Deanna, I have a question...

[Obsidian]

DeeAnna, I always understood that it was the oleic acid that makes slimy soap but if thats so, why does my 100% HO safflower soap not slime at all? It has such different lather the castile, still sparse but really different feeling.

 

[DeeAnna]

I really don't think so, Penelope. Soap makers for at least 100 years have noted this issue --

"..Olive oil and olive oil foots are used most extensively in the manufacture of castile soaps. The peculiarity of an olive oil soap is that it makes a very slimy lather, and ... gives the soap a characteristic odor...." E.G. Thomssen. Soap Making Manual. 1922.

Another issue to consider is the common practice of olive oil adulteration. It's entirely possible that a not-slimy castile isn't slimy because it isn't really an olive oil soap. A recent "60 Minutes" television show on food adulteration reported about 50% of all olive oil sold in Italy is adulterated and about 75% in the US is adulterated.

An officer in the Italian food quality enforcement arm of the government showed how very easy it is to add a bit of chlorophyll extract to a flavorless oil such as sunflower to make an "olive oil" that only an expert taster can tell is apart from real olive.

A soap made from regular sunflower oil wouldn't be slimy, because it contains mostly linoleic acid, not oleic. "Fake olive oil" could also affect how this particular recipe behaves (or not!) for people.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...why does my 100% HO safflower soap not slime at all?..."

I wish I knew that answer, Obsidian. All I can offer is this --

I created a "faux olive oil" from a blend of 70% HO safflower and 30% lard to make my second "superlye" batch. According to the fatty acid profile in soapcalc, this blend more closely simulates the fatty acid profile of olive oil compared with plain HO safflower. I get the usual castile gel/slime from this blend, just as if it were the real olive in my first batch.

Safflower is lower in palmitic acid compared to olive (at least using soapcalc's fatty acid profile).

Maybe that's the difference. But I truly don't know -- I'm just guessing here.

 

[Obsidian]

That explanation sounds good to me lol. I actually don't mind the slime and I really like the silky/slice lather castile makes with a bath poof. Unfortunately, castile also dries my skin out quite a lot so I was hoping the saff would be a good replacement but its just lacking something. I'm going to try a batch of your saff/lard and see how that feels.

For anyone who is curious, the HO safflower did make a really nice soap, very gentle and easy on the skin. I could see it being very useful for someone who need extra gentle soap but for some reason can't use castile.

 

[DeeAnna]

Obsidian -- You have me wondering now about how HO sunflower would function if used 100% as an olive oil alternative vs. the HO safflower you tried.

Sunflower has about the same % of palmitic and stearic as safflower (which is to say, not much!) It is much lower in linoleic and much higher in oleic than safflower, at least according to the soapcalc profile. It's as if someone started with HO safflower, took almost all of the linoleic out, and added it back in as oleic ... and got HO sunflower instead.

Hmmmmm.... Would HO sunflower make a typical castile type soap or would it be more "normal"? Looks like a small experiment is on my horizon. I'm getting used to making mini-batches with all the challenge soaps I've been doing lately!

 

[Obsidian]

Keep us updated if you do a sunflower experiment, I can't even find regular sunflower here let alone HO.

 

[DeeAnna]

I saw a couple of brands of HO sunflower oil in Walmart recently. I think that's a new product for them, so you might keep an eye out if you get to a Walmart. Look on the top shelf of the oils in the baking aisle.

That said, I normally buy mine from my locally-owned "whole foods" store when I get to the big city to shop. I can buy locally produced sunflower there (Wisconsin).

 

[penelopejane]

DeeAnna, I always understood that it was the oleic acid that makes slimy soap but if thats so, why does my 100% HO safflower soap not slime at all? It has such different lather the castile, still sparse but really different feeling.

I can get the slime on young Castille but when it's 1 year plus it goes away. I can also get it much worse on a couple of soft batches of "failed" Ginny's shampoo recipe that I use as soap. So difficult to experiment when it takes a year to get test samples.

I use Australian OO let's hope we aren't involved in the adulteration scandal.

There are so many variables in making soap it amazes me we (I) can consistently get a good bar at all even using the same recipe and then the weird need to tweak a recipe raises its ugly head to further cloud the issue! . I often add Manuka honey to my Castille (probably making it not able to be called Castille) and that will effect the result too.

 

[DeeAnna]

I used some of my Wisconsin grown HO sunflower to make a small batch of soap tonight. Water, sunflower, lye, EDTA, fragrance, and colorant. It is also a batch for the January challenge, so it's got activated carbon and titanium dioxide in it. Behaved very nicely while soaping at room temperature (upper 60s F) and 35% lye concentration. We'll see how it goes from here.....

 

[jules92207]

I'm very curious how the ho sunflower works out. I've always really liked my soaps that I've used a percentage of it in, notably different than other recipes actually. I've come to the conclusion it's been the pleasant difference in many of my recipes now so I can't wait to hear your results DeeAnna.

 

[newbie]

What differences do you notice, Jules?

 

[Earthen_Step]

This was an epic read, thanks for all your inputs people!

 

[DeeAnna]

I expect the 100% HO sunflower soap to be low-lathering like a castile. Whether it makes castile slime or not is what I'm really curious about.

I have used HO safflower in my soaps as an alternative to olive, and I would certainly consider using HO sunflower the same way. I really like recipes with lard, coconut oil, and castor (sometimes with a dab of tallow), so my inclination to use sunflower or safflower is fairly low right now.

