Not sudsy enough

[craftymom0263]

I had one of my friends, whose sister makes soap, to try a bar of mine. She said the smell was wonderful but there isn't enough bubbles. Any suggestions that will help me with this. I've been soaping for about 6 months.

 

[newbie]

Can you post your recipe? It will be much easier to give you some feedback and tips if we can see it.

 

[craftymom0263]

7oz of lye, 19 oz distilled water, 21 oz olive oil, 16 oz coconut oil, 14 oz palm oil is my recipe. I got it from the Soapmaker's companion. I also add colorant to some of my batches.

 

[Cherry Pit Soap Works]

Hi Craftymom,

What calculator are you using? Try soap calc. Castor oil is a major bubble booster. Don't use it in higher than 10%, I've found that 5-7% is best. Although conditioning, a high amount of olive will dampen bubbles. It's a low lathering oil. The coconut is good and so is the palm for big stabilized lather. I suggest lowering the olive content and substituting the lowered amount with castor oil.

Also, soapcalc will give you a bubble number. I personally like no lower than 25. Try to reach that, and tweek until you get that number or higher without sacrificing too much conditioning. Hope this helps!

 

[craftymom0263]

I have never used a calculator. I just use the recipe in the book. I honestly don't know how to use it.

 

[Cherry Pit Soap Works]

Okay, I would suggest trying it out! go to soapcalc.net. It's where I started and it has prompts to guide you through. I'll give you a recipe here that is similar to your own recipe and try to get the bubble number up. Then we will see if you like it and the results. I'll post it in just a few minutes. I'm Heidi by the way

 

[craftymom0263]

Thanks Heidi, my name is Kim. I enjoy soaping. I really appreciate the help.

 

[newbie]

I did a little tweak and the numbers anyhow, look a bit better for lather. I put in:

Olive oil 21 ounces
Palm oil 16 ounces
Coconut 14 ounces
Castor 5 ounces

A bit of castor will do a lot for lather as long as you don't add too high a percentage. Many people feel that 5% castor gives better bubbles than 8 or 10% even.

Other things that can increase lather are adding milks as part of your liquid (cream, goat milk, coconut milk), adding sugar (dissolved in water) at 1 tbs per pound of oils, adding honey (I'm not sure of the quantity), using beer as part or all of your liquids, adding sodium citrate at 3%, egg yolk.

Keeping your superfat at about 5% may help as well, although your recipe has a high percentage of coconut, which some feel is drying and requires a little higher superfat to balance. You could try decreasing the coconut to about 20% and increasing the palm a bit to keep the lather factor up.

Do you have any other oils/butters that you use or would consider using? I'm waiting out a cure time to see if this is true myself, but the trifecta of coconut/palm kernel oil/castor is supposed to guarantee bubbles.

 

[newbie]

Oh yes, you definitely have to learn how to use a soap calculator. It's a good way to play with recipes and get a feel for what different oils and combos will do for a soap but it's not the end-all-be-all. It's a good basis but doesn't tell you everything that the actual soap will be.

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

THere is a "Getting started" link in the upper left corner of the page I put up.

 

[Cherry Pit Soap Works]

Okay, this batch is at 51 oz oil. With water and lye solution, that's roughly a 5 pound batch.

Water- 17.85 distilled water (this is at 33% which is not full water, but I've found it to be a good percentage)
Lye- 7.34 (5% superfat, which is standard)

Olive Oil- 17.85 ounces
Coconut Oil- 15.81 ounces
Palm Oil- 13.77 ounces
Castor Oil- 3.57 ounces (This is at 7% and I subtracted from the olive oil)

Now here is the range's from Soapcalc.net. You can see the ideal range and where this recipe stands. The bubble number is improved, it went from 23 to 27. Hope this helps you! If you have questions, let me know

Soap Bar QualityRangeYour RecipeHardness29 - 54 44Cleansing12 - 22 21Conditioning44 - 69 52Bubbly14 - 46 27Creamy16 - 48 29Iodine41 - 70 53INS136 - 165 163

 

[craftymom0263]

Thank you very much for the help. Can I get the other oils from the grocery store?

 

[newbie]

With a new recipe, I would make a smaller batch than a 5 pounder. If you don't like it, that's a lot of soap!

I would start by making a 2 pound batch, approximately. My silicone mold holds 40 ounces total, so I use a recipe that uses about 28 ounces of water, which with full water, fills the mold. You can even make a batch of 16 ounces of oils and that will make you 4-5 bars, which is a good testing size.

You can get lard, crisco, various soft oils at a store. You can find castor at pharmacies but they'll charge an arm and a leg for a little bottle (relatively speaking). Shea and cocoa butter and other oils are a bit more speciality and they may need to be ordered.

 

[craftymom0263]

I think I will try a recipe using the soap calculator this weekend. I will also try the recipe that is posted. Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

 

[newbie]

Play with soap calc a bit. It's fun to see what smallish differences do for the numbers. Just don't get too wrapped up in getting "perfect" numbers. There are no perfect numbers. There is only soap that you like for this quality or that. Have fun!