Palm & lard-free recipe feedback pls

[jmarie315]

Hello all! This is my first post to the forums (although I've been stalking for quite some time) I'd like some feedback on changing this recipe to be less drying, while also preserving the hardness... here's the original recipe:

Castor Oil 6%
Coconut Oil 25%
Olive Oil 35%
Sunflower Oil 7.5% (high oleic)
Shea Butter 14%
Cocoa Butter 12.5%

Hardness 40
Cleansing 17
Conditioning 56
Bubbly 22
Creamy 29
Iodine 57
INS 151

my attempt to reduce the cleansing is giving me a hit on a few other things... thoughts on this and how I can change?

Castor Oil 7%
Coconut Oil 21%
Olive Oil 32%
Sunflower 6%
Shea Butter 8%
Cocoa Butter 14%
Avocado Oil 12% (the new addition)

the above gives me:

Hardness 37 *would prefer this 40+
Cleansing 14 *prefer this under 13
Conditioning 59
Bubbly 20
Creamy 29
Iodine 61
INS 144

edit to add - I have quite a few other oils and butters on hand I can substitute - kokum, sweet almond oil, hemp, hazelnut, peach kern., babassu, rice bran, mango butter...

 

[mx5inpenn]

To reduce the cleansing, reduce the CO. From what I have seen, most of us keep that at or below 20%. I use it st 15% in my standard recipe. That will lower the bubbly lather, but you can always add a little sugar to compensate.

 

[jmarie315]

To reduce the cleansing, reduce the CO. From what I have seen, most of us keep that at or below 20%. I use it st 15% in my standard recipe. That will lower the bubbly lather, but you can always add a little sugar to compensate.

I can definitely lower the CO but my hardness will drop too then and I worry about increasing my butters.

 

[shunt2011]

I wouldn't be overly concerned by the hardness number. I would drop the CO a bit (I don't mind a higher CO) and add some salt to your water and dissolve it before adding your lye. It will help with hardness as sugar will help with bubbles. Or leave your CO as is and up your SF a bit.

 

[TeresaT]

Since you have babassu oil, I would swap out the coconut oil for the babassu oil. I have found that, for me personally, even though the numbers on SoapCalc are very similar, babassu oil is not as drying (stripping) as coconut oil is to my skin. I can use babassu oil at a higher rate in soap than I can coconut oil. I still would not use it at 25% because I have Sjogren's Syndrome and horribly dry skin; however, I would be comfortable using 15 to 20% babassu and maybe hemp for the rest. I like hemp oil, although, I don't believe I've put the two together. (FYI: I just looked at my recipes; it's on my (long) list of "things to try.")

I put my changes into SoapCalc and came up with this:

Castor 5%
Babassu 20%
Olive 35%
Hemp 12.5 %
Shea 15%
Cocoa Butter 12.5

hardness 38%
cleansing 14%
conditioning 60%
bubbly 19%
creamy 29%
Iodine 71
INS 129

Lauric 10
Myristic 4
Palmitic 12
Stearic 13
Ricineoleic 5
Oleic 39
Linoleic 13
Linolenic 3

Apparently, getting rid of the coconut and sunflower oils completely and combining hemp and babassu will give you a hard and conditioning bar. You can bump up the bubbles by adding sugar and make it even harder by either using vinegar in place of some of the water or dissolving salt in the water before adding the NaOH. Personally, I LOVE using vinegar in my soaps. It really does a great job of making a hard batch of soap that is easy to unmold, even if using a high ratio of soft oils; I never lose the edges to the mold when I use vinegar. However, dissolving salt in the water is much simpler, though I don't think it is as nice a finished product.

BTW: Blame DeeAnna and Top of Murray Hill for the vinegar monster I have become!! DeeAnna said it could be done when I did not think it could and TOMH taught me the math (well, everybody, actually). Enablers. Both of them.

 

[Arimara]

Since you have babassu oil, I would swap out the coconut oil for the babassu oil. I have found that, for me personally, even though the numbers on SoapCalc are very similar, babassu oil is not as drying (stripping) as coconut oil is to my skin...

