Tallow based HP or CP with synthetic detergent added for foam/bubble/lathering effect.

[hannes.vn]

Hi, I've made a few CP and HP soap batches with 1.tallow, 2.tallow/castor/olive, 3.added sugar to both mixtures, but it failed to produce any satisfying bubble/foam effect similar to commercial soaps. My aim is to produce a soap suitable for use in a guesthouse or hotel setup. Typically there is no real opportunity to educate the guests so as to explain the lack of same and the benefits of the natural soap. We've got a very small setup as a guest house, and I would like to cater for ourselves and then expand this soaping exercise to supply other establishments.

Is there anything else anyone can suggest that we can add to the recipes to get the same effect as commercial soaps?

 

[earlene]

Adding Coconut Oil to your recipe will give you the bubbles & lather. What is your recipe (the proportions matter, of course)? I don't quite understand what you mean by 1. tallow, 2. tallow. You also mention a synthetic detergent in the title, but not in the post, so if that is included, please list it when you list the recipe for feedback.

 

[hannes.vn]

Hi Earlene, thanks for the reply.
1. Tallow means batch made 100% with tallow and lye mixture.
2 Tallow / castor / olive -
Hard fats weights in Grams
Tallow Beef 260
Coconut Oil 100
Oils
Olive Oil 70
Castor Oil 70

LYE Mixture
Water 175
Caustic soda / Lye 70,17

Added
Sugar 10
Fragrance oil 5
Vit E oil 2,5

Soaps came out beautiful, its just the foaming/lathering that persons not used to, or people conditioned to believe that foam = cleaning etc. seems to think the soap is cheap or inferior to the commercially detergent based (syndet?) soaps available. To educate guests that visits for short periods seems to be a daunting task. Even though they like the feel of their skin after use, they still query the foaminess thereof. This is where I'm thinking of adding some sort of synthetic detergent to create the foam they are looking for.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

For a guest house I would put my money into attractive packaging for ready made guest-size: soap, shampoo, conditioner, all the basics, etc. I would also get samples from a company that provides this service. I would want products that impress guests so that they take it home with them, even in the packaging which serves as a reminder of where it came from and becomes word-of-mouth advertising.

Off the top of my head, Essentials by Catalina in California serves the hospitality industry as well as online retail sales. They have samples for just about everything they make. That might be a good place to start a search.

The last thing I would do is tie myself and my SO into making soap for the guest house. I believe you would have enough work to do to if occupied 50 weeks a year. I assume you will be serving at least the breakfast meal? Which only adds to the work load.

Not trying to rain on your parade, not at all. Just something you might want to think about.

ETA: To respond to your query, have a look at the Basic Trinity of Oils starter formula for beginners. It is one of the nicest bars you are likely to experience. It reminds me of triple-milled French soaps with an elegant feel. Hard to beat, IMO.

Unless you have a good reason or source for tallow, I would use lard instead of palm for the recipe. Just my preference. It's readily available and possibly cheaper.

 

[Carly B]

Hi Earlene, thanks for the reply.
1. Tallow means batch made 100% with tallow and lye mixture.
2 Tallow / castor / olive -
Hard fats weights in Grams
Tallow Beef 260
Coconut Oil 100
Oils
Olive Oil 70
Castor Oil 70

LYE Mixture
Water 175
Caustic soda / Lye 70,17

Added
Sugar 10
Fragrance oil 5
Vit E oil 2,5

Soaps came out beautiful, its just the foaming/lathering that persons not used to, or people conditioned to believe that foam = cleaning etc. seems to think the soap is cheap or inferior to the commercially detergent based (syndet?) soaps available. To educate guests that visits for short periods seems to be a daunting task. Even though they like the feel of their skin after use, they still query the foaminess thereof. This is where I'm thinking of adding some sort of synthetic detergent to create the foam they are looking for.

How long do you cure them before you use them? My husband's favorite bar is a tallow blend, and after a good cure, they have the most luxurious lather I have even seen.