But who knows -- I might get back into them again with time. That's what's fun about soaping -- there are so many good recipes with a wide variety of fats.

 

[jules92207]

What differences do you notice, Jules?

Keep in mind I am not of the scientific breed here so I can't speak to the reasoning behind it, but I find my recipes with sunflower oil to have a silkiness to the lather. I often do 10-15% of either sunflower, almond, rice bran, or avocado and I find I like the sunflower the best. It feels luxurious but also leaves me feeling very clean. I realize there are probably a dozen other factors going on in my recipes that could be influencing my results but I can't help but feel sunflower seems to be a common theme to a good bar for my skin.

 

[Saponomancer]

huh, its only been three days, but my soap isn't zapping, otherwise it seems exactly to spec, hard and white, with the little end slivers being brittle.

 

[Soapmaker145]

I've read bits of this thread on and off, not being able to wrap my head around it. I'm not doubting the impressions posted but I don't buy the explanation that CO2 is what is neutralizing the excess lye. A recent experience with using fatty acids instead of regular oils suggested to me an alternative explanation.

I think the oils in our regular cp soaps are not completely broken down into fatty acid salts. I suspect there is a significant amount of mono and diglycerides left unreacted because of too little water and too little lye to drive the reaction. The excess lye in this recipe is neutralized by driving the saponification reaction to near completion. The resulting soap should in principle be more water soluble. I think this recipe duplicates the original Aleppo soap better than any other I've seen.

I'm particularly interested in applying the same principle to liquid soap to make it friendlier to washing machines and drainage pipes. I'm finally going to do some testing. I suspect I'll end up with 2 recipes for liquid soap, IL's modified glycerin soap for hand washing and a recipe made with excess lye and water for cleaning (to be neutralized with citric acid at dilution). Maybe Fowler was on to something using excess lye in the ls process after all.

If somebody else mentioned this explanation, my apologies. I've never read the entire thread in a single viewing.

 

[Alison9712]

So.... what is the point of adding the quart of water to the olive oil? Why not mix the lye into the quart of water, and then add the lye-water to the OO? Or is it just a matter of logistics and what is easier to handle? Just seems to me that getting the lye fully incorporated into all the water, and then incorporating it into the OO would be the way to go. The lye water would be slightly less caustic. Or maybe it doesn't matter.
Sorry if this question has been addressed previously. I've read a lot of this thread, but not 100%.

 

[Susie]

So.... what is the point of adding the quart of water to the olive oil? Why not mix the lye into the quart of water, and then add the lye-water to the OO? Or is it just a matter of logistics and what is easier to handle? Just seems to me that getting the lye fully incorporated into all the water, and then incorporating it into the OO would be the way to go. The lye water would be slightly less caustic. Or maybe it doesn't matter.
Sorry if this question has been addressed previously. I've read a lot of this thread, but not 100%.

If you could "quote" whatever post you are referring to, then some of us won't have to read the other 600+ posts to figure out how to answer you. TIA!

 

[Steve85569]

So.... what is the point of adding the quart of water to the olive oil? Why not mix the lye into the quart of water, and then add the lye-water to the OO? Or is it just a matter of logistics and what is easier to handle? Just seems to me that getting the lye fully incorporated into all the water, and then incorporating it into the OO would be the way to go. The lye water would be slightly less caustic. Or maybe it doesn't matter.
Sorry if this question has been addressed previously. I've read a lot of this thread, but not 100%.

This thread started out with a recipe that is 1 quart olive oil, 1 quart water and enough lye dissolved in more water to be added to the solution.

The purpose of the water is to help carry the excess lye out to be turned into soda ash during the cure process.

What I just did:
I cut the recipe in half and kept the lye discount at MINUS 43% to stay true to the original recipe. I made an emulsion of the pomace oil and water ( 4.8% sodium acetate) and when I made up the lye water I used aloe vera juice and 2 % ppo of sodium citrate.

I slowly - a little at a time - added the lye solution to the emulsion being careful to not lose the emulsion. No problem. I'll just hit this with my trusty mini SB and get trace. I sweated out a pair of glove after 10 or 15 minutes and went for the big stick blender. My thought was to incorporate as much air as possible since it plays a part in the reaction ( read back through some of the Deanna science for the reasoning) so I was not being careful to not allow air in. SB got warm so I set the mini on high and sucked air in til the second pair of gloves got too swampy. Traded into the third set of gloves ( 30 minutes in) and turned on the computer. I was going to check in and see just how long trace should take. Looked back at the emulsion.
RICING!
Not just ricing but Sugar Bear RICING! Grabbed up the big stick and beat it into submission. Now it's a nice, thick and creamy trace! Into the mold it goes!

From reading a portion of this thread over the last couple of days I know better than to CPOP this so it's on the table being watched. It *looks like* it is going to stay and not phase out on me like has happened to some that warmed this recipe.

All liquids (not oil) were refridgerated until used. The lye water was hot (140 F) when added to the emulsion. The batter never got over 103 F during SB work and is now down to 95 F

I did not attempt to put a scent into this but I did add just a bit of green mica so if I try it with EVO instead of pomace I'll be able to see the difference. This is going to be watched for a bit just to see if it does phase or if the idea that inducing air helps keep this soap from separating into the water and oil phases after thickening.

I know it didn't happen without pictures so I'll post before and after pics of the cut.

Steve

 

[Steve85569]

Molded, released and cut.