I've been saying the same thing about babassu. It's really amazing how an oil that has a higher cleansing factor than coconut oil is also more gentle for the skin.

 

[jmarie315]

I would'n be overly concerned by the hardness number. I would drop the CO a bit (I don't mind a higher CO) and add some salt to your water and dissolve it before adding your lye. It will help with hardness as sugar will help with bubbles. Or leave your CO as is and up your SF a bit.

I use sodium lactate in all my bars so although it helps with hardness to unmold and adds a little bubble boost - I didn't think it actually adds the "longevity" hardness that the soapcalc calculates out?

 

[jmarie315]

Since you have babassu oil, I would swap out the coconut oil for the babassu oil. I have found that, for me personally, even though the numbers on SoapCalc are very similar, babassu oil is not as drying (stripping) as coconut oil is to my skin. I can use babassu oil at a higher rate in soap than I can coconut oil. I still would not use it at 25% because I have Sjogren's Syndrome and horribly dry skin; however, I would be comfortable using 15 to 20% babassu and maybe hemp for the rest. I like hemp oil, although, I don't believe I've put the two together. (FYI: I just looked at my recipes; it's on my (long) list of "things to try.")

I put my changes into SoapCalc and came up with this:

Castor 5%
Babassu 20%
Olive 35%
Hemp 12.5 %
Shea 15%
Cocoa Butter 12.5

hardness 38%
cleansing 14%
conditioning 60%
bubbly 19%
creamy 29%
Iodine 71
INS 129

Lauric 10
Myristic 4
Palmitic 12
Stearic 13
Ricineoleic 5
Oleic 39
Linoleic 13
Linolenic 3

Apparently, getting rid of the coconut and sunflower oils completely and combining hemp and babassu will give you a hard and conditioning bar. You can bump up the bubbles by adding sugar and make it even harder by either using vinegar in place of some of the water or dissolving salt in the water before adding the NaOH. Personally, I LOVE using vinegar in my soaps. It really does a great job of making a hard batch of soap that is easy to unmold, even if using a high ratio of soft oils; I never lose the edges to the mold when I use vinegar. However, dissolving salt in the water is much simpler, though I don't think it is as nice a finished product.

BTW: Blame DeeAnna and Top of Murray Hill for the vinegar monster I have become!! DeeAnna said it could be done when I did not think it could and TOMH taught me the math (well, everybody, actually). Enablers. Both of them.

Do you get concerned about the higher Iodine value with that? Lower iodine typically means a harder bar - higher means softer... which is probably why the INS is a bit low... I think I'm going to try swapping the coconut half and half with babassu and see what happens - I had read that it is less drying than coconut, which would be great for me!

 

[TeresaT]

Do you get concerned about the higher Iodine value with that? Lower iodine typically means a harder bar - higher means softer... which is probably why the INS is a bit low... I think I'm going to try swapping the coconut half and half with babassu and see what happens - I had read that it is less drying than coconut, which would be great for me!

Honestly? I ignore all of those numbers. I look at the cleansing number. I try to keep my cleansing number below 10. Everything else is just "whatever" as far as I'm concerned. I like a high conditioning number, but the important thing for me is that it is not stripping my skin of its natural oils. The highest cleansing number I've been able to tolerate in a formula I've come up with was about a 18 or so (I'm going from memory because I'm at work right now). When I play with the oils in SoapCalc, if my cleansing number is high, I don't even bother with it. I keep playing with the formula until the cleansing number is low. Soap is soap, even if the cleansing number is zero, it will get you clean.

I do look at the fatty acid components, but I always have to have my "translator" with me to figure out what each fatty acid brings to the party. I have found MY perfect soap. One that is great for MY skin and its issues. Since then, I've been changing one oil and comparing that to the original formula to see if there is any significant difference. So far, I haven't really noticed one because there is no significant difference in the fatty acid compositions of the soap. However, the change has always been to the "specialty" oil in the formula (switching out the shea butter for something else).