 

[hannes.vn]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
We're a very small guesthouse, doing a self catering setup. Typical guests are people in the area for work purposes and normally leaves early for work and have meals at their places of work. We only have two units, could possibly make it three at some stage.
We are on retirement, with my daughter running most of the management of the setup, and my wife incapable of assisting due to Alzheimer's.
This means that we do have spare time, and there are not many suppliers selling these soaps etc. at smaller quantities. There are also a number of other similar sized setups which would benefit from smaller required minimum orders to use in their establishments.
Lard is in short supply around here, palm oil only available in large minimum quantities, but we can get beef fat at a good price, and have already rendered our own tallow successfully.
Basically it is a way to extend our income stream with what we we have available and are able to do at this stage as it could be scaled up and down as the need arises. We are from South Africa, and not a lot of supplies are available, or if one can get it, the prices are very high.

How long do you cure them before you use them? My husband's favorite bar is a tallow blend, and after a good cure, they have the most luxurious lather I have even seen.

The first bars being tested by ourselves and a few samples handed to regular guests recently are now in week 4 of curing. It should need another two weeks to reach acceptable curing age, but I'm not sure that the "foaming" will improve that much, or will it?

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I'm not sure that the "foaming" will improve that much, or will it?

There's a saying around here... The longer the cure the better the bar.

 

[KiwiMoose]

So your second recipe looks like you already have 20% CO in it - which should be sufficient to provide some bubbles. Do you know what % your superfat is? If it is too high, that could be contributing to a lower lather. Maybe go for only 3%?
Are your guests mostly men? At the risk of generalising - men tend to prefer more bubbles than women, whereas women tend to appreciate the more 'moisturising' feel of a hand made soap. If you have more men you might want to try increasing your CO to 25% for the recipe.
Another bubbly alternative is to use aloe vera juice as your water content. I have it growing here (like a weed!) and i just peel, cut and juice it up. Apparently you can buy it in bottles at the supermarkets over there quite cheaply ( just check for dodgy additives) which might be an option for you.

 

[LynetteO]

@hannes.vn

There's a saying around here... The longer the cure the better the bar.

After catching saponification bug, I made different soaps, different oils & recorded testing notes at “cure” anywhere from week 4-8. All okay but nothing spectacular right off the bat, except for ZNSC (zany’s no slime Castile soap) but that’s all veggie so you may not interested.

However, I recently dug into my soap “museum” & sliver bar box to try OLD soaps (1yr+). Long story short, YES the soap gets BETTER with age.

 

[earlene]

I have never made or used 100% tallow soap, so cannot speak from experience on what to expect with said soap.

But I do know from experience that a longer cure always has improved any soap I have made or used.

Giving insufficiently cured soap to your guests was probably one of the issues. I would suggest you don't give your soap to guests until you have learned with your own experience and possibly use independent testers (friends, family who test your soap & give feedback) at what age the soap needs to be in order to provide the luxurious lather & bubbliness that you are seeking.

I know that we can be impatient and want our soap to be ready to use asap, but if you want happy customers, patience is really going to help you in the long run.

Also not all customers are going to want the same thing. I prefer a luxurious feeling lather. Some prefer loads of bubbles. So I'd opt for both if you can find it.

I suspect the second recipe probably has a nice luxurious feel and good bubbles after a good cure. (what is a good cure? - time will tell) I cannot say for sure, since I do not use tallow, but castor at 14% with 20% CO, seems like it should produce lots of bubbles & lather after a longer cure. I'd suggest trying it at 6 weeks, 8 weeks & still get feedback beyond 8 weeks; some soaps do better at 12 weeks and beyond, depending on the formula.

Your formula looks to be 4% SF, 28.6% Lye Concentration (2.5:1 Liquid:Lye ratio). The numbers that come up in soapmakingfriend.com indicate a good balance of fatty acids to produce a bubbly lather. I'd really just play the waiting game and not tweak anything until you've given this recipe sufficient time to identify the optimal cure time to come into it's own. If, however, you want to try another tweak to have a 3rd recipe to compare this one to, I'd follow KiwiMoose's advice to increase the bubbles. Some folks really do like loads of bubbles.

 

[AliOop]

I agree with Earlene. My high-tallow and high-lard soaps generally don’t lather well until they’ve cured for eight weeks. Ten or twelve weeks is even better. Edit: those soaps generally have 75% tallow or lard, 20% CO and 5% castor, plus sorbitol or sugar, and sometimes goat milk, too. They do lather well.

