New Recipe Help
- Thread starter Cwils199
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You're recipe looks good to me. Coconut oil is a little high for me but that's just personal preference and you won't know yours until you make and try a batch.
I will say you will probably need that high of coconut oil if you want a big lather since butters like shea and cocoa tend to kill big bubbly lather.
I have a lard recipe I modified from here that me and mine love!
I will say you will probably need that high of coconut oil if you want a big lather since butters like shea and cocoa tend to kill big bubbly lather.
It doesn't. I use the snow cap lard and while it does smell a little when I melt it the soap doesn't smell at all. I have a friend sensitive to all scents (she has to get everything unscented) and she loves my unscented lard soap.
I have a lard recipe I modified from here that me and mine love!
Maple_Street_Bath
Well-Known Member
This is fairly close to my recipe, although I use lard. A few changes I would make:
Drop the castor oil % - 10% might give your soap a sticky feeling. My experience with my similar recipe is that anything more than 5% is overkill.
Drop the cocoa butter % - I played around a bit with my recipe and even with slower moving lard the cocoa butter caused some acceleration, so I only use enough to bring something to the party without making my soap an unworkable mess. Anything more than 10% didn't seem to be worth the acceleration hassle when comparing the different values in soap. You could plug the % you remove into the shea butter. Considering the cost of cocoa butter at the moment, this may be more cost effective as well.
For reference though, your experience may be different. I use a lower SF, and the addition of lard changes things. Different oil suppliers may also affect your experience. I think it's good if you try your recipe as written, properly cure the soap, and then decide if it meets your needs or if you should take the advice you're given. I learned a lot when I first started by trying things on my own (like debunking the "butter kills lather" advice, my experience has never shown that to be the case).
Drop the castor oil % - 10% might give your soap a sticky feeling. My experience with my similar recipe is that anything more than 5% is overkill.
Drop the cocoa butter % - I played around a bit with my recipe and even with slower moving lard the cocoa butter caused some acceleration, so I only use enough to bring something to the party without making my soap an unworkable mess. Anything more than 10% didn't seem to be worth the acceleration hassle when comparing the different values in soap. You could plug the % you remove into the shea butter. Considering the cost of cocoa butter at the moment, this may be more cost effective as well.
For reference though, your experience may be different. I use a lower SF, and the addition of lard changes things. Different oil suppliers may also affect your experience. I think it's good if you try your recipe as written, properly cure the soap, and then decide if it meets your needs or if you should take the advice you're given. I learned a lot when I first started by trying things on my own (like debunking the "butter kills lather" advice, my experience has never shown that to be the case).
I am one of those who can smell it in soap, but I've only had one customer who told me they could smell it. He could also smell the cocoa butter. I can also smell goat milk in soap. It's a gift I've learned to accept. I prefer to use lard as it creates a longer lasting bar.
I think it depends on the kind of lather you want. Butters lather but I've found the lather to be the dense creamy kind. My family prefers the big bubbles like what you get with dove bars. It been a trial making soap they think lathers enough.
Edit to add: here is a video that shows how some single oils soaps do for lather.
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40% rice bran is too much for my taste, in this recipe it shows 16% linoleic+linolenic content and despite people usually going for something around that number, I've had dossy batches even when I've limited it at 15 and going for something a little below. YMMV though, just keep that in mind for reference. Olive oil IMHO would fit the bill better at that %, if it's too expensive you can go for pomace or high oleic sunflower oil - JM2C.
Other than that - yeah, the castor may be a little too much, it and the butters are more on the expensive side where I live, so there's that to consider if you are worried about the expenses of the soap you make.
You can try the recipe the way it is, it may suit your needs and preferences. Will it make soap? Sure. Would you like it? Not necessarily, but you won't know unless you try and see what you want to change.
Oh, and I haven't noticed smell from soap with lard - but I've used it only once so far and the bars were scented, so maybe my experience isn't proof of that. I've heard that depends on where you got the lard from and how it was rendered, but overall it's cheap and good for soap, so you can try adding some in your recipe in case you don't want palm oil in it. Both make nice soap at 30-50%, but you can adjust that number lower or higher, according to your taste
Other than that - yeah, the castor may be a little too much, it and the butters are more on the expensive side where I live, so there's that to consider if you are worried about the expenses of the soap you make.
You can try the recipe the way it is, it may suit your needs and preferences. Will it make soap? Sure. Would you like it? Not necessarily, but you won't know unless you try and see what you want to change.
Oh, and I haven't noticed smell from soap with lard - but I've used it only once so far and the bars were scented, so maybe my experience isn't proof of that. I've heard that depends on where you got the lard from and how it was rendered, but overall it's cheap and good for soap, so you can try adding some in your recipe in case you don't want palm oil in it. Both make nice soap at 30-50%, but you can adjust that number lower or higher, according to your taste
