Why does my soap do this? Deeanna?

A couple months back I made a somewhat unusual soap. It was formulated as a gentle facial soap for myself and my mother.
Its a nice soap but I've noticed something weird about it and so has mom. It seems to break down dead skin allowing it to be wiped off with a dry towel, effectively exfoliating without having to use scratchy additives.
I know anytime your skin gets wet, given enough time the dead skin will soften and it can be rubbed off but with this soap, it does it in 20 seconds or so.
I'm sure there is some kind of science behind why it breaks down dead skin so quickly, any know what it might be?
We are both happy with this exfoliating effect, in fact my mom had a bar of tea tree soap that also did the same thing and she constantly talked about how much she liked it. I was pretty happy to accidentally create something she wanted.

made with 100% coconut milk, SF around 12%
sunflower oil 40.18%
peanut oil 18.77%
avocado 17.6%
palm kernel flakes 11.73%
lard 11.73%

I should also add that these bars have remained somewhat sticky, especially on the outer layer. The lather is kind of slimy and oily but it rinses easy. Daily use can cause irritation on the face but doesn't bother the body. Leave the skin super smooth and soft.

Edit: If anyone wants to try this recipe, feel free to. Its actually made with 5% SF but the coconut milk increased it to 12-13% so adjust your SF to what you like.
Also, this bar is very soluble, just a minute or so and it starts to absorb water and get a gooey layer on it. Make sure to keep it dry as possible. Sodium Lactate would probably help a great deal and HP will help prevent the stickyness the CP bars have (I did CP & HP). I keep my extra bars in the freezer, was afraid the peanut oil would be prone to DOS.
Double check for peanut allergies, you don't want to contaminate your soaping equipment.

I wonder if your soap's exfoliating characteristic is related to the high percentage of nut and seed oils???? I have no idea. I'm also interested in what DeeAnna has to say. There's also a former chemistry teacher running around here as well....
Cheers!
Anna Marie

Uh, I'm coming up with a blank on this one! Sorry, Obsidian. I'll rummage around in my stash of articles and notes and see if I can come up with something....

I wonder if it has something to do with the combination of coconut milk and palm kernel oil, only because that's not a combo I've ever seen mentioned here.

Maybe make the recipe with water and not coconut milk and see if that changes.

The sunflower oil is usually under 20% and this is 40+. I think vitamin e could be on the high side. This combo could be rich in vitamins. Interesting.

Patent it. Magical scratch-free exfoliating soap - melts the years right off of your skin! You'll be a millionaire in no time

I wondered if certain vitamins might be behind this. I don't even know how to begin researching. I might try it with water next time but it would be awhile, I have plenty to last since there is only two people using them.

Really interesting case

It sounds almost like what alpha-hydroxy acids are supposed to do. I know there are milk facials that supposedly utilize the lactic acid in milk to dissolve dead skin cells... but there's no milk in your soap (besides coconut milk, which I don't think has lactic acid in it) and I have no idea if alpha-hydroxy acids can even exist in soap. Just throwing possibilities out there ;-)

Maybe it's the avocado oil. Avocado oil is rich in vitamin A and vit A helps remove dead skin cells. In my notes I have a tip about how you can make a facial peel just by smearing some squished avocado on your face.

I looked at Susan's (swift crafty monkey) blog and found her carrier oil comparison chart -- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1020026/carrieroilcomparisonchart.pdf

I'm really thinking there has to be some acidic component in your oils that is causing the exfoliation, since you don't have any abrasive ingredients in your soap. I recently made a soap with a high % of avocado oil and haven't noticed it exfoliates, although the skin care info I found praises avocado highly. I don't think I've ever heard that PKO or lard has any exfoliating abilities either.

The ingredients that seem reasonable to look at more closely are the peanut and sunflower. I didn't come up with much about peanut as an ingredient with amazing skin care properties, but Susan lists some interesting ingredients in sunflower oil -- Chlorogenic acid, Caffeic acid, and Quinic acid.

Chlorogenic acid is a component in skin rejuvenating products. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958188/
Caffeic acid helps wound healing and reduces inflammation. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2788657/
Quinic acid is an astringent and is used to treat wrinkles. http://www.google.com/patents/US5656665

Is sunflower your mystery exfoliant? Who knows....

