Pure coconut oil soap

I'm thinking of making some pure co soap, and would like to replace half the liquid with coconut milk (milk in oil method for whitest color possible). the cm i'm using is actually more like coconut cream that came in a box. i need to mix it with some water otherwise it would be too thick.

been reading around, and the suggested SF for pure co soap is 20%. however, with the cm, should i lower the SF?

if so, what would you suggest? i'm thinking 10-12%?

Newbie question, but what would a pure CO bar be like? I know it's pure to high in salt bars, but never seen it in a normal bar

I would only lower the SF to 15%, better to have it a bit higher then risking too low in a 100% CO bar. I've only used coconut milk once and it was in a salt bar, I left to SF at 20% and whatever the CM added to the bar, it didn't really change the feel too much. CM is really nice though, make the lather really rich.

TEG,
I'm curious too. Read pros and cons about it, and this would be my 1st time making it.

Obsidian,
I guess better to have slightly more sf than less, right? I love cm in soaps too.

There was a member named Irishlass who made her salt bars with 100% CO, coconut milk and 13% SF. I once calculated the extra fat from coconut milk as 100% replacement for water and it was about 8% so that seems about right. However, milks vary and you'd want to calculate it from the information on the can.

judymoody said:

There was a member named Irishlass who made her salt bars with 100% CO, coconut milk and 13% SF. I once calculated the extra fat from coconut milk as 100% replacement for water and it was about 8% so that seems about right. However, milks vary and you'd want to calculate it from the information on the can.

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Judy, i saw your thread on another forum about experimenting with coconut milk (although it wasn't pure co soap) and the different colors you were getting. It has helped me a lot, and yep i guess i'll have a read on what's written on da box.

eta: just made the soap. not sure about my calc, but i set the SF at 12 and let the cm take care of the rest. it was so simple to make, and i had it scented with coconut lime verbena. crossing fingers the soap fairy will be good to me for this batch

The fat in coconut milk varies a LOT from product to product, so I look at the nutrition label for the fat content and include the fat in my recipe calculations.

Maybe it's just me being overly picky, but I'm not one to blindly lower my superfat in a recipe like this and just hope for the best.

Decide how much of the product you are going to use in your soap, and then calculate the amount of coconut oil in that amount of coconut milk. Add that number to your fats. Calculate your lye based on that total fat and on the superfat you want. The difference between the total coconut milk minus the fat in the milk is more or less water, so add that to your water phase amount.

Example:
I want to add 400 g coconut milk to a soap recipe. In that 400 g of CM, I learn that...
45 g is coconut fat (calculated from the nutrition label) and...
400 - 45 = 355 g is non-fat stuff -- mostly water. I include this amount in the water phase of my recipe.

DeeAnna said:

The fat in coconut milk varies a LOT from product to product, so I look at the nutrition label for the fat content and include the fat in my recipe calculations.

Maybe it's just me being overly picky, but I'm not one to blindly lower my superfat in a recipe like this and just hope for the best.

Decide how much of the product you are going to use in your soap, and then calculate the amount of coconut oil in that amount of coconut milk. Add that number to your fats. Calculate your lye based on that total fat and on the superfat you want. The difference between the total coconut milk minus the fat in the milk is more or less water, so add that to your water phase amount.

Example:
I want to add 400 g coconut milk to a soap recipe. In that 400 g of CM, I learn that...
45 g is coconut fat (calculated from the nutrition label) and...
400 - 45 = 355 g is non-fat stuff -- mostly water. I include this amount in the water phase of my recipe.

Click to expand...

thank you so much, DeAnna.. now i understand, and will use your calculation for the next co batch. for now, what's done is done. let's hope for da best

eta: hmmm, there is just 1 thing that is still a mystery to me. that is, how can you calculate how much SF in % the CM is going to contribute? will you please care to explain. i'm very very clueless with math


the soap is going thru a full, hot gel stage as we speak...



and interestingly, there are 2 wart like thingies. what are those? i didn't remember those as part of my design, LOL!

DeeAnna said:

The fat in coconut milk varies a LOT from product to product, so I look at the nutrition label for the fat content and include the fat in my recipe calculations.

