I need help with soy wax (even after a lot of reading)

No I actually want to try just 20% the first time. Then the next recipe do 30 %. To see the difference in the two amounts. I’m sure I need to keep everything else in the recipe the same. So the one I posted is for 20%.

 

@Jackie Tobey

Just saw your post, so I will have a closer look at the recipe with 20%.

This is how I would do the calculation for a recipe with 1000 grams of oil that is 30% GW 415:

1. Use oleic acid at 30% of recipe as a placeholder (proxy) for a recipe with GW 415 at 30%.
2. Record the weight needed of the GW 415 placeholder for the batch size. As an example, 300 g if the total oils = 1000 g
3. Now add palmitic and stearic acids to the list of fats in the recipe.
4. Adjust the weights for the components of GW 415 as follows:
10% palmitic: 0.1 x 300 g = 30 g (where 0.1 is fraction of palmitic acid in the GW 415 = 10%/100%)
34% stearic: 0.34 x 300 g = 102 g (where 0.34 is fraction of stearic acid in the GW 415 = 34%/100%)
55% oleic: 0.55 x 300 g = 165 g (it was 300 g as a placeholder; (where 0.55 is fraction of oleic acid in the GW 415 = 55%/100%)

 

@Jackie Tobey -

Your recipe and the calculations look fine to me. It just so happens to work out that the little bit of palm with the higher SAP is balanced by about 3x as much stearic with a lower SAP to produce an effective SAP of .1438 for those two FAs in combination (7 g of stearic + 2 g of palmitic). This is very close to the SAP of oleic acid (.144) which is why oleic acid by itself can be used to estimate how much lye you need for the recipe. The only reason to add the other FAs is to estimate the FA profile of the recipe. Also, please do keep in mind that the SAP and FA profiles for GW 415 are my best estimates based on the information I have.

Maybe the example calculation above will help with the 30% calculation. If not, I’m not sure what you mean by “key” in this sentence from your post:
Then when I plugged them I. With a 30% of GW 415 the key started to increase. Am I looking at this correctly?

I can’t help at all with the KOH conversion, but did notice that the KOH and NaOH SAPs are given in the info for each oil in the SMF calculator. If I am remembering correctly, there is a formula to use to convert between KOH and NaOH SAPs.

If what I’ve written isn’t clear, just let me know and I will try again .

 

I made a one pound batch of soap with 20% GW 415 last Wednesday. The exact recipe is listed above except I did use 90/10 NaOH/KOH. I did use the one where the GW415 is divided into the palmitic, stearic, oleic amounts for the lye calculator. (Was this wrong? Should I have only used the GW 415 as Oleic Acid in the calculator?) Soaped 120/125 lye/oils. Used French green clay for colorant and essential oils of patchouli, lavender, bergamot. I did SB to a light trace and quite a bit as I was in a hurry to get ready for work. It took 2-3 minutes to come to a trace. I gelled on a heating pad. It rested for 48 hours and was then cut. The soap turned out very smooth and the essential oils were divine. On Monday the EO blend is still very strong. I did try washing my hands with a small amount when I cut and beveled the soap and got only creamy lather. No real bubbles. But it was still very fresh. I have saved that small amount to try again in a few weeks. I will add the picture of the soap below. And of course keep you posted on how it lathers in 4-6 weeks.

 

beautiful!

 

Have you ever thought of using a pure soy wax? (not hydrogenated).
https://allseasonswaxcompany.com.au/pure-soy-s100
I am sure they are available in the US.

 

It is hydrogenated: “The way we've achieved a workable wax with just soy compound is by hydrogenating soya oil to create wax.” As far as I am aware, the only ways to get a “wax” from soy is by hydrogenation or a process called transesterification, which causes the FAs to rearrange on the triacylglycerols (triglycerides).

 

Beautiful soap! You would get the same soap using either approach if you summed the weights associated with the percentages of the three acids and used that total weight as soy wax (wt olieic + wt palmitic + wt stearic = wt soy wax).

I don’t think my soaps with that much stearic and palm make much in the way of bubbles when they’re fresh, but I will pay more attention to that as I move ahead. I recently learned that soaps high in linoleic + linolenic (11 - 15 range) produce a more bubbly soap. When I first tried a cured soap made with hemp oil, it was very bubbly and now I’m getting a lot of bubbles with fresh soap made with RBO, which I just recently started using. Based on some older posts I found on the forum, the polyunsaturated fats make more bubbles. But, the suggestions are always to keep them below 15 or so to reduce the risk of DOS. I’m trying them now in the 11-15 range, but have also started adding citric acid as a safety precaution.