I have noticed something similar in one of my soaps. It uses a lot of avocado oil. It also has a LOT of lard. And I don't remember what else in that particular one, and I'm too comfy wrapped in a blanket on the sofa to go get my notebook lol. I always add about 2tsp ppo of Vit E also.

It leaves my hair and skin both feeling nice, but I had noticed that my dry skin would rub right off, which is great for me, since when my skin is very dry, in spite of its flaky appearance, it actually doesn't seem to exfoliate easily usually.

I wondered at first if it was just whatever lotion I had used clumping up and rubbing off, since some of the ones I make are designed to leave a good protective layer that doesn't rinse off easy, but it's happened regardless of lotion usage, so that's not it.

I wonder if dry dead skin, as it stays stuck to you, absorbs and builds up a lot more oil than the healthier skin underneath, and then the combination of ingredients in the soap, as it removes those oils thoroughly, lets the skin absorb water quicker and loosens up the dead skin quicker in the process. Maybe? I'm guessing here based on observation.

I also noticed my lard or tallow based soap is much better at removing deodorant residue and hair-product residue, but the avocado oil is very nice to my skin and hair both, leaves them soft. I've been debating a soap of only lard or tallow and avocado oil.

Mine's not slimy or oily though, it's got good dense foamy bubbly lather. Although one of my liquid soaps with sunflower oil and avocado is kinda oily feeling when you lather it.

I'm just tossing out ideas though. Maybe they'll give someone else inspiration into the reason?

I recently made a facial bar with just lard and olive oil and it does the same, the dead skin seems to lift from my face and rub off easily.

Thank you Deeanna, looks like its a combo of things causing this affect. Too bad its so expensive to have tests ran, it would be interesting to see what is actually happen with soaps that do this.

@grayceworks I have 100% lard soap and it doesn't do this. Might have to try some single oil soaps and see if it is the avocado, peanut or sunflower that is the main cause.
I tried my 100% lard on my hair once, it was super nasty afterwards. Seems like it left a huge amount of residue, SF was 5%. I've found salt bars are the best for removing deodorant residue.

Ok, I got my notebook out, so here's the 2 recipes of mine that do this. None of my other soaps do it -- just these two.

1-
10% SF
1% Vit E

Tallow - 55%
Avocado Oil - 20%
Coconut Oil - 15%
Castor Oil - 10%

2-
8% SF
1% Vit E

Lard - 50%
Coconut Oil - 15%
Avocado Oil - 10%
Castor Oil - 10%
Jojoba - 5%
Flaxseed Oil - 5%
Grapeseed Oil - 5%

Sooooo.... hmm. They all have the animal fat, and the avocado oil. High in vit E. What else is similar? And how does it affect the skin?

Hmm, none have any olive oil either. Let look at numbers, here is mine.

Hardness: 26
Cleansing: 8
Conditioning: 69
Bubbly: 18
Creamy: 8
Iodine: 95
INS: 104

Lauric: 6
Myristic: 2
Palmitic: 12
Stearic: 6
Ricinoleic: 0
Oleic: 33
Linoleic: 36
Linolenic: 0

Oh geez. I have to do soapcalc on Nyquil??? LOL ok, gimme a few minutes
(Thanks for merging my posts, whoever did. I was just thinking I should do that, right before the nyquil knocked me out cold)

Ok, here's the numbers on my 2 recipes...

Ok, here's the numbers for my recipe-1:

Hardness: 48
Cleansing: 14
Conditioning: 47
Bubbly: 23
Creamy: 43
Iodine: 52
INS: 149

Lauric: 8
Myristic: 6
Palmitic: 21
Stearic: 13
Ricinoleic: 9
Oleic: 33
Linoleic: 5
Linolenic: 1

And for recipe-2


Hardness: 36
Cleansing: 11
Conditioning: 54
Bubbly: 20
Creamy: 35
Iodine: 67
INS: 131

Lauric: 7
Myristic: 3
Palmitic: 18
Stearic: 8
Ricinoleic: 9
Oleic: 33
Linoleic: 9
Linolenic: 3

this is really interesting.....I have no input, just want to follow along the ride.....

Thank you for posting all that. Nothing really jumps out at me but its still interesting to compare. I'll make some single oil bars this friday. I can do avocado and peanut but I'm out of sunflower and its really expensive locally.

My daughter would like a soap to help reduce scare tissue. I'll make a couple of bars in the next week. Bet this soap will work for her.