Would this recipe good for swirls?

Arimara · Jul 6, 2016

I'm aiming to try this month's challenge but I cannot use lard or palm oil due to skin preferences and availability respectively. So, I'm going to use what I have and what I can procure.

Recipe in question

50% Olive Oil
15% Mango Butter
13% Avocado Oil
12% Rice Bran Oil
10% PKO Flakes.
SF- 3% (I plan to use buttermilk which will bump the SF up)

I know you guys like weights but I haven't done a thing yet and I used soapee.com for my planning. I normally use soapcalc for bar soaps.

Any thoughts?

The Efficacious Gentleman · Jul 6, 2016

A tip for those who don't like thinking in % - just replace the % sign with "oz" and think of it as a 100oz batch.

As for the recipe, it's mostly soft oils, majority olive. I think pomace is the slowest to trace but I'm not 100% sure. Should be okay, especially as you could soap fairly cool, with only a small amount of hard oils in there

dibbles · Jul 6, 2016

I think this should be ok, but I think pomace olive oil traces more quickly than regular OO. That has been my experience anyway.

dixiedragon · Jul 6, 2016

I personally vastly prefer percentages!

I personally haven't noticed a difference in trace between olive and pomace olive, but I use only 15% in my recipe.

What type of swirl are you planning on doing? I ask because a very thin batter is good for delicate swirls, but it is very easy for it to stop being a distinct swirl and for your two colors to start blending.

Arimara · Jul 6, 2016

dibbles said:
I think this should be ok, but I think pomace olive oil traces more quickly than regular OO. That has been my experience anyway.

Olive oil pomace is impossible to buy from the stores. I'll stick with what I can get and soap a little warmer. 110 degrees F or a little under should be fine for this recipe

dixiedragon said:
I personally vastly prefer percentages!

I personally haven't noticed a difference in trace between olive and pomace olive, but I use only 15% in my recipe.

What type of swirl are you planning on doing? I ask because a very thin batter is good for delicate swirls, but it is very easy for it to stop being a distinct swirl and for your two colors to start blending.

I'm going to attempt the July Clyde Slide Challenge but i need to do a test batch to see how to do it.

earlene · Jul 6, 2016

I find that pomace traces much faster than regular OO. My local small town grocery store started carrying pomace OO! I was so amazed to see it. I had never seen it in any grocery store before except in Manhatten. (New York City, USA). Anyway, so now I can buy it locally without having to order it online and pay shipping.

Arimara, your recipes sounds pretty nice to me. Good luck on your test batch for the Clyde Slide. I did two loaves a couple of days ago and used full water and boy oh boy did they take a long time to set up! I don't think I want to do full water ever again with so many soft oils. And I had more hard oils than your recipe. I thought doing full water would be best to give me more time to work, but then I had to wait & wait & wait!