Lanolin Wool Wash Bar Soap

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
^^Ha! I love me some sheep! Some day I'm gonna own a few and just pet them to soften my hands. If I can walk around smelling like a dog all day, why not a sheep?

Deedles: great idea, I've gotta try that! It's sock season, ya know.

Saponista, pick up some knitting needles and yarn. You'll have another (expensive) addiction.
 
Yes, exactly! My purls are looser, too, but there's 2 ways I fix that. One is I tug the working yarn to make them tighter. The other that I like the best is to double the yarn on the sole. I carry it up the side on each row. This takes care of the looser stitches plus makes a very cushy sole.

Coming in very late on this thread because I was searching for something and now you have me thinking ..

How on earth are you only doubling the yarn on the soles if you're in the round? Are you talking entire sole or just the heel?

My head is trying to understand because all I can see is the extra yarn ending at the topside and then knitting my way around to the sole again but now that double yarn is on the far side of the sole?? ..

Dying to know because I'm loving this idea.

ETA: to keep this soap related. A friend was washing fleeces and saved all the water and then filtered the dirt out. It's super full of lanolin and I want to make soap with it. I have no way of knowing how much lanolin is in the water but it's cloudy. Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
I can't speak about a lanolin-based soap for wool, but here's a lanolin-based soap for bathing. It was discussed in a video by the Nature's Garden lady. The video is on YouTube and the title is "Lanolin Soaps With Natures Garden". Not sure if it's helpful to you, but that's all I have to offer at the moment.

The recipe:

Water - 12 oz or 335gr
Lye - 4.50 oz or 128gr
------------------------------
Olive Oil - 14.5 oz or 411 grams
Coconut Oil - 9.5 oz or 269 grams
Avocado Oil - 5 oz or 142 grams
Castor Oil - 2 oz or 57 grams
Lanolin - 1 oz or 43 grams

-----------------------------
2 tablespoons sour cream
Add AFTER TRACE


Is is 1 oz (28 gm) or 43 grams (1.5 oz) for the lanolin? Everything else seems to be a conversion between imperial and metric, but this is kind of a range of weights using both systems.
 
Good question, Teresa -- I hadn't caught that! The incorrect measurements are straight from the video. The rest of the recipe has nice, neat imperial units and wonky metric units, so I'm thinking the original recipe was written in imperial. If so the amount is correctly 1 oz or 28.4 grams, or just a skosh over 3% pow (percent of oil weight) :) which seems reasonable for lanolin in a body bar.
 
Hmm, coming in VERY late on this, has anyone made a koh paste soap and superfatted with lanolin to make a wool wash, and used it? I make bar "wash" with lanolin, and without (for other natural fibres) and work the bar through the water before submerging my item. I would love to try a liquid, or even paste variety.
 
A friend of mine who is heavily into knitting and crochet has asked me to make her a bar with lanolin to hand wash her woollens with. I don't own many woolen items myself so I'm not really sure how to proceed.

There is a post on the sage that uses 25% lanolin so I thought I would start with that recipe and see how it works.

I was wondering if anyone else makes wool wash for themselves and if they have any hints or tips they could offer please?

hi there! I’ve read that thread again and again in the past few weeks for pointers as I myself try to find a recipe to go off of to create my own wool detergent, leave in liquid syndet.
I was wondering if you ever found a recipe for this and woudn’t mind sharing? im new to all of it and looking for directions 🥰
 
I found a few recipes that I think could work, but might need some guidance from you guys here:

A beard shampoo : I like that there is Jojoba oil in this one and wonder if I could add lanolin in phase A to add more emollient, in which case I'm not sure what to remove to add say 10% lanolin

A mild baby shampoo: I like this one because it seems simple, and I often heard that mild baby shampoo was what to use to wash woollen. Once again though, I'd like to add lanolin Emollient and unsure where to do so

A no-rinse shampoo: This one would have that no-rinse quality that I was after, however I would want to replace the amodimethycone by something else, can I swap this for the lanolin and more concentrated version?

I'm really at a loss of where to start/go from there. I've analysed ingredients and understand the principle, but because there isn't many recipes for wool detergent out there I don't know which recipe would be the closest to what I want to make and how to tweak/make changes. I kind of want to have a model recipe figured out before investing in the products and doing trials so as not to buy too many ingredients I might not use in the end.
Any advice welcome
 
I'm really at a loss of where to start/go from there. I've analysed ingredients and understand the principle, but because there isn't many recipes for wool detergent out there I don't know which recipe would be the closest to what I want to make and how to tweak/make changes. I kind of want to have a model recipe figured out before investing in the products and doing trials so as not to buy too many ingredients I might not use in the end.
I hear ya! See my reply in the other thread here.
The recipes from Making Cosmetics are all syndets, not soap. I don't make syndets but a few SMF members do. Your best bet is to ask Making Cosmetics for help if that's the direction you want to go. ;)
 
Back
Top