Recipe for a soap that can negate a water softener?

[SLC]

Hey all! I'm looking for a tried and true recipe that you know will cut through the sliminess of a water softener. I have a friend who has one and he says that whenever he takes a shower it takes forever to get the soap off and he always feels slimy afterwards. Anyone else ever heard of this? Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks

 

[DeeAnna]

This is a new one for me! I'd say the best solutions would be to stop using the water softener to treat the water .... or replumb the shower water supply to provide partly or all untreated water to the shower. Then soap scum can form to coat the person's skin and create that slightly sticky "squeaky clean" feeling.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Quite. The only thing I can think of is avoid any ingredients with citric acid and make the soap using very hard water. But most people want to avoid the very thing that your friend is looking for

 

[snappyllama]

Just speculation, but maybe try out one with very little OO and perhaps a bit more CO. This would lower the oleic which might be contributing to too slimey a feel in very soft water. Adding in some light exfoliation might also make him feel like he's getting off residual oils. Perhaps dropping the SF would also help with that.

Which recipe has he tried and rejected?

 

[hmlove1218]

^^ I was kind of wondering the same thing. Maybe a more cleansing soap with a lower SF to achieve a typical "clean" feeling.. but I really don't know if that would help or not.

 

[cmzaha]

I grew up with water softened by a water softener and never remember such a problem. Our softener was only plumbed through the hot water and we had it because of our Beauty Shop that was the back of the house. They did not recommend the cold water side due to the little amount of salt that would end up in the water. I really do not think the little amount would hurt a thing, but back over 40 yrs ago it was different. When I would visit my sis in Casa Grande, AZ it would take forever to rinse off from their natural extremely soft water, but my skin never felt slimy from the shower. It just made fantastic bubbles bubbles and more bubbles. I would try a nice tallow and lard soap, no olive or ricebran, with 20% coconut oil and a superfat below 5%. Soap does not have to be superfatted.

 

[Judiraz]

I have a water softener and before I used handmade soaps I would get the same feeling...like I couldn't rinse the soap from my body.

I really haven't felt that since I started using handmade soaps. I've used high CO & low CO soaps; lard soaps and some heavy with OO. None have left that slimy feel. Maybe it comes from the detergent in commercial soaps.

Has your friend tried any of your soap? If not, have them give any of your bars a try.

 

[Seawolfe]

Yeah on my ships the water is freakishly soft and it takes forever to rinse off the commercial soap they provide. But I take my soaps with me All of them rinse better, but salt rinses the best!!

 

[KristaY]

I wonder if it might have more to do with what he's used to feeling with synthetic detergents. People mosey along most of their life using a certain type of product and think all other products should feel the same because that's what they're used to. Maybe he just needs to adapt to the feeling of real soap as opposed to a syndet? I only throw that idea out there because that's what happened with my hubby. It took about a year for him to knock down the block wall in his mind and realize how much better his skin felt using my soap. :lolno:

 

[BrewerGeorge]

You're going to have trouble fixing this "problem" as it is completely one of perception. Your friend is accustomed to the feeling of the soap scum being the signal to stop rinsing. Fully softened water will not form scum, so he never gets his signal to stop. This is a very common problem of people transitioning to water softeners, but almost everyone soon comes to love it and detest the tacky feeling of left over soap scum when we're forced to shower in hard water. Did your friend just get softened water?

The reality is that softened water rinses MUCH better than hard water. Softener sales people have a demo wherein they have a customer wash a glass with soap in hard water and dry it, then the sales person will add a bit of softened water (only) to the glass and shake it to make lather. The soft water basically reactivates the left-over soap in the soap scum and lathers.

I have softened water at home, and while the advice to use more coconut oil and less olive is correct from the standpoint of making a less slimy rinse, it's counterproductive in the long run. The softened water will rinse SO well on its own that increasing coconut makes for horrendously drying soap.

 

[DeeAnna]

Here's some info that might be useful ... http://www.culliganmidmissouri.com/...-treated-water/why-is-soft-water-so-slippery/

 

[IrishLass]

Having lived without, and then with, and then again without a water softener, I must say that I agree with BrewerGeorge that the feeling your friend is feeling is most likely one of perception.

You should ask him to turn his faucet on and rub his hands together under the water (just his bare hands without having used soap or anything), and describe to you what it feels like. The reason why I suggest that he do that is because when we got a water softener for the very first time, I would love doing just that, because the plain soft water itself felt so slick and 'lotiony' on my hands, compared to the 'squidgy/squeeky' feeling I was used to with our hard water. It was a feeling that we had to adjust to, but since it felt so nice to me, it didn't take me long to make that adjustment (it took hubby a little longer).

Right now, we are living without a softener (I really miss it) and I am forced to add a chelator (EDTA) to my formulas to help cut down on that tacky/squidgy/squeeky feeling when rinsing off, which comes from the mineral scum that forms from using my soap in our hard water.

A good example that highlights all the above is one of my ex-in-laws. He's no longer a part of the family (ugly long story), but when he was still a part of the family he couldn't get enough of my soap. He absolutely loved it and was one of my biggest soap fans. At one point (while he was still a part of the family), he moved into a house that had a water softener (his previous house did not have one)............Anyway- when he used my soap in the new house with the softener, he asked me why I had changed my formula (I hadn't). He said it didn't quite feel the same and that it rinsed off differently than what he was used to, like he couldn't rinse it all off or something............... I had to explain to him that it wasn't my soap's fault- it was because he was not used to a softener........

I went over there a few times to watch the house while he went away on vacation, and I took some of my soap with me to see how my soap performed in their soft water (because we had actually been without a water-softener ever since before I started making soap), and it was awesome! The bubbles were amazing and there was no squidgy feeling when rinsing off- everything rinsed off nice and smooth with no residue. Yep my soap behaved differently, but to me the difference was a good thing!

All of that was before I started using EDTA in my formulas, btw. With the EDTA, my soap lathers better and things rinse off more smoothly. Although the results are not on par with the results I got from the softener, they're still not too shabby if I do say so myself.


IrishLass

 

[Seawolfe]

Interesting about the water softeners with the water feeling different on the skin. When Im on a ship and use a commercial soap, it feels like it takes FOREVER to rinse out, but it DOES rinse eventually - that slippery slimy feeling goes away with a lot of rinsing and agitation. But when I use my soaps on a ship that slippery slimy feeling rinses off faster. What am I experiencing? Maybe its not soft, but just distilled water with oddball minerals added back?

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Interesting about the water softeners with the water feeling different on the skin. When Im on a ship and use a commercial soap, it feels like it takes FOREVER to rinse out, but it DOES rinse eventually - that slippery slimy feeling goes away with a lot of rinsing and agitation. But when I use my soaps on a ship that slippery slimy feeling rinses off faster. What am I experiencing? Maybe its not soft, but just distilled water with oddball minerals added back?

I don't remember an odd feeling to the water on the CVN. Maybe they added something back after distillation?