOop]

@SoapDaddy70 those are all great questions to ask!

Some people feel no difference at all with goat milk or colloidal oats; my skin really, really likes both of them. But since I feel no difference between powdered goat milk and fresh, I used the powdered bc it is cheaper and easier to use and store. Others just love the fresh milk, so that's what they use.

I also like to use either aloe vera juice (more bubbles) or vinegar (softer lather, faster unmolding, less soap scum) for my lye solution. But since I can't feel any difference between cheap white vinegar and expensive ACV, and since cheap white vinegar + sugar (or sorbitol) for bubbles is cheaper than aloe vera juice, that's what I choose to use most of the time.

It would be a different story if I were marketing my soaps to folks who felt strongly about using ACV or fresh goat's milk because they believed it would benefit them more, or because they can genuinely feel the difference that I cannot feel. But since that's not my soaping lane, it would be a total waste of my money to use ACV or fresh goat's milk.

I'm sharing all that so you can see my thought process for how I picked the ingredients and additives for most of my soaps. Your thought process and final choices may be different. Bottom line, make the kind of soap you want to use, or the kind of soap you can sell to your target market, as fits your situation.

In the meantime, enjoy the experimentation process without feeling pressure to buy more additives than you want to spend on (or find storage space for). You can make really great soap without spending tons of money on additives, micas, fragrances, molds, etc. If those things are fun for you, great! But if they overwhelm or annoy you, don't sweat it. We've got all kinds of soapers here, and that's part of what makes this group so fun.

 

[linne1gi]

I know what you're saying. I have to rely on the numbers that I plug into soap calc. From time to time I'll experiment with various ingredients and ratios but invariably when I use it, I totally forget what I did differently!

However, I do notice bubbles and lather quality. When I use any butters, the lather is lotion-y to me. My wife loves it, I don't. Daddy here loves his bubbles!

I occasionally use the soap of a local soaper here whose ingredients are similar to mine. In the shower, I immediately notice that my skin feels dryer and tighter after use so now I use it just as hand soap.

Before I started using my own soap, I just thought that I had particularly rashy skin and just lived with it and had tried every product and prescription. Now my skin has never been healthier. Not bragging but just stating that the difference compared to commercial brand soap is night and day.

I agree and most medical personnel disagree (doctors) - they all seem to have an affinity for Dove. Really. And I remember that Dove gave me most of my skin problems - itchy, hivey (sp) skin that never felt good no matter what lotion I used.
Zing - have you tried sugar in your soaps? Because putting sugar, particularly powdered sugar is a complete game changed. Big bountiful bubbles and even if your coconut oil is low, you still get great big bubbles.

 

[bookreader451]

Since I started soaping I kept the ends in a container by the sink. I found that if I use a few at a time, standing at the sink, wasting water (hubby's observation) I can see the differences in recipes.

I always use a poof in the shower so all my soaps bubble, but I can tell by my winter leg dandruff, or lack thereof, which soap formula works best for me. I find that the soap I make with lard or tallow and less OO is more skin friendly to me. That is just my personal observation and each person is different.

Overall I can say that since I started using other's and my own artisan soaps my hands and body are less dry that they used to be.

 

[Melysg25]

I agree and most medical personnel disagree (doctors) - they all seem to have an affinity for Dove. Really. And I remember that Dove gave me most of my skin problems - itchy, hivey (sp) skin that never felt good no matter what lotion I used.
Zing - have you tried sugar in your soaps? Because putting sugar, particularly powdered sugar is a complete game changed. Big bountiful bubbles and even if your coconut oil is low, you still get great big bubbles.

Store bought powdered sugar can contain corn starch. I wonder how corn starch affects a soap? @linne1gi

 

[linne1gi]

Since I started soaping I kept the ends in a container by the sink. I found that if I use a few at a time, standing at the sink, wasting water (hubby's observation) I can see the differences in recipes.

I always use a poof in the shower so all my soaps bubble, but I can tell by my winter leg dandruff, or lack thereof, which soap formula works best for me. I find that the soap I make with lard or tallow and less OO is more skin friendly to me. That is just my personal observation and each person is different.

Overall I can say that since I started using other's and my own artisan soaps my hands and body are less dry that they used to be.

I know! Before I started using real soap my skin was so dry, I was going through an entire bottle of lotion a week.

 

[linne1gi]

Store bought powdered sugar can contain corn starch. I wonder how corn starch affects a soap? @linne1gi

Yes, I know that powdered sugar contains anti-caking ingredients. I don’t exactly know why it works so well, but I’ve been using powdered sugar about 2 years now and granulated sugar for about 5 years before that. Powdered sugar dissolves effortlessly into water and slows trace. And now since I use the combination of powdered sugar, salt, silk and citric acid, I have noticed how much more bubbles there are. I’ve only been using this combo about 6 months. I’m really impressed.

 

[AliOop]

Some people use corn starch in their soaps on purpose. Most starches do contribute to both the amount and the "feel" of the lather, IME.

 

[linne1gi]

Some people use corn starch in their soaps on purpose. Most starches do contribute to both the amount and the "feel" of the lather, IME.

Sure, Not much difference between cornstarch and clay.

 

[Zing]

I agree and most medical personnel disagree (doctors) - they all seem to have an affinity for Dove. Really. And I remember that Dove gave me most of my skin problems - itchy, hivey (sp) skin that never felt good no matter what lotion I used.
Zing - have you tried sugar in your soaps? Because putting sugar, particularly powdered sugar is a complete game changed. Big bountiful bubbles and even if your coconut oil is low, you still get great big bubbles.

Several doctors told me to use Dove Sensitive which I used for years and years and it did nothing for me, and now when I occasionally use it, it feels caustic.
I will put sugar on my 2021 Soap Resolutions! Thanks for the tip. Always good to hear others' experiences.