i want bubbles

[laurad75]

hi all,

I want to make a children's soap that is a volcano of bubbles. would making a soap that is 85% coconut oil and 15% castor oil with a 10% super-fatting allowance give me what I'm looking for?
thanks for the help
laura

 

[Todd Ziegler]

What you're proposing will give you a very hard, skin drying soap and with that much castor oil, potentially a slimy soap. You don't have to go to those extremes to get a bubbly soap.

Here's one of my recipes. It gives me lots of bubbles and in a soap bag it bubbles even more. You don't have to follow my recipe to the letter. You can change things around to suit your needs but it is a start and I am sure others will have a helping opinion too.

 

[shunt2011]

I wouldn’t use that on kids. Too cleansing. Plus, castor only helps stabilize the lather it doesn’t add lather. Too much cam make it sticky. It’s also going to be extremely soluble.

 

[AlexanderMakesSoap]

+1 on too much castor. I recently made a 90% coconut oil and 10% Shea with 15% SF that turned out quite nicely. I'm sure this would be too drying for some, but we all enjoy it in my house, including the 3 kids (but then, they pretty much like any soap I make).

It is a quite lathery, somewhat bubbly soap, but don't expect it to last too long!

For my next iteration of this, I'm going to try 85% CO 10% Shea and 5% castor along with a 10% SF. Keep in mind that higher SF will make the soap less drying, but also less bubbly.

 

[IrishLass]

Your formula will make a very bubbly soap with or without the castor, but +2 on there being too much castor for that type of formula (will make it extra soluble and shorter-lasting). However, if your formula had 85% tallow or lard in it instead, that much castor would be fine. I make a 65% tallow soap with 23% castor and it's a beautiful thing because of how much saturated fat is in it.

I use a higher superfat when working with high coconut oil soaps: 20% superfat with my 100% coconut oil soap, and 15% superfat with my 70% coconut oil/30% mango butter soap. Both are super bubbly and work fine for me and my family's skin-type, but when working with high coconut oil soaps, it's always best to make a small sample batch and test it out to see if it's compatible with the skins of those who will be using it, because high coconut soap is a very cleansing thing and can be very irritating to those with more sensitive skin-types.


IrishLass

 

[earlene]

A couple or so years ago, there was a fella here who made 100% hemp oil soap that his kids loved for the bubbles. I tried it and it does bubble prolifically. It also wears away super fast, but if you keep it around too long it will go rancid, so you'd have to make it in small batches to be used before it can develop DOS. But if you are planning to sell, then I wouldn't do a high percentage hemp oil soap. Only for home use where you can actually control how long it sits around the house. If you can't source an affordable hemp oil (it is rather expensive here), then I suggest a much milder recipe keeping the cleansing number much lower.

For kids, I would avoid a high cleansing number because it's so harsh on their tender skin, as it is on my own. Instead, I'd use additives to boost bubbles, like sugar and also egg yolks, because the egg yolks not only enhance bubbles, they can counteract some of the more harsh aspects of a cleansing oil such as CO or PKO or babbasu. That is based on my own personal experience.

Another factor for soap for kids if you wish to enhance their bathing enjoyment might be to make it more attractive to them with interesting molds (car shapes, for example) or felting the soap with fancy designs that your kids would enjoy. Felted soaps act as a method of increasing lather and bubbles via friction as they are being used.