Lemon Poppy Seed Gardener's Soap - Recipe Critique

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Alright, enough of you have posted great sounding Gardener's Soap recipes that I thought I'd hop on the bandwagon and give it a try. This will be marketed as a highly exfoliating and tough cleansing soap - not my normal sensitive skin friendly soap.

Thoughts on the beta recipe before I make a test batch?

A couple of notes:
  • As usual, I am not using lard or palm oil.
  • I'm using ground lemon peel, not ground orange peel
  • Poppyseeds are mostly for looks
  • Other possible additives:
    • Ground Oatmeal (included in print out)
    • Shredded Loofah
    • Diatomaceous Earth
 

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I was hoping someone who uses Soap Making Friend, Soy Wax, citric acid, and sugar would respond. I don't. So here goes...

Reformulate to 500 gram oils -- plenty for a test batch. That way there's less waste if you are disappointed with results.

I'm thinking it's too hard as written with 30% coconut, 20% soy wax, and salt and may crumble when cut. Aim closer to an INS Value of 160 -- so-called "perfect soap".

5% Castor is recommended. More than that may make the bar "sticky". Add the extra 5% to the olive oil.
  • I'm using ground lemon peel, not ground orange peel
  • Poppyseeds are mostly for looks
  • Other possible additives:
    • Ground Oatmeal (included in print out)
    • Shredded Loofah
    • Diatomaceous Earth
Ground lemon peel = NICE! Divide the batch in half. Add the exfoliating lemon peel to the first half and pour. This makes the top of the bar. Then add the second half. You then have one side for scrubbing. Make sense?

Use Rate: 1 tsp-1Tbls PPO. You can use volume measure here. Not all exfoliants weigh the same. It's by trial & error to find the right amount.

Forget the others. You can make more trial batches to test each one individually but I don't see anything there that rings my chimes. 😆
Actually I like fine pumice the best.
I am not using lard or palm oil.
Rather than subbing soy wax for lard I would use shea butter. Less hardness and more conditioning. Side-by-Side comparison:

Soy wax on the left; Lard on the right.
1653677971209.png


Lard on the left; Shea Butter on the right.

1653681110668.png


With 30% coconut oil the bar should be hard enough without the soy wax. I also would eliminate the salt. Again, you don't need it. You want the bar to be sufficiently hard, but also conditioning to some degree, (Thinking of my cuticles.)
I look forward to reading what others have to say... :nodding:
 

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Alright, enough of you have posted great sounding Gardener's Soap recipes that I thought I'd hop on the bandwagon and give it a try. This will be marketed as a highly exfoliating and tough cleansing soap - not my normal sensitive skin friendly soap.

Thoughts on the beta recipe before I make a test batch?

A couple of notes:
  • As usual, I am not using lard or palm oil.
  • I'm using ground lemon peel, not ground orange peel
  • Poppyseeds are mostly for looks
  • Other possible additives:
    • Ground Oatmeal (included in print out)
    • Shredded Loofah
    • Diatomaceous Earth
I love making gardener soap and I wish I could give you more feedback but am unfamiliar with several of your ingredients. My 2 cents is to keep castor at 5%. I love poppy seeds and use them with shredded loofah and coffee grounds. And I did not even know that adding Diatomaceous Earth was even a thing! I have a super large bag I use in the garden. Keep us posted after the cure how you like it.
 
To be honest, I just use my Regular Recipe with Powdered Pumice. My BIL is a gearhead and he like it. The pumice gives it extra 'cleaning' power, yet doesn't strip the skin.
 
Is your soy wax fully hydrogenated? If it’s actually GW415 or similar it will have a bit less stearic and palmitic than fully hydrogenated wax and the resulting soap will have a bit more superfat than calculated.

Diatomaceous earth is silica based. As far as I can recall, silica reacts with NaOH to form sodium silicate. I have no idea what sodium silicate would be like in soap, but now I’m curious! ETA: then it occurred to me that the answer might be here on the forum, and of course it is…

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/silica-in-cp-soap.85096/#post-908907
eta: based on this post, it sounds like the reaction is temperature dependent:

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...odium-silcate-whats-the-use.68802/post-682317
 
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