High percentage of olive oil

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luvtobeamom

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What is considered a high percentage of olive oil in terms of how long it will take to cure? 50% and above?

Also, does rice bran oil have the same long cure time as well as create a hard bar?

I'm experimenting with recipes and don't use palm oil.
 
I personally think that any recipe that is high in soft oils will need longer to cure. Especially if full water or high water/liquid is used.

Rice Bran has pretty much the same properties as Olive Oil. A lot of soapers use that in place or along with OO. I've tried it but didn't care for it at all, so that's certainly a personal preference.

If you don't use palm you may want to try lard or tallow. It certainly helps to make a nicer soap.
 
I try to avoid more than 50% of soft oils in my recipe, and more than 40% of olive oil in particular, unless it is specialty soap (for babies, or bastille I am ready to give a good long cure). With more than 40% of OO I get that slicky feeling after standard 4 weeks cure and it starts after 3-4 uses of soap (even though we keep our soaps dry in between the uses). Lard is superb and inexpensive, I use it since I do not have acess to tallow. I sometimes go for palm-free recipe with mango butter and cocoa, but it is quite expensive and a luxurious version.
 
Personally, I like a high percentage of OO--70-80%, but counterbalance it with soy wax (for hardness) and coconut (for bubbles and a small amount of cleansing).

I don't find it slick or greasy, and it's tolerable after a four week cure. It's better at three months, of course. A lot better.

The relationship of cure time to soft oil content seems pretty curvy at the high end. A 100% OO soap will take 6 months at least. 80%, about 3 months at least. 50%, 2 months. Anything below that is OK at 1 month.

But there are a lot of exceptions depending on your other oils. If you lean toward very hard waxes for the remainder, cure time can drop. Gelling seems to impact this as well.
 
One of my regular 'keeper' formulas contains 50% OO and I find it to be at it's earliest best at 4 weeks. For me, 'earliest best' means that it's perfectly good soap that lathers decently enough and doesn't dry me out....... but it gets even better if I wait 6 weeks or more (harder, bubblier, etc....).

Re: rice bran. I use a little bit of it in my 50% OO soap, but not a whole lot, because whereas OO is high in oleic and low in the more fragile linoleic acid, rice bran is the opposite- it's much higher in the fragile linoleic acid and lower in sturdier oleic acid, which means too much rice bran can be a DOS magnet depending on the rest of one's formula and/or other circumstances.

IrishLass :)
 

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