Is Coconut Milk Saponifiable?

[Garden Gives Me Joy]

Trying to find oily additives that contribute to a soap's conditioning qualities. I thought about coconut milk.

However, since the milk contains the very oil that saponifies to increase the cleansing effect, is coconut milk a bad idea after all ... or are there ways of managing this issue (like increasing NaOH disount &/ superfat rate, reducing other cleansing base oils, etc?).

BTW, outside of avocado and peanut oil or peanut butter, I welcome additional additive ideas for extra conditioning.

ps. Can not find powdered coconut milk in my town, ONLY the tinned version. Happy to hear if the tinned stuff is problematic or ok!

 

[lenarenee]

The fats in coconut oil do saponify. Powdered or tinned coconut milk is a common additive in soap, I use it often.

I add either form to my oils, and blend before adding lye.

Keep in mind, you'll need to adjust the superfat level of your recipe, unless making a 100 percent coconut oil soap (which calls for a very high superfat).

 

[KiwiMoose]

I use the canned milk ( I buy the one with no additives). I reduce my superfat to 3% AND I increase my lye concentration to account for the additional water in the milk. I use the 'split' method - eg if my water is 320g usually, and I'm using 160g coconut milk ( I actually buy the cream), I reduce my water to 220g for mixing the lye into and then add the cream straight into the melted oils. I'm not near my recipe at present - but it always works out perfectly, and I have to trust myself that when I initially worked out the recipe that there was some jolly good maths calculations in there that I can no longer remember.

 

[lenarenee]

I use the canned milk ( I buy the one with no additives). I reduce my superfat to 3% AND I increase my lye concentration to account for the additional water in the milk. I use the 'split' method - eg if my water is 320g usually, and I'm using 160g coconut milk ( I actually buy the cream), I reduce my water to 220g for mixing the lye into and then add the cream straight into the melted oils. I'm not near my recipe at present - but it always works out perfectly, and I have to trust myself that when I initially worked out the recipe that there was some jolly good maths calculations in there that I can no longer remember.

Whew! Thanks for adding that. I had trouble posting my response and never noticed that that a paragraph was missing.