A hand-washing soap that does not dry the hands too much

Benji_1 · Apr 26, 2020

Dear all,

I recently started making soap.
I just tried a home-made recipe for a liquid hand-washing soap : 70% olive oil, 30% coco oil, 40% fat discount and KOH as the lye.
After the soap was chemically done, I added more water to get a perfect viscous liquid.

I have 2 questions :

Although there is 40% fat excess, after using this soap to wash my hands, I do feel that they feel dry when I rinse with water. Any insights to make a more gentle soap ?
Water and soap tend to separate with time into 2 phases. This can be partly prevented by lowering the pH of my soap. Has anyone tricks with that regard ?

Thank you very much for your insights.

Best regards,
Ben

atiz · Apr 26, 2020

Hi Ben, and welcome.

I do not make liquid soap (except syndet) so hopefully someone more experienced in that field will chime in.
But, 40% superfat sounds like an awful lot to me -- it would be like washing hands with oil!
Generally, how drying a soap is, often correlates with how much coconut oil it contains. You may want to try to lower your CO to 15% or so and see how you like it. (There are a lot of other factors too; you will have to experiment with different oils to see what your skin likes.)

You cannot lower the pH of your soap without it ceasing to be soap. It will just separate.

You should not have separation issues with soap and water, unless something else is amiss. Perhaps your extra-high superfat is part of the culprit, but it's hard to tell.

shunt2011 · Apr 26, 2020

Too much CO will be drying to many. Also, your SF shouldn’t exceed 3% or it will continue to separate. Dropping the PH will do the same. 40% SF would be just greasy.

DeeAnna · Apr 26, 2020

Benji_1 said:
Water and soap tend to separate with time into 2 phases. This can be partly prevented by lowering the pH of my soap. Has anyone tricks with that regard ?

I regret to say you have that wrong. If you really have water and soap, they will not separate. Soap is highly soluble in water.

But you have a whopping 40% superfat in this soap. Water and that much oil will most definitely separate over time. You can't fix that except by adding more KOH and saponifying the oil to convert it into soap. Adding acid to your "soap" would make a bad matter even worse.

Fact -- You can't make liquid soap with much over 3% superfat if you do not want the superfat to separate from the water/soap mixture.

Fix this problem and then we can talk about your Item #1.

Benji_1 · Apr 27, 2020

Dear all,

many thanks for your insights.
I see that making the perfect liquid soap is rather challenging.

I will make it 3% superfat and decrease coconut oil to the minimal.
One last question before I get back to the kitchen: I added coconut oil because on SoapCalc, it made my soap bubbly, while 100% olive makes poor bubbles.

Any oil combination for "soft/skin friendly" soap with a minima of bubbles.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

best regards,

gloopygloop · Apr 27, 2020

Benji_1 said:
Dear all,

many thanks for your insights.
I see that making the perfect liquid soap is rather challenging.

I will make it 3% superfat and decrease coconut oil to the minimal.
One last question before I get back to the kitchen: I added coconut oil because on SoapCalc, it made my soap bubbly, while 100% olive makes poor bubbles.

Any oil combination for "soft/skin friendly" soap with a minima of bubbles.

Thanks again for sharing your experience.

best regards,

I have found that LS requires more CO oil than bar soap as LS does not lather too well IMHO. I also add a little NaoH to thicken and also to add a little more to the lathering which I think it does a little.
Ben why not try IrishLass recipe which is posted on this site, here is the link.
My Creamy Cocoa/Shea GLS Tutorial
It does make a lovely soap but once you have experienced a "properly made " liquid soap you can then go about tweaking or formulating to your own requirements. There are a few important rules in order to have LS not fail such as no more than about 3% SF and not refusing the pH lower than natural soap needs to be in order to be soap as has been mentioned. It also depends on whether you want a clear soap or a creamy looking soap as to which oils or butters you use. A couple of failures are a great learning curve, and a few different recipes also will help you find your "Holy Grail "