I’m new to soap making and welcome suggestion please for suitable ingredient combinations and recipes for dry mature skin that's prone to eczema. Olive oil tends to be irritating and I do not like hard soaps or lots of lather. My favourite purchased CP soap list of ingredients are RBO, sunflower, vegetable (possibly palm), soya bean, coconut and castor oils. This soap is moisterising, soft but suits my dry skin. I’ve been trying to find similar recipes with little luck and am also afraid of high risk of DOS with these combinations. It also seems like many of the more conditioning ingredients for mature skin are costly and/or not long lasting, making it difficult for a newbie like myself to experiment with. I will try ROE but it is costly here and I’ve read it doesn’t always help with DOS. I’m happy to use butters but currently want to keep clear of lard and tallow.
Help newbie with mature dry skin
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artemis
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Have you played around with a lye calculator yet? I like soapee.com and soapmakingfriend.com
You can play around with percentages of your preferred oils, or you can go through the recipes that others have shared. Soapmaking Friend even has an advanced search to make that a little easier.
You can play around with percentages of your preferred oils, or you can go through the recipes that others have shared. Soapmaking Friend even has an advanced search to make that a little easier.
If you're not opposed to using animal fat, lard makes an amazing soap that along with RBO, Sunflower (HO), CO and Castor would be a great bar to try. Unfortunately everyone's skin is different and what works for you may not work for someone else. If you don't want to use lard I would go to Palm, keep your CO at 15% or less. Soap isn't moisturizing but can certainly be less cleansing and not strip the skin. I would do 40% Lard, 15% CO, the rest RBO or Sunflower and 5% Castor Oil with a 5-6% Superfat. There are several posts on the forum with this subject.
I will do that, but I thought i'd ask for some suggestions on here before playing around with the calculator
Yes, your right re moisturising. I've been thinking about lard but I wanted to try some other combinations first. If I used palm instead, would you still recommend 40%
My favorite is 40/27% tallow/lard 15% Coconut Oil, PKO, or CO PKO split, 5% castor, 13% liquid oil you prefer. I prefer HO Sunflower or Canola. When I make my vegan recipe I use 40% palm with 3% castor
Belindasuds
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I love using Rice Bran Oil, Avocado Oil, Sunflower Oil, Macadamia Nut Oil, Sweet Almond Oil and Canola Oil are all good options and find combining multiple of these liquid oils (3+) makes for a nice balance. Shea Butter is awesome, along with Cocoa Butter and Mango Butter. I soap palm-free but I have soap friends who swear by Palm Oil. If you want to avoid DOS keep the LINOLEIC ACID below 15%. You can keep an eye on this when you run your recipe through your chosen calculator.
Try some shea butter in your recipe at 10- 15%. And for added longevity I use hydrogenated soy bean oil ( soy wax) at 20% in my recipe. Look for GW415 as it has no additives: Soy Wax, Candle Supplies It's cheap and nice on your hands. Coconut tends to be drying so keep it low as @shunt2011 suggests. I also use RBO at 20% because it's a nice oil and it's also cheap. Avocado oil is nice but expensive - that's why I use other cheaper ingredients to offset the price. I only use it at 5% though. Can you tolerate any Olive at all? If so - keep it low at no more than 20% of your recipe. Otherwise may high oleic sunflower? I'm not a palm user - I understand it is produces a lovely lather but it gets a bad rap here in NZ so I steer clear of it.
artemis
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After reading some of the other replies, I think this part of the question got lost in the shuffle:
I don't think it's a matter of it being hard but lasting longer and not dissolving to mush. For lather keep it at 15% or lower. Otherwise good advice given.
Sorry is that the CO for lather? I've been leaning toward 10-15% CO oil, no more in my recipe
Yes, Coconut Oil.
After weighing up cost and availability of ingredients I've been toying around on the calculator with RBO, Canola, OO, shea butter, soy wax, 5% castor and possibly lard (which I really prefer not to use but its cheap here (and a few people have recommended it). I was just wondering what you use for cleansing with the ingredients you mentioned above considering you soap palm-free? I prefer not to use PKO or CO but am thinking of adding around 10% CO to add some cleansing.