Maybe it's just me being overly picky, but I'm not one to blindly lower my superfat in a recipe like this and just hope for the best.

Decide how much of the product you are going to use in your soap, and then calculate the amount of coconut oil in that amount of coconut milk. Add that number to your fats. Calculate your lye based on that total fat and on the superfat you want. The difference between the total coconut milk minus the fat in the milk is more or less water, so add that to your water phase amount.

Example:
I want to add 400 g coconut milk to a soap recipe. In that 400 g of CM, I learn that...
45 g is coconut fat (calculated from the nutrition label) and...
400 - 45 = 355 g is non-fat stuff -- mostly water. I include this amount in the water phase of my recipe.

Click to expand...

Great calculations there - instead of guesswork. Nutrition labels come in handy in cases like this, and the amount of fat and water can actually be accounted for.

"...how can you calculate how much SF in % the CM is going to contribute?..."

You don't have to calculate this, because it's not something you can control. Assuming you're doing a CP soap, the superfat will be made up of all of the fats in your soap recipe -- not just the fat from the coconut milk. If you want to control the specific fat that is your superfat, you need to hot process the soap and add that fat after the soap is done.

In the example I've been using, the fat in the recipe is coming from two different places -- the 100% pure coconut oil you scoop out of a can and the coconut fat in your coconut milk.

Figure up the amount of fat that comes from both places. In the first case, it's easy -- 1000 g of pure coconut oil out of the can is 1000 g.

In the second case, the coconut oil is only a part of the coconut milk, so there's no way around reading the nutrition label and doing a bit of math as I explained earlier.

Once you have the fat from the CM, figure up the total fats in the recipe. If I was using 1000 g of pure coconut oil in the base recipe AND adding 45 g more coconut oil from the coconut milk, the total fat in my recipe is 1000 + 45 = 1045 g.

1045 g of coconut oil is the number I would plug into my lye calculator. I would enter 20% for the superfat and I would calculate the lye using this basis.

The other alternative is to just guess at how much less superfat I should use to compensate for the unknown amount of fat I'm adding with my coconut milk. Maybe the percentage should be 13%? Maybe it should be 8%? Maybe only 19%? It's hard to say without doing the calculation. Since I know coconut milk products vary widely in their fat content, that makes me even less confident that I can make a reasonable guess about how much less superfat to use.

If a person cannot do the math, then the "I'll just guess" approach is an option to consider, but I'm uncomfortable doing that for myself. I'm not saying that being precise about the ingredients I use in my soap is a sure-fire solution for soaping troubles, but I do believe that it may help reduce unpleasant surprises.

PS: the "warts" might be bubbles of soap that raised up from the center of your soap loaf -- mini volcanoes, so to speak. Or actually more like Yellowstone Park "paint pot" bubbles. Pic source: http://joelachandthekeys.com/photos.html

^^

DeAnna, now i totally understand thank u so much for explaining the calculation. so i should focus on finding out the total fats from the co + cm and input the amount to the calc. btw, the soap is hard as a rock, i think i left it too long in the mold. my hands were all sore from cutting with the knife, seriously it was HARD.

You can usually find coconut milk in the ethnic isle of a grocery store, it comes in a can.

Sometimes you'll also find it in the baking section where you'd find evaporated milk, goat milk, and such.

in our house, we normally make our own coconut milk using fresh coconut. i couldn't be bothered doing it only for soaping tho. so, carton it is.

Obsidian said:

You can usually find coconut milk in the ethnic isle of a grocery store, it comes in a can.

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Heck .. we find it at the dollar stores .. much cheaper than the grocery store! All this talk of CM has me planning the next batch!!!

I'd check the cans from the dollar store to make sure it's just CM without additives you may not want.

The canned CM I use is very thick, almost like a thin pudding, as someone else described it. I just use a little more than called for when I add at trace, and have had no problems. Not a scientific approach by any means, DeeAnna's approach is far more sound. But I do tend to simply up my quantity with any liquid that's really thick - Dead Sea mud, for another example.

paillo said:

I'd check the cans from the dollar store to make sure it's just CM without additives you may not want.

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Water, coconut, potassium metabisulfite

total fat 8 grams