I'm going to start substituting the coconut with babassu and trying my experiments all over again with the babassu as one of the main components of my master recipe. I know it made a really nice soap with the coconut oil and wasn't too drying, which is odd since they're so similar it was really as if I doubled the coconut oil. Another oil I really liked was karajan. I substituted the karajan for the shea butter in a batch and really liked the feel of that. I may try to do more with that, as well.

And another post that probably helps not a single bit... Sorry. :sad:

 

[Arimara]

Honestly? I ignore all of those numbers. I look at the cleansing number. I try to keep my cleansing number below 10. Everything else is just "whatever" as far as I'm concerned. I like a high conditioning number, but the important thing for me is that it is not stripping my skin of its natural oils. The highest cleansing number I've been able to tolerate in a formula I've come up with was about a 18 or so (I'm going from memory because I'm at work right now). When I play with the oils in SoapCalc, if my cleansing number is high, I don't even bother with it. I keep playing with the formula until the cleansing number is low. Soap is soap, even if the cleansing number is zero, it will get you clean.

I do look at the fatty acid components, but I always have to have my "translator" with me to figure out what each fatty acid brings to the party. I have found MY perfect soap. One that is great for MY skin and its issues. Since then, I've been changing one oil and comparing that to the original formula to see if there is any significant difference. So far, I haven't really noticed one because there is no significant difference in the fatty acid compositions of the soap. However, the change has always been to the "specialty" oil in the formula (switching out the shea butter for something else).

I'm going to start substituting the coconut with babassu and trying my experiments all over again with the babassu as one of the main components of my master recipe. I know it made a really nice soap with the coconut oil and wasn't too drying, which is odd since they're so similar it was really as if I doubled the coconut oil. Another oil I really liked was karajan. I substituted the karajan for the shea butter in a batch and really liked the feel of that. I may try to do more with that, as well.

And another post that probably helps not a single bit... Sorry. :sad:

No, it helps more than you may realize.

Do you get concerned about the higher Iodine value with that? Lower iodine typically means a harder bar - higher means softer... which is probably why the INS is a bit low... I think I'm going to try swapping the coconut half and half with babassu and see what happens - I had read that it is less drying than coconut, which would be great for me!

I ignore the INS to a great degree. Be cause every oil has varying levels of fatty acids in them, it's almost impossible to completely rely on that until you've soaped enough to have an idea of how to really make your soap better. You'd likely benefit more by learning what the most prevalent of the fatty acids bring to the lye party and by learning about your soft, hard, and brittle oils with their suggested usage percentages. INS doesn't take oil properties into account when formulating recipes. If it did, it would show that 100% olive oil in a soap will yield and incredibly hard and long lasting soap.

 

[shunt2011]

And also remember that hard doesn't necessarily mean longer lasting. So, as we have stated don't hold a whole lot of hardcore truth in what the numbers are showing. You've been given some great information to work with and ponder. Welcome to all that is soap and formulating.

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome Jmarie! :wave:

Ditto what the others have said about not putting too much stock in the numbers. They are limited in scope and therefore aren't able to tell the whole story. They are not totally useless, though. I find that they work wonderfully when used as plumb lines to tweak previously-made/familiar formulas.

I ignore the INS to a great degree.

Me, too. I find that looking at the fatty acid profile gives me a better picture of things.


IrishLass

 

[penelopejane]

Yes I don't bother with the numbers any more.

Babassu oil is phenomenally expensive here so it's not an option.
If I were you I'd take out the coconut oil completely. I don't use Palm, lard or coconut and have a lovely creamy non drying soap that is hard.

I'd take out the coconut and use only one of the butters (I am stingy with the butter) add some to the olive and use avocado or almond oil for the rest. You will just have to try a few options because everyone's skin is different.

With high olive oil soaps you may have to cure for 8 weeks or more but you will end up with a hard, beautiful soap that only gets better with more and more time.

 

[jmarie315]

Not sure why I didn't get the email notifications for the replies until last night - sorry about seemingly disappearing! I made two test batches this weekend and am really happy with how one went so far I subbed the coconut oil for babassu completely. Can't wait to test it out in 4 weeks! I'll be sure to check back here also!