Ghee Soap?

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

Anyone have any experience with Ghee as a soaping fat?
It's listed in Soapcalc and I thought it would be thematically apropos for a soap with the Nag Champa FO.

After dinking around with the numbers, I found that this soap would be low cleansing, but also low conditioning? Usually if one is low the other is high and vice versa; that being said, soapcalc is not always right about some of its numbers (for instance, pure castile soap is rock hard).

So I guess what I am asking is: Has anyone made Ghee soap and what are your experiences?

(And for the curious, this is the recipe I ended up figuring:
Ghee - 65%
Castor - 8%
Olive - 27%

THis blend give a near perfect INS of 160, but the rest of the numbers are kinda meh!)

carebear · Nov 21, 2011

we have some threads on this. search on the term "butyric".

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

Thanks, carebear... will do.

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

OK... Just read the referred to threads and did a little research on which fats and compounds in butter have the butyric acid.

I feel confident to try making soap with ghee, but NOT with butter.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Fragola · Nov 21, 2011

I did make a pure bovine soap, but I didn't start from commercially purchased ghee, but rather directly from the milk.

Feels rather nice, I'd say it goes in the direction of palm soap, slightly less conditioning. For a pure ghee soap, I'd increase the superfat a little.

If we're talking smell ... Ugh ... But there may be ways of beating it.

I feel confident to try making soap with ghee, but NOT with butter.

Must be that I am missing something.

Where do you extract your confidence from ?

If prepared from the same milk, will ghee and butter have a different fat composition ? How and when does that composition change ?

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

Residual alcohols from the Nag Champa esters as well as those naturally present in the Olive oil should combine with the butyric and caproic acids in the azeotropic solution formed when the lye saponifies the rest of the fats.

I am not sure what the resulting esters will be, but most caproic and butyric acid esters are fairly pleasant.

Again, I am experimenting, so I will be making a small batch to start and we will see what happens. My hypothesis is that the resulting soap will be moderately functional and be a good hard mild soap with light cleansing and conditioning properties.

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

As for the way Ghee and butter are different, butter has residual milk solids and phospholipids that might throw off the esterization process. If the Ghee soap turns out OK, I will likely try with whole butter to see why some people say that their "butter soap" is fine and others complain of stink.

Fragola · Nov 21, 2011

Won't the lye kill said esters ?

But that would be an amazing result !

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

It is possible that the esters will be unstable in the early stages of saponification, but the lye will eventually tame down and the anhydrating effect will remain leaving the alcohols and organic acids to combine into esters at that point.

I expect the soap to be stinky during the cure, but for that to scale way back as the esters emerge. Worst case scenario, I am wrong and the FO will cover some but not all of the cheesy smell... a bar or two of tinky soap that will be rebatched with ethyl alcohol and sugar to complete esterification and be ugly translucent lump soap.

soapbuddy · Nov 21, 2011

Stinky, stinky! Even after the cure.

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

Soapbuddy, I am curious...

What recipe was used?
Did you use whole butter or ghee?
If it was ghee, did you render your own or was it store-bought?

Did you have any FO or EO in it?
Did you use any antioxidants (like Vitamin E)?
Any adjunct oils to assist in the lathering?

I would like to have as much info as I can get from people that have actually tried it before I embark on this.
I can get unsalted butter for about $2 a pound, so that would be plenty to make a couple bars, but I would like to know what to expect going in besides "It's stinky"... "No it's not".

soapbuddy · Nov 21, 2011

I used my regular recipe and rendered my own ghee. I used it at about 7% of my recipe. I didn't add any color or scent as I wanted to experiment. This was a 1 lb. batch. I don't use Vit E in my soaps as I feel the lye eats it up. At cure, the soap smelled like vomit. I threw it away.

dieSpinne · Nov 21, 2011

Thanks Soapbuddy.
Did you use a typical 4 week cure?

soapbuddy · Nov 21, 2011

dieSpinne said:
Thanks Soapbuddy.
Did you use a typical 4 week cure?

I let it cure for 6 weeks, hoping the smell would go away. It didn't.

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