High soy or shortening recipes

[CTAnton]

Kathy Miller's home page where many of us either were directed or found early in our soapmaking journey. Many times on this forum I hear people commenting on one or the other recipe.Last night I thought I'd check some recipe on her homepage and see what soapcalc made of it. It was the Mint Swirl with Avocado.All seemed OK until I got to the linoleic and linolenic levels which combined added up to 30. At least weekly in this forum I read to keep those combined levels to 15 and here's a recipe with twice that amount? No mention of adding ROE to the batch. Just curious as to what everyone thinks of recipes like this .... Many thanks!

 

[shunt2011]

I don't use soy at all as prone to DOS and GMO's. I haven't used shortening except palm shortening (when I first started) and that worked well. I try to keep my levels 15 or less. Not worth the risk or trouble.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

It all depends on your goals, I guess. I know somebody who uses a lot of canola and soy in her family's soaps because, in her words "we use it as fast as I make it." If, OTOH, you're focused on making something that will be shelf-stable for a year or two for commercial sales you have to be more selective.

 

[dixiedragon]

I personally don't care for soybean oil b/c I think just takes up space that could be used by a better oil. All it adds is a bit of conditioning - it doesn't add hardness or lather. And those folks who sell a 100% soybean oil bar for $4 each...oooh that steams me! But I think it's all about what works for the soaper. There are a LOT of factors involved. I would love to see a controlled study of DOS. My personal theory, backed by nothing but my own observations, is that gelling soap does a lot to prevent DOS. I also think that curing in a room with air circulation and that has climate control to help dehumidify does a lot as well. There are folks who regularly soap with a lot of soy and canola who rarely get DOS.

 

[Obsidian]

I won't use soy in my soap or buy from those who use it. Besides not making very nice soap, its too DOS prone. when I first started soaping, I did use crisco but the resulting soap was inferior. Now if I need to use shortening, I go with walmarts great value, its a combo of palm/tallow.

I don't use canola either, just too risky in my opinion. I do have one batch with 15% canola that is a few months old, so far so good but its the only batch I have left that contains it.

 

[CTAnton]

Dixie what started this is seeing all these soapmaking concerns at the various holiday venues selling soaps that are dirt cheap because of using the cheapest oils out there. In this neck of the woods 5 bucks is the threshold for a 4.5 ounce bar. Crisco and canola oils are often the first on their ingredients list...interestingly, Crisco is listed as soybean and cottonseed oil....

 

[BrewerGeorge]

I regularly use Walmart's tallow/palm shortening in large quantities. Comes with its own preservatives, too.

 

[galaxyMLP]

My first soap ever 3.5 years ago was a Crisco/soy soap and it was 100% DOS (that completely orange and stank rank) after only 3 months. Bleh. I stopped making any soap at all at that point and researched for 8 months before attempting soaping again! I wouldnt recomend any soy/canola/veggie crisco over 15%.

However, I do have some 70%* used canola oil soap that I made w/ lye excess by HP and after the cook, superfatted with a shelf stable butter. Its been 8 months and the soap has no DOS (ok, there's DOS on 2 but that was from being in the hot upstairs over the summer). I would never sell that soap but, I made it as a test to see if it would be good to give to shelters (that have a high soap use rate) and its a great way to use old oil.

*ETA: Just kidding, I just remembered it was 70% canola, 16% lard and 14% coconut with a 4% lye excess and 5% mango butter added (yes, I realize thats only a "1%" superfat)

 

[cmzaha]

Don't ask me why but I do not get Dos with Canola, which I do use at times. I happen to love the Canolive soaps and have never had dos even at the 2 yr mark. However, as we know from a test I ran I do run into dos problems with lard. Every soap I ever have that comes down with dos has lard in it and I superfat low. Now I am testing using extra BHT in high lard soaps to see what happens. I just do not think it is possible to narrow down dos to particular oils. I have a swap soap that one would expect it to never come down with dos and it has. It is palm, pko, coconut, oo, coco butter, who would expect it to come down with measles?.... To many factors seem to come into play with dos. I have used hydrogenated soy in soap and it seems to add some longevity to the soap, but I am not a soy person

 

[CTAnton]

Wow, I thought it was just me Carolyn. Several of my lard soaps from last February came down with DOS...

 

[amd]

The only time I have had DOS was the one time I was out of distilled water so I used tap. I am storing two different test recipes in several locations through my house to check for dos. One batch uses 20% canola oil (this batch was very difficult to remove ash) and the other uses 20% soy.

 

[CTAnton]

and....thanks for the hint...I'll do the same...did you gel your soaps? Some people feel that helps prevent DOS....

 

[amd]

I did gel but the soy batch didn't completely so it was an attempted gel. It was a chilly 60 degs in the house (too cheap to turn on the heat at the time) so I put it on a hot pad and hoped for the best. Now I CPOP because even at 67 its too cold in the house.