# Help! - Natural Soap is drying my skin



## jm24 (Apr 27, 2012)

Hi,

I recently became interested in soap making and wanted to replace the use of shower gels and liquid soaps with natural bars of soap (the world of soap making and natural soap is so much more interesting).

My first batch finished its 6 week curing period last week.  After 2 days of using it, my skin became very dry, sensitive and irritable.  I went back to using my normal shower gel for a few days and my skin recovered.  I then ordered some natural soap from a well-known UK website (in case I'd gone wrong with my own batch).  The same thing happened, after 2 days of use my skin is visibly dry and irritated again.

My first batch was a simple 60% olive oil, 40% coconut oil recipe and the one I bought contains olive oil (main ingredient), coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil and shea butter.

Does anyone have any advice/suggestions? I would hate to give up on this great new hobby!


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## Hazel (Apr 27, 2012)

40% is very high for coconut oil without a higher superfat to offset the properties of the oil. What was your superfat?

Since another bar also dried out your skin, you may just be sensitive to the coconut. Do you have any palm kernel oil flakes? You can substitute it for the coconut oil but at a lower percentage.  :wink:


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## IrishLass (Apr 27, 2012)

Don't give up! There are many tricks to getting around certain problems, like superfatting, for example.

I'm with Hazel. Unless you superfat high enough to compensate, 40% coconut oil would make for a very drying soap indeed (at least for me it would).

I can actually tolerate 100% coconut oil in soap, but only if it's superfatted at 20%. I don't know that I would superfat your particular formula at 20%, though, with all that olive oil in it. It could lead to spoilage because of olive oil's more sensitive nature as compared to coconut oil's nature.

You could try this instead (it would be much less drying):

60% olive oil
25% coconut oil (or you could sub PKO in it's place, i.e. *p*alm *k*ernel *o*il- not to be confused with palm oil)
10% cocoa butter (or you could sub palm oil or tallow, or lard, or shea butter or mango butter)
5% castor oil (in my opinion there's no sub for castor)

-and you could superfat it at 7%. If you make any substitutions, just remember to run the recipe through a lye calculator first to get the correct lye amount seeing as how the subs all have different SAP numbers. 


IrishLass


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## jm24 (Apr 28, 2012)

Thanks for the advice Hazel and IrishLass - you may well be correct about the coconut oil. 

I like the look of your suggested recipe IrishLass. 

I think I would like to leave out coconut oil altogether in my next batch. 

If I was to use 25% palm oil instead of your suggestion of palm kernel oil - what would the effect be?


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## Hazel (Apr 28, 2012)

Palm oil and palm kernel have different properties in soap. Palm will produce more of a creamier lather while palm kernel produces more of a bubbly lather. Palm kernel's properties are more like coconut oil.

Here's a link to info about the properties of oils.

http://summerbeemeadow.com/content/prop ... aking-oils


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## jm24 (Apr 28, 2012)

It was fractionated coconut oil I used in my own soap and it was superfatted at 17% (I was aiming initially for 3% but I used the SAP value of solid coconut oil by mistake).

The pH of my soap was 8.5 and the one I bought is closer to 9 (using litmus paper).  My soap leaves a sticky/oily feeling on my fingers when picking up a dry bar so I'm fairly certain there's no remaining lye.

Both soaps contain essential oils, mine used bay and the one I bought used tea tree, peppermint and eucalyptus (smells gorgeous!).

I'm thinking of going for a much milder recipe for my next batch and keeping it fragrance free in order to establish a base line of oils that my skin is happy with.  I can then build upon that with fragrance in subsequent batches.

How does this sound:
50% Olive Oil
35% Palm Oil (as opposed to PKO)
10% Shea butter
5% Castor Oil

Or would 100% Olive Oil be the best option to establish a base line that my skin is happy with?


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## fiddletree (Apr 28, 2012)

hmmm fractionated coconut oil isn't the best to use in bar soap, it can create a mushy bar.  The last recipe you posted looks lovely, though!

