Looking For Low or No OO Soap

[cmzaha]

Shunt is right about the superfat, I do not even superfat salt bars at 20%, which are 90% CO the way I make them

 

[SoapingChick]

Experiment to your heart's delight, so long as you use a proper lye calculator, you will get soap from whatever oils you use. Some may not be very good soaps, but they will be soap!

This is so true!

My 18-20% superfat is only in my very high CO soaps - I'm not suggesting you superfat at 18-20%, I am only sharing my own experience with it.
What I will suggest/encourage is that you do tons and tons of research of your own, take notes (yes, even note-taking of my researching) and then make up your own mind, with what you've gathered from all your research I will suggest that you make small test batches of ALL the things your heart desires. Start simple and see how it goes and from those gathered experiences you elaborate on your ideas I'll fetch my recipes and get back to you!

 

[earlene]

Grocery stores vary all over the world, even large chains can vary a lot in what is stocked on any given store's shelves. But if you are lucky you can find a lot of various oils, or you can request your grocer to stock something in particular. Sometimes they will; sometimes they won't. One chain in my town is not allowed to stock items not approved by corporate.

 

[SoapingChick]

The best for you to do is try it. Experimenting is a large part of the art of soapmaking. Some of us will tell you it will make a bad soap because we would not like it, others will say it is great, so you have to make it and make up your own mind.

Exactly, yes! I just love the endless possibilities. Soapmaking'll never get old!

So I've looked over my recipes and I've done
64% and 68% CO superfat 14%
62% 64% and 70% CO superfat 15%
69% 72% and 75% CO superfat 18%
and a real oddball with 62% CO and a whopping 18% superfat

so not as extreme as I recalled (them all having 18-20%SF) but goes to show all is possible

please keep in mind these have all just been 'tests' - meaning I've done a bunch of research, played around with soapcalc and then just tried it out! They weren't made with the purpose of testing SF specifically, they were testing all kinds of things - in the end it's all been great soap! Even the 62% CO w/18%SF is super, it dosn't have any olive and only 3% castor (I'm usually much closer to 10% and have just recently dropped olive to mostly be an accent/filler oil) so it is very different from other 62% CO soap I've made.

My best 'trick' for great soap is a good long cure!
Happy soaping everyone weeee I can't wait - thanks for the inspiration

 

[SoapingChick]

Also I agree with the others - with 25% CO I'd superfat at around 5%

Good luck and happy, happy soaping

 

[DianaMoon]

Many additives don't actually create lather, but boosts what is already there. Like castor - castor doesn't lather, but it "upgrades" the lather from the oils which do lather.

If your recipe would struggle to lather, additives may help some, but they can only work with what they have.

Thank you very much for this clarification.

I'm still waiting for my copy of Scientific Soapmaking by K. Dunn, which I assume has a lot of this stuff in it, so now I pick up this and that pearl of wisdom from more exp'd soapmakers.