Testing a few soft oils in 40%

Hello everyone

After starting soaping 10 months ago with recipes and additives that I was mostly inspired by this forum, I feel the need to enter an era where I would like to get to know each oil / additive and what they give to the final soap. So I started lately to test a few soft oils and how will they behave.



The small batch recipes are:
40% SweetAlmond / ExtraVirginOlive / PomaceOlive / SunflowerHO / Canola / Avocado
30% Lard
15% Coconut
10% Palm Kernel
5% Castor

along with salt, sugar, trisodium citrate, silk fibers, oatmeal floor and lemon FO.
They are all the same recipes apart from the main oil and in a few of them (EVO, Canola, Avocado) that I added pigment colors so as to recognize them easier.
The soap with the Pomace Olive oil has no color in it and the green is from the oil itself as it like a butter type olive oil full of chlorophyll:


left: Pomace Oil, right: Pomace Oil inserted in soft oils

After two months I will start to test them and hopefully I will manage to understand any differences they have. I have written down the similar fatty acid profiles of each soap so as to have a guide on my criticism.

The canola oil soap has 15% of linolenic & linoleic acids in the recipe and I hope that it won't have any DOS during or after cure. For sure it will get rancid easier if the environmental conditions are not good (humidity, heat, light, metal surfaces) while curing, but I wanted to ask if it is also for the self life of the oil. The one I used has a self life until July 2016 so that means it will not get rancid easily if it will stay in good conditions after cure for almost one year from now?



Nikos
http://www.soapmakingforum.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

Sounds like an interesting project. I look forward to hearing how it goes.

great experiment! will follow for sure.

A very worthy experiment, Nikos. As with the others, I look forward to your results! By the way, I like the overall looks of your base recipe.


IrishLass

I wonder how does the result of the experiment. Can't wait

This sounds like a good experiment. All of the oils in testing are known to be conditioning on some level, right?

Arimara said:

All of the oils in testing are known to be conditioning on some level, right?

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Well that is the word that the calculators use. But I think that this is not a very informative world that describes properly the high oleic and a few linoleic/linolenic percentages of fatty acids in a recipe. And as DeeAnna has beautifully written before:

The longer chain fatty acids (stearic, palmitic, oleic, linoleic, linolenic, etc.) are not as able to cause the type of damage "that lauric and myristic fatty acids do", so they're called the "conditioning" fatty acids. The name is misleading, in my opinion, because soap really cannot condition the skin. Conditioning is the blanket property of adding humectancy (water) to the stratum corneum, providing occlusion (barrier to abrasion or water evaporation), and adding emollience (replacing lost fats), as well as smoothing and soothing the skin.

Some of the additives in a soap can add some conditioning, but soap itself cannot. Soap cleans. Period. Maybe the "conditioning" fatty acids should have been called "non-stripping" and the myristic and lauric acids should have been called the "stripping" fatty acids.

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So according to this post I will try to understand and detect any differences/qualities they give in the soap.

I love this experiment! Keep us posted as to what you learn.

ngian said:

The canola oil soap has 15% of linolenic & linoleic acids in the recipe and I hope that it won't have any DOS during or after cure. For sure it will get rancid easier if the environmental conditions are not good (humidity, heat, light, metal surfaces) while curing, but I wanted to ask if it is also for the self life of the oil. The one I used has a self life until July 2016 so that means it will not get rancid easily if it will stay in good conditions after cure for almost one year from now?

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Certainly the expiration date is a good warning of when to use the oil by, but that is not necessarily the case once you use the oil in soap. Unfortunately, though, there is no hard and fast rule of when a soap is going to develop DOS in relation to the expiration date. I would stick to the 15% rule to avoid the DOS. You should also add ROE to your oils to help prevent rancidity.

Susie said:

You should also add ROE to your oils to help prevent rancidity.

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You mean add to both the canola oil bottle and to the oils while soapmaking before inserting Lye in?

I do one or the other, but not both. I think it is best to add ROE to the fats when I first get them. That way the ROE can protect the fat from the start. If you add ROE later when you soap, it cannot fix any oxidation that may have already happened. If this is the case, adding ROE when you soap might be a case of "shutting the barn door after the horse gets out".

DeeAnna said:

I do one or the other, but not both. I think it is best to add ROE to the fats when I first get them. That way the ROE can protect the fat from the start. If you add ROE later when you soap, it cannot fix any oxidation that may have already happened. If this is the case, adding ROE when you soap might be a case of "shutting the barn door after the horse gets out".

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How much should I add per litre? Do I have to shake the bottle afterwards so for ROE to be mixed all inside the oil? And for how long does it extend the self life of the oil?

Edit:
I just read the answers for all the above on your signature link.