I do find it is important to use a chelator with high lard and high tallow soaps. This helps them lather better, reduces soap scum, and avoids DOS. To me, avoiding DOS is especially important when you are curing longer before you use them.

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree with most of what the others are suggesting -- proper curing, refining your recipe, etc. I suspect you may be wanting to add yet more ingredients to solve a problem that may be best solved by refining your soap recipe and gaining experience.

Also, have you investigated the laws concerning the sale and commercial use of handmade soap in your country or state/province? It wouldn't be wise to make soap and sell to others or use it in your own commercial establishment without knowing your country's regulations.

Your water quality might be affecting the lather. Lye-based soap does not lather well if the water is hard (high in calcium, magnesium, and other "hard water" minerals). The reaction of soap with hard water minerals also creates an unpleasant soap scum that feels odd on the skin and can even cause irritation.

Synthetic detergents do not react with hard water minerals, so they lather better in hard water. Adding a syndet to lye-based soap can improve the lather to some degree, but it doesn't prevent the reaction of lye-based soap with the hard water minerals.

If you do decide to add a synthetic detergent to your soap, you will then need to explore what kind of syndet to use and how much to include. I don't have any words of wisdom about that, although I know there are some threads here that discuss what others have done.

Handmade soap is not necessarily cheaper to make than purchasing commercial soap. Syndets are usually more expensive than lye-based soap, so including them in your soap will further increase the cost of production.

 

[Obsidian]

I have added powder slsa to soap before and it didn't work like I expected.
Not sure if I used too much or if it I should have used a different syndent but it didn't help lather at all and the bar smelled highly of chemicals.

 

[DeeAnna]

@Obsidian -- here's the thread with your contribution about SLSa and lye-based soap -- Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate in CP?

For what it's worth, here's another -- Hybrid bars

 

[Obsidian]

Thanks @DeeAnna I barely remember that batch, apparently it wasn't very good but its not surprising with crisco and oo.
I must have tossed it, I know I never used it or gave it away.

I made another batch in 2020 with my normal lard recipe. I used a lot more of the slsa which was a wrong move.
I'm still hopefull that adding the right syndent in the right proportions could really boost lather.

 

[Sharon Patterson]

Hi, I've made a few CP and HP soap batches with 1.tallow, 2.tallow/castor/olive, 3.added sugar to both mixtures, but it failed to produce any satisfying bubble/foam effect similar to commercial soaps. My aim is to produce a soap suitable for use in a guesthouse or hotel setup. Typically there is no real opportunity to educate the guests so as to explain the lack of same and the benefits of the natural soap. We've got a very small setup as a guest house, and I would like to cater for ourselves and then expand this soaping exercise to supply other establishments.

Is there anything else anyone can suggest that we can add to the recipes to get the same effect as commercial soaps?

Hi, I've made a few CP and HP soap batches with 1.tallow, 2.tallow/castor/olive, 3.added sugar to both mixtures, but it failed to produce any satisfying bubble/foam effect similar to commercial soaps. My aim is to produce a soap suitable for use in a guesthouse or hotel setup. Typically there is no real opportunity to educate the guests so as to explain the lack of same and the benefits of the natural soap. We've got a very small setup as a guest house, and I would like to cater for ourselves and then expand this soaping exercise to supply other establishments.

Is there anything else anyone can suggest that we can add to the recipes to get the same effect as commercial soaps?

I primarily do HP and use tallow, coconut oil and olive oil as my base. The soap is amazing with lots of luscious lather. I will sometimes superfat it with either shea butter, mango or kokum butter.

 

[BWt]

I agree with Earlene. My high-tallow and high-lard soaps generally don’t lather well until they’ve cured for eight weeks. Ten or twelve weeks is even better. Edit: those soaps generally have 75% tallow or lard, 20% CO and 5% castor, plus sorbitol or sugar, and sometimes goat milk, too. They do lather well.

I do find it is important to use a chelator with high lard and high tallow soaps. This helps them lather better, reduces soap scum, and avoids DOS. To me, avoiding DOS is especially important when you are curing longer before you use them.

Thank you for chelation recommendation. Beginning to learn high lard soaping and just received chelator. New to soaping and all discussions here are helpful!