Do you think you might be allergic to one of the ingredients?  Could also be the essential oils or (less likely) colorants. 

If you want something for dry, sensitive skin then, like you thought, 100% olive oil soap, with a 7% or so SF, no colors or scents, would be your best option.  The problem is that it takes much longer for those soaps to cure...6 months is ideal, although I find they are good enough to start using at 3 months.  

Maybe buy a plain OO soap from someone and see if it works for you?  That way you can know before you make it and then set it for it's long long cure.


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## Hazel (Apr 28, 2012)

*jm24* - You might find this site about single oil soap helpful. http://www.zensoaps.com/singleoil.htm

I like fiddletree's suggestion to buy a 100% OO bar and try it before making a batch. It will be a good reference plus you'll find out if you do like castile.

I have experimented with fractionated coconut oil. Even though soapcalc shows a high bubbly value, I found the lather disappointing in all the batches except for the one which was 70% OO/30% FCO with 10% SF. But I think that's because OO doesn't have much lather initially. The lather was kind of foamy with small bubbles and the soap hardened more quickly than a regular high % OO normally does. 

Fortunately, I wrote about this experiment on another forum.  Normally, I don’t quote from other forums but I thought it would be all right to do this since I wrote the posts. I made the FCO experimental batches February 20, 2011. I wrote “The 100% FCO just would not trace. I finally gave up and just poured it into the mold. The 70% FCO was a little slow to trace but the last two batches traced very quickly. For the 100% and 70% batches, I took 2 oz from each and added 2 oz sea salt to see if FCO would work as a salt bar.”

I tested all the soaps after 4 weeks and after 6 weeks is when I was able to post a little more info. The blend batch I referred to below was 30% FCO/30% OO/30% Crisco/10% Castor with 10% SF. It was very soft but did get slightly harder later but not as hard as when I used CO instead of FCO. fiddletree's "mushy" comment is fairly accurate.   The 70% I mentioned below was 70% FCO/30% OO with 15% SF.

*April 3*


> The 100% and the blend batch had hardly any lather at all, the 70% wasn't much better and the salt bars were terrible. They felt draggy across my skin and didn't really produce any lather.



*April 7*


> ...the 70% OO/30% FCO produced a really nice fluffy/foamy type of lather with little bubbles. It isn't slimy at all and is rock hard. I really like it. I thought it was much nicer than the bastile soap I made back in November. However, the bastile is OO/PKO. I have another high % olive bar I made back in January. It is 65% OO/25% CO/10% castor. Tomorrow I'll compare the bars when I take a shower and see if there is a difference.
> 
> Although the 70% OO/30% FCO turned out all right, I don't think I'd use FCO again in soap unless I was out of CO or PKO and really wanted to make a batch. On the other hand, I might consider another experiment. It might be interesting to try combining FCO with CO or PKO in bastile since the addition of the FCO appeared to eliminate the slippery feel of olive.



BTW, I used the word "slippery" as an alternate word for slimy. I thought slippery sounded less derogatory than slimy for the people who love castile and high percentage olive oil soap. :wink: In the comparision of the FCO bastile and the regular bastile - the one I made in January still had the slippery/slimy feel to it.

*Posts from April 9-10*


> I used the 70% OO/30% FCO bar in the shower today. It does have excellent lather. It's not slippery and produces lots of little bubbles with a few larger ones. It's kind of a foamy lather and rinses off very easily. I've changed my mind and I've decided I really like it. I think I'll make this again. Also, it's not drying and it really cuts down on the curing time for a bastile.
> 
> Here's the info on the one batch that worked.
> 
> ...



A soaper suggested the slimy feel that a high percentage of olive oil produces in soap may have been reduced since FCO is a drier oil than CO. I don't know but it does seem logical. Also, I didn't use a very strong lye concentration which is probably why it was slow to trace. Most soapers use a stronger lye concentration with high olive or castile batches.

Unfortunately, I never made another batch with FCO since I ended up using it in lotions & scrubs. But I hope this little bit of info helps you.


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