"Water" discount with milk soap

[bhelen]

I have been experimenting with 100% castile soap using 100% milk. I would literally do anything to get rid of the sliminess of castile (I live in a country where olive oil is cheap and castile is seen as the holy grail, so as a potential seller I want to take advantage of these things but try to improve on the regular slimy HP castile everyone makes here).

The first one I tried was this one: http://curious-soapmaker.com/lavender-milk-100-olive-oil-soap.html but I added paprika at trace. That one is a 31.4 lye solution. It was a lovely hard bar and not slimy at all, but it was a bit drying on the skin and seemed to leave a sort of film on my hands. Do you think that was because of the salt or the milk discount? I made another similar one yesterday with no salt and no paprika, but obviously I'll have to wait a while to see how it has turned out.

When discounting liquid in a milk soap, is there a particular ratio you wouldn't go beyond in terms of potential cracking or volcanoes? Has anyone else had any success creating a true castile that isn't slimy and that has a fairly decent lather? Am I asking the impossible?

 

[bhelen]

By the way, since I wasn't very clear - I am making CP soap, not HP.

 

[Obsidian]

I think you are asking the impossible. Castile is slimy, adding milk isn't going to help. Some people find castile drying, I'm one of them I honestly don't see why so many people like it, its such a nasty slimy dry soap to me. I won't make it anymore, I can't even give it away.

Using 100% milk is ok, if you are worried about it overheating, put it in the fridge for a few hours.

 

[seven]

there is a thread here about the super lye castile. perhaps you want to have a look and see if playing with the superfat level and the amount of water will help.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

How old was the soap when you used it, OP? Castile (no need to say '100% Castile') needs a jolly long cure

 

[IrishLass]

If you ask me, you are hoping to achieve the impossible, but that's just me. I make my Castiles (100% OO) with a 40% lye solution, and even my bars that are over 7 years old still slime up as soon as they are exposed to water.

A fellow soaper with a chemistry background on another forum once explained to me what the Castile 'slime' was/is, and how to look for it if you're one of those, who, like me, once-upon-a-time had never seen slime in her Castiles before and claimed that they were never slimy (ha ha ha!). Here is an old post of mine where I talk about the fellow soaper's explanation and how I finally saw the ligh..... er, I mean slime in my Castiles:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=236545&postcount=3

For what it's worth, I still make Castiles in spite of the slime because I find them to be phenomenal with a nylon pouf. And although I've never made one with 100% milk as my liquid, if I ever did decide to do so, I would make it with a 33% lye solution (instead of my normal 40% lye solution).


IrishLass

 

[bhelen]

How old was the soap when you used it, OP? Castile (no need to say '100% Castile') needs a jolly long cure

The one I made before (with paprika and salt) was only cured about 6 weeks initially, as I said it is not slimy but it's drying. Would a longer cure change that? The new one I have only just demolded so it'll be a while before I can judge.

 

[bhelen]

there is a thread here about the super lye castile. perhaps you want to have a look and see if playing with the superfat level and the amount of water will help.

Wow, thanks! I found it and am working my way through it. Interesting

 

[seven]

Wow, thanks! I found it and am working my way through it. Interesting

your very welcome. i've tried making this super lye castile with -40% SF, and to be honest, i don't think it is suited for an everyday soap. it did make my skin a bit dry afterwards, but the slimy part was taken care of greatly.

if i ain't mistaken, this super lye castile was originally made to wash clothes. cmiiw.

perhaps you can play around with a less drastic SF, like a member did in that thread.

goodluck!

 

[LanaBanana]

Would you be able to use full fat coconut milk for the milk? It would contain some coconut fat that would saponify along with the olive oil. I'm not sure if this would be an acceptable approach but it may cut the slime factor.

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[The Efficacious Gentleman]

The one I made before (with paprika and salt) was only cured about 6 weeks initially, as I said it is not slimy but it's drying. Would a longer cure change that? The new one I have only just demolded so it'll be a while before I can judge.

A lot of people won't even use a Castile until a year has gone by. 6 months is good, but longer is certainly better.

6 weeks is nothing at all with a Castile

 

[bhelen]

Would you be able to use full fat coconut milk for the milk? It would contain some coconut fat that would saponify along with the olive oil. I'm not sure if this would be an acceptable approach but it may cut the slime factor.

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I haven't tried that yet but I will. It would increase the cost a little but since I am reducing liquid anyway it's pretty negligible.

 

[DeeAnna]

I'm one of the people who made the "super lye" castile, and I'm using this soap in the shower. Yes, my skin is fine -- in fact, I like the soap very much for bathing. I don't find it drying to the skin, but I don't have especially sensitive skin either. Like Irish Lass, I use it with a bath pouf. The bars lather beautifully and last forever.

As Irish Lass explains in the other thread she references, olive oil makes a soap high in oleic acid. An oleic soap has the property of being highly soluble in water. This property is similar to a coconut oil soap (high in myristic and lauric acids).

What is different is that oleic soap also has the curious property of absorbing water to form a firm dense gel (very much like gelatin or Jello) on the surface of the soap bar. As more and more water is added to the gel, it gradually dissolves into a liquid soap solution, especially with agitation from the hands, wash cloth, or bath pouf. That soapy liquid is what forms the lather. The gel stage is the most obvious when a bar sits in a puddle of water for a time, but it forms any time a castile bar is wetted.

All soaps tend to go through a gel stage as they dissolve from solid to liquid form, but most do not form a gel as dense and firm as oleic soaps. When you add a small % of another fat when making a high-olive "bastile" soap, the fatty acids from the secondary fat break up the structure of the finished soap and minimize or prevent this type of gel from forming.

What a bath pouf does is quickly break up the gel and agitate the dissolved soap with water so it quickly forms a lather. That eliminates that slimy stage that people love to hate.