# conditioning soap



## terr (Jun 30, 2015)

hi any advice on a good recipe for high lather conditioning soap (cold process)
as one of my friends wants a nice soap for dry skin

any help would be great 

thanks8)


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## galaxyMLP (Jun 30, 2015)

High lather is relative. You are asking one of the number one soap dilemas. High lather oils like coconut, are naturally higher cleansing. This is due to the high lauric and myristiric acids. There was a thread about this not that long ago I think. 

Most people are going to tell you to get big frothy bubbles, you need either coconut, bababsu, or palm kernal oil. These are all higher in the "cleansing" fatty acids.

To get stable later, choose castor oil, this oil does not contribute to the cleasing quality of a soap. 

Lard, palm and tallow have a creamy lather that also is low in cleansing.


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## shunt2011 (Jun 30, 2015)

I agree with galaxy.  Your friend may find that any handmade soap is better than a store purchased soap.  I prefer thick creamy lather myself. So, recipes are pretty subjective.   You could try making a high lard/tallow/palm, OO, castor recipe.


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## mintle (Jun 30, 2015)

terr, my basic well lathering recipe would be:
20% coconut (if I use more, it is not that conditioning) 
35% hard oils/butters such as lard and/or palm oil 
38% soft oils such as olive oil or 28%olive oil with 10% high oleic sunflower 
7% castor 

And then I'd use sugar - 5% calculated on the basis of oil weight, for example for a 500g oils in total I'd add  25g of sugar. I add powdered sugar to my water and dissolve it well before adding lye. 
I am not sure how familiar you are with the cp so I will just add that you need to run the recipe through soapcalc.net or any other calculator to calculate the amount of lye needed (and sorry if this sounds so obvious ). 

After curing, this one lathers very well. If I use lard (or the majority of hard butters is lard), I have the feeling that the longer cure, the better the soap gets in terms of bubbles.


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## IrishLass (Jun 30, 2015)

Yep- it's as Galaxy and Shari said. Although you don't realize it now, you are asking for what equates to being something like the Holy Grail of soapdom......... i.e., that special recipe that each individual soap-maker is on a personal quest to find that will satisfy their needs. lol

The problem is that since each of us has our individual skin-types as well as our personal perceptions as to what we individually consider to be good conditioning and wonderful lather (not to mention the water-type that's piped into our homes that we wash with), it is virtually impossible to recommend a recipe off the bat that's 100% guaranteed to satisfy your friend's needs. In other words, what works for one may feel like horrible soap to someone else.

Your best bet is to make a general recipe like what Mintle posted, and then tweak it according to your friend's feedback. There are also many other basic/general recipes posted on the forum in the recipe section and also in the CP section.


IrishLass


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Jun 30, 2015)

And having used a Mintle soap, I can assure you it is more than a step in the right direction for a lovely lather and feel


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## kumudini (Jun 30, 2015)

I see that you posted your basic recipe a while ago, did you make it and try it? How did you feel about it? I'm asking this as that was a pretty basic recipe if you take out shea and add castor. Depending on how you or your friend liked that we could make some changes to it or you could try mintle's recipe. That looks very good to me. If you have to have shea in there, I would go down on the palm/lard by that much. Sugar, milk or sodium lactate and apparently aloe juice help with lather.


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## terr (Jul 1, 2015)

Hi thanks for this I will try mintles recipe, as for my basic recipe , yes I have done this and I have actually moved to the basic lard recipe as once cured it is hard enough and it lathers well, however my friend advised that although she liked this she found that it was slightly drying for her skin which is why I was looking for another recipe .  I did try the basic 30% recipe but didint come out well , I found that it didnt come out hard enough (palm oil, coconut oil and caster oil) also have had some issues with fo loosing smell, and when cured soap doesnt smell nice at all anyone have any idea how i can avoid this in the future?:idea:


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## kumudini (Jul 1, 2015)

If your recipe was drying, A. You could let it cure longer and see. B.try decreasing the coconut oil, which is what you get with mintle's recipe. And about the FO fading out, try to find the advised usage rate for that FO on seller's website. They are generally in the range of 0.5-1.0 ounce ppo, which is much higher than what you are used to using in melt and pour. Also you can try anchoring the scent with additives like clays.
If your other basic recipe has 30% castor, it would definitely make a soft soap. I think the max you could use is 10-12%.


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## terr (Jul 1, 2015)

hi thanks for that it explains the problems !     will let you know how i get on with mintles recipe


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