Question about this recipe

[Marion]

Hi all. I haven't made soap in quite a while(I'm still a bit of a newbie), and I am placing an order next week for supplies. (I can't wait, I haven't stopped thinking about it!)

I don't even remember what recipes I used to use......I had a really great, hard bubbly bar, but cannot for the life of me remember what combination of oils I used.

I've done a bit of research and found this

40% palm
35% olive oil
20% coconut oil
5% caster
with a 5% sf

which, when ran though soapcalc gives me this

Hardness 42
Cleansing 14
Conditioning 55
Bubbly 18
Creamy 32

I have a few questions. First off, how much is too much cleansing? Is 14 low? If so, what oil could I used to bring it up a bit? Or should I change my percentages around a bit? And also, how can I bring the bubbly up a bit? 18 seems pretty low to me....

 

[Finchen]

When you add more Coconut Oil the soap will be more cleansing and also more bubbly. I normally use 30% of Coconut Oil in my recipes.

 

[Marion]

Awesome, thanks. So I should just shuffle my numbers around a bit? And I know cleansing can also be drying, what is a good number for cleansing that isn't too drying?

 

[Finchen]

You could try the following recipe:

35% olive oil
30% palm oil
30% coconut oil
5% castor oil

Hardness 45
Cleansing 20
Conditioning 51
Bubbly 25
Creamy 29

If you increase the superfat to 7-10% (or even more) the soap shouldn't be drying. Or you could use coconut milk or yoghurt or even buttermilk. Just mix the lye with less water and add the coconut milk (or whatever you want) at trace. I think this would make the soap more creamy.

I havent tried this out yet (but will do soon with coconut milk). However please note that if you are going to use any kind of milk then the soap shouldn't gel. You will most likely know that already.

 

[Marion]

Thanks! Yes, I do know. I don't usually gel my soaps, anyway. Mostly because I'm too lazy to try to get a full gel, haha. So I just find it easier to stick it in the fridge.

I will try this recipe.

 

[Finchen]

Great, good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[busymakinsoap!]

Most people recommend keeping coconut oil below 25% in recipes. All soap cleanses so you dont need it to have it too high, I would have thought 14 was fine, I usually have mine around 17.
100% olive oil soap has 0 cleansing properties but still cleans

As for bubbles, castor oil is great for this and your spot on at having it at 5%.

I superfat at around 7-8% I wouldnt go much higher than that for a regular bar or you could run into problems such as DOS

 

[Marion]

Well when I plugged my recipe into soapcalc first, it had my bubbly at 18. Is that decent?