All soap will cleanse. You really need PKO, Babassu or CO to add some bubbles, if you want a little bubbly or lather. I would add in CO at 10-12%. If you do not care about bubbles or lather you can leave it out. Think 100% Castille which used to be 100% OO soap. In the US any 100% vegetable oil soap can be called Castille. Lard really is lovely as a palm replacement. If you have Eczema be sure you are not allergic to Shea Butter especially if you go with a higher-end superfat. I for one cannot tolerate much shea and absolutely cannot use a lip balm containing shea. Many butters have latex properties.
I will mention I do not recommend 100% Avocado oil. It will not bubble, nor will it produce a creamy lather, although if used with a bath pouf it would lather a tiny bit and does feel luscious on the skin. If used as a hand soap it will just roll around on the hands and I found my hands never felt clean per se, but they dried nice and soft. I found at the 1-year cure it started showing signs of DOS.
That's sounding good - just check in the calculator that you don't have more than 15 for the linoleic and linolenic combined as that might contribute to DOS. Yes, as @cmzaha has said - try Babassu if you want something other than CO or PKO. I've used it before but it got too expensive. I think give the 10% CO oil a go, and if it's too bubbly then cut it back incrementally.
The brand you are using that you mentioned in your OP has coconut in it, so I don't think you'll have a problem with it - and they are probably using more than 10%, although that's hard to know. Is that brand a commercial brand, or homemade? My SIL had sworn off bar soap altogether due to ageing, dry hands with eczema and then she discovered my soap and LOVES it! I use 20% CO in mine.
You may not need lard and soy wax in the same recipe - your stearic will be pretty high, but if depends, of course, how much of each you use.
I found this quite helpful when formulating recipes in my early days: What Fatty Acid Profiles in Soapmaking Are the Most Popular?
The linoleic and linolenic combined comes out 15-16 max and if I use lard it was going to be experimenting minus the soy wax. I'm learning towards your suggestions KiwiMoose but am a little concerned of the hardness of wax and CO combined given the soap I mentioned is quite soft. Canola is much cheaper for me than OO, though I'm aware shelf life is not as long and Soy wax is considerably cheaper than CO, so I'm looking at about 20% soy and 10% CO. I haven't used soap in years. Instead I've used Dermaveen shower and bath oil and Aveeno body wash. The soap I mentioned feels quite oily to me so I don't feel I need so much of these products, if any. It is CP soap and the link where I purchased it on ebay is HANDMADE NATURAL SOAP ~ Dragons Incense ~ 100GRAMS ~ | eBay
I have attached a picture and as you can see its quite bubbly, sometimes feels a bit slimy but that doesn't bother me.
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Thank you, I was wondering about Avocado oil but it's expensive and I couldn't see the benefit at the low percent I'd be using it at. After your comments, I'll leave it out. I will keep in mind re the shea, I know I loved in face cream that I use to make but I've read it reacts differently when used in soap.
penelopejane
Well-Known Member
How much soap are you intending to make? You can buy some oils (avocado, shea, coconut, castor oil) cheaply from New Directions. Where are you in Australia? Olive oil and Rice Bran Oil is still cheaper at the supermarket.
When you say Olive oil in soap tends to be irritating did you make the soap yourself or did you buy it? Was it Dr Bronner's?
In Australia there is a lot of resistance to the use of Lard in soap.
The vast majority of handmade soaps in Australia have Palm Oil.
I started making soap because I don't want to use soap with palm oil as an ingredient. I also don't want to use soy wax in soap but that is just personal preference.
Do your own research and work out what you want in your soap, what your family wants and, if you ever intend to sell, what your market wants.
I'm in WA where there's little variety and little competition for supermarkets so nothing comes cheaply, no New Directions here, we just have Coles, Woolworths and the smaller Aldi and Foodland and they all sell the same products at similar prices. At the moment I'm just wanting to make something for myself.
New Directions ships to you. It's a supply company. Also, you stated using soy in place of coconut just realize soy will not give you any later. It will make a harder bar. Coconut, PKO and Babassu are oils that create lather. If you don't care about it then you can make it without any of them. Try adding a 1-2 tsp of sugar to your water and dissolve it before adding your lye.
