Thoughts on This Recipe?

[Lina]

I am new a coming up with recipes. What do you think?

Olive Oil
22
%
Palm Oil
25
%
Coconut Oil, 76 deg
18
%
Castor Oil
5
%
Almond Oil, sweet
10
%
Rice Bran Oil, refined
20
%

5% superfat 5% heavy cream
added silk, kaolin clay

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I'll ask the classic (but underrated) question -

What made you come up with this? Why these oils in these amounts? What is your goal? It will help people be more specific with their feedback - no point someone saying to use x instead of the rbo when the rbo is an oil that you really want to keep in there, or when the suggested change changes some characteristics that you are dead set on

 

[Lina]

Well the oils I have on hand right now are rice bran, olive, coconut, avocado, palm and sweet almond. I am trying to come up with something that is conditioning.

I find too much coconut oil drying. I find too much olive sticky. I hate too much palm. I thought perhaps a combination of olive and rice bran would be conditioning without the sticky feel?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I'm not familiar with RBO - is too much prone to DOS?

There are a lot of liquid oils so I will take a while to harden up and I would suggest a water discount.

 

[IrishLass]

To echo the good Gent, it really all depends on the type of qualities that you want your finished soap to exhibit.

For what it's worth, your recipe 'as is' looks to me like it will make a lovely, gentle bar with low bubbly/high creamy lather ratio.

If it were me, I would leave out the almond oil, though, and add that extra 10% to the olive oil (making sure to adjust the lye amount accordingly), as it is really not adding anything special to the overall fatty acid profile. The fatty acid profile remains the same whether the 10% almond oil is included or whether the 10% is added to the olive oil amount instead. Speaking only for myself, I feel that almond oil is better utilized in things like lotions or lip balms as opposed to soaps.


IrishLass

Edited to add: we were cross-posting and I didn't see your olive oil comment. In that case, you could split the difference between the olive and rice bran by using 27% olive and 25% rice bran. (making sure to adjust the lye). The fatty acid profile goes up 1 point on the linoleic to 15%, and the oleic goes down 1 point to 14%, which may suit your preferences better. I would use a 33% lye concentration for this batch (1 part lye to 2 parts water) so that things aren't too soft right off the bat.

 

[Lina]

Thank-you

 

[Susie]

If I were you with those oils on hand, I would make one batch with olive oil, then one with almond oil so that I could see which one I preferred. If you have no preference between the oils, you can then choose the cheapest option. I would also up the palm to about 45-55% to help harden that bar. But that is just me.

 

[lsg]

I use rice bran oil along with Vit E and have had no problem with DOS. Rice bran and olive oils are so close in quality, that I would choose one or the other and I would save the lighter oils for lotion.

 

[Lina]

thank-you.

I like lard at high percentages, but palm feels waxy and drying to me at high percentages.

 

[fuzz-juzz]

Your recipe looks like something I would come up with.
It will soap fine and make lovely soap. I would also suggest to maybe drop almond oil to less %.
I don't know how much experience you have with RBO but it adds lovely sheen to bars and I'm starting to thing it feels better than OO.
I've always used it at about 10-15% but seeing some lovely soap at local shops I think I might try higher %. Their label has RBO before OO meaning there's more of it than OO. They are so shiny and smooth.

 

[kumudini]

That's a fine recipe, I love SAO in soap, it gives a certain silky quality to lather. May be I will cut back to 5% though, and up the RBO by that much. Be prepared for a softer soap. I would definitely go for the higher lye concentration as IL mentioned, unless you are going to do some fancy work or use tricky FOs.