Nikos -- In response to your questions and tidbits I've learned recently, I updated the info on my website. Here's a summary --

I add 0.4 to 0.5 grams ROE per 1000 grams of fat (0.04% to 0.05% ppo). This is based on a ROE with 5% to 7% carnosic acid. If your ROE is lower than that, and some are as low as 2%, then I would adjust accordingly.

I weigh the entire bottle, container and all, and figure the amount of ROE based on that. I know the container weight shouldn't count, but if it's plastic, like most of mine are, it's going to not add a lot of error. Or you can estimate the container weight and subtract that from the total weight to estimate the fat weight.

It's very important to mix the ROE into the entire bottle. Since ROE is a thick syrup, it doesn't mix in too easily if you just dump the ROE directly into the bottle. (I had to learn this tip the hard way.) Best way is to pour out a little (100-200 mL or so) of the fat into a cup, mix the ROE into that until you can't see any trace of the ROE syrup, and then add the doctored-up oil to the bottle of oil. Shake.

Can't wait to follow the results! I am learning so much coming back to the forum.....:clap:

So excited about the results

Very much looking forward to the results!

These days I started testing the above 6 soaps and apart from very minor differences to their foaming behavior, I still need more time to test them.



I have tried them for washing my hands, while I was also filming so as for you to see how they behave (I will upload it in a forthcoming message).

Yesterday I tested them one after the other to wash my sort hair, and although the feeling my head had after 6 consecutive washing times was that of "superclean" and a bit of a "feeling my head skin cold", feeling that I also get when I use strong commercial liquid shampoos, I'm trying hard to feel any big difference they have on my skin afterwards.

Thus I need more time to "investigate" them and maybe find a test method that will be as much fair as possible. I'm also planning on sending some pieces to other soapers for a second/third opinion.

Till then happy holidays!

Ngian,

Are you super fatting these at all and if so what percentage? Re-reading in case I missed it.
I would like to know how lasting the bars are. Is this what they look like after one use or many?

Thanks in advance

Sere

Have been forgetting to ask. Crazy holidays and all.

Serene said:

Ngian,

Are you super fatting these at all and if so what percentage? Re-reading in case I missed it.
I would like to know how lasting the bars are. Is this what they look like after one use or many?

Thanks in advance

Sere

Have been forgetting to ask. Crazy holidays and all.

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Hello Serene
All the bars have 3% lye discount. With 2% sugar, 33% lye concentration and Sat:Unsat ratio of ~ 40:60, the bars are dissolving relatively quickly in comparison with bars that have more stearic/palmitic acids (>50% Lard/Palm).

This picture was taken after 3-4 days of daily uses.

ngian said:

Hello Serene
All the bars have 3% lye discount. With 2% sugar, 33% lye concentration and Sat:Unsat ratio of ~ 40:60, the bars are dissolving relatively quickly in comparison with bars that have more stearic/palmitic acids (>50% Lard/Palm).

This picture was taken after 3-4 days of daily uses.

Click to expand...

Ngian,

Thank you for your response, and your testing on this. I will wait patiently for your next report.

Sere

So after a few days of testing them, these soaps seems to have almost the same behavior and exactly the same feeling on my skin. All the soaps were cured for over 2,5 months (some where cured for 3 months) and I used one at a time for every bathing day.

I realize now that when we talk about oils in a soap we are just feeling the sodium salts of fatty acids and nothing more. Except if we use an oil/butter that has enough content of unsaponifiables that someone can understand/feel easily (for eg. Shea butter).

Some sites when they are talking about the soft oils that their soaps have, they start to describe them with the benefits they offer as if someone would eat them or spread them on their skin as is. But in a soap the oil in not in a edible form but in a form that cleans you. Soap is not a cream or a conditioner, but a saponified matter that has nothing to do with its source form.

I have also send the 6 soaps to other soapers so as to help me on this experiment and one of them has already stated that she cannot see any difference too...

The only differences I have seen so far are:

Olive oil and Raw Pomace Olive oil soaps got hard faster among others while curing, especially Raw Pomace as it has inside melted flesh and pips of the olive fruits. Then avocado was the third in row that got harder while curing. It must be for the palmitic and stearic fatty acids that are in bigger amount on these 3 soaps.

Canola oils seems to lather a little bit more easily maybe because it is the softer one as it has the most amount of linoleic/linolenic fatty acids. But this is not so noticeable...

Also at the very beginning of this experiment the soap that lathered more easily seemed to be sunflower high oleic, but I suppose it was for the fact that it was cut with a knife, so they were no wavy sides and more soap surface was scrubbed in my hands. Now that there are no wavy sides at at all soaps, they seem to create the same amount of lather at around the same time.

That's my humble opinion after this experiment.

I'm also embedding a video I made (select 720p HD for better viewing quality). Hope you like it.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJXFO8uDdBE[/ame]