Ways to make a soap milder

[engblom]

I only know about two ways of making a soap milder, without swapping the oils for milder ones, both having their problem: super-fatting and adding salt.
Super-fatting has the problem with leaving a grease film on the hand, which some do not like at all. This might be annoying when making a bar soap, but if you make your soap into a liquid soap it would be even a bigger problem.

Salting is surely making your soap more mild, but you have a huge risk of separation when pouring the soap into the mold. Once salt is added the lye solution wants to go down to the bottom and the soap and oils wants to float up. Salt soaps with a lot of salt works only because it is getting really fast hard. If you go over to liquid soap, salt would be a real failure.

Both ways will kill the lather.

What more ways are there for making a soap mild (except for swapping the oils for milder ones)?

 

[Ruthie]

I'm not sure if this goes without saying, but a good long cure helps a lot.

 

[Miha Engblom]

I'm not sure if this goes without saying, but a good long cure helps a lot.

Assuming the soap has fully gelled, how much has the curing time effect? Obviously, the soap gets harder the longer it dries and you get less product on your hands. Besides this, what more happens after the soap has gelled?

 

[pamielynn]

Soap gets milder with age. There's theory and scientific studies and all - but the feel is all I need to convince ME. I know Dee Anna will come in and be able to tell you why.

 

[Ruthie]

What pamielynn said. It is not something I am able to put numbers on myself, but I can FEEL it.

 

[soap_rat]

I superfat at 8% and I don't feel a film--but perhaps others do (if anyone from the soap swap wants to chime in, I do not mind critique! gently though please )

I also make liquid soap with a superfat and don't feel like I have a film left on me so much as a moisturized feeling. But I assume you have made soap with different superfats or bought them and not liked the feeling on your skin?

This is the first I have heard of salt making a soap milder, and I thought that salt could cause the glycerin to separate out? (I believe when soap was made in big backyard pots, salting was sometimes done to harden the KOH soap, with the glycerin lost)

 

[Tienne]

My mildest and gentlest soap has banana and colloidal oats in it. I don't know what it is with bananas, but they just seem to add a certain "je ne c'est quoi" to soap IMO. The sugar in the banana gives it a lovely lather too.

 

[judymoody]

I superfat at 8-10% and my soap has plenty of lather and it does not leave an oily film on my skin or in my shower.

Aside from cure time, which others have mentioned, you could cut back on coconut oil (or PKO or babassu, roughly similar chemically). This will depress your bubbles but you could try to compensate by adding sugar, honey, beer, or milk.

 

[Ancel]

I didn't know salt made soap milder either, how does it do that? What's the chemistry of a mild soap, I mean what makes soap mild? Sorry, more questions than answers. It seems the opinions on this forum regards the mildest soap have been a long cure Castile. Or maybe a lard, but that doesn't answer your question