Did you zap test the soap at any point?

 

I looked these guys up - I can buy this from the same company I get the GW415 from, and for the same price. Good to know if i ever need a back-stop. My only concern is that they say their pouring temp is 45-55 degrees, but 415 is 32-38. Even though I know that's for candles, I can't help but think the lower temps are better for making soap, unless I want to start soaping hotter.

 

You are right! Sorry for the confusion. But at least it is pure soy wax.

Yes that might be important.

 

No. I didn’t zap test it. Do t usually do so unless it looks lye heavy or has white spots to make sure it isn’t lye.

Would like to know how the bubbles on your soaps with higher levels of palmitic and stearic bubble. To compare to. I am of course looking for that sweet spot. Lots of creamy bubbles and not too drying. He seems the higher stearic and palmitic. Any other suggestions you have to achieve this are much appreciated. Oh and I do usually put sugar in all my recipes to help with bubbles.

 

Can you give give me a link to those posts? I'd like to review them.

 

I think there is quite a bit of contradictory info on the polyunsaturated fats and bubbles. As single oil soaps some of them seem to be very bubbly and some less so. It may be that the effect is recipe dependent when a PUFA is used with other FAs. I noticed bubbles especially in a soap with hemp oil (ending up with about 12% linoleic) and now my GW 415soaps with RBO, which is fairly high in linoleic (soap has 15%) are also making big bubbles. Here are some links I saved:

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...tters-and-single-oil-soaps.54604/#post-520907
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/more-bubbles-please.74849/#post-766416
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/linoleic-acid.72017/#post-790617
https://www.passion-savon.fr/en/content/19-ingredients-of-our-natural-handmade-soap (Read the sunflower oil section)

 

So I have a question related to this post but involving the KOH SAP for GW415. The reason I am asking is I have been following Songwind's Shave Soap thread that is 64 pages long and have started making shave soap with stearic acid and tallow etc. See SilverFoxs Recipe as well. On about page 63 I am reading that members have starting using GW514 instead of stearic acid with the assumption that it has a very high stearic acid profile. But reading your posts this is not so. So a little guidance please. If I wanted to try subbing in some of the GW415 for the stearic acid would I need to use the oleic, palmitic, stearic %'s above like I did for my soap. Do we even know what the KOH SAP is for GW415 as I am using KOH/NaOH 60/40, 70/30, 80/20 for different recipes as I experiment. And I am thinking that most of the members experimenting with shave soaps using soy wax have not read this post. I would clue them in but do not feel I understand enough about it to make sense to anyone. Where as you have done all the research and will be able to provide this information to them in a better format. Thanks again for your help!!

 

@Jackie Tobey - I believe you can calculate a KOH sap from the NaOH sap and vice versa, but I haven’t done it. I bet the formula can be found on the Soapy Stuff website.

We have two pieces of hard evidence that GW415 is not super high in stearic acid. First, the higher the iodine value, the higher the percentage of unsaturated fatty acids in a bulk fat or purified fatty acid. The iodine value for stearic acid, a saturated fat, is 2 and the SMF calculator gives the iodine value of soybean (wax) as 1. This indicates that both have virtually no unsaturated fats. However, the iodine value for GW 415 from the manufacturer (in the Certificates of Analysis sheets posted on the Candle Science website, which I linked above), is approximately 50 (I averaged over many batches), which is close to lard (57), tallow (45), and palm (53). Second, we also know from the manufacturer that GW 415 contains 44% saturated fats, whereas the SMF calculator give 98% saturated fats for soybean (wax) and then 24% saturated if 27.5% hydrogenated soybean oil is selected. Thus, neither of those options matches the manufacturer’s information for GW 415. Using the wax option gives you an over-estimate of the saturated fats, while using the 27.5% hydrogenated option give an underestimate of the saturated fats.

One of these days I’m going reach out to Akosoy to ask them if they would be willing to check/confirm what I’ve done. Until then, the NaOH SAP and FA profiles are my best estimates and others can use them if they feel comfortable with how I got there.