A little lost

[Fragola]

Distilled water can be found at gas stations and supermarkets.

Maybe you shouldn't try anything fancy for your first soap. At least for your piece of mind: if anything at all goes wrong, you will spend the next few months wondering if the Perrier caused it, or it was something else.

Regarding your oil percentages, you seem to be aiming for a very soft soap. I am pretty new to soaping myself and I usually try for a pretty hard bar.

Based on what I read in various places, your hardest oil (olive) results in a relatively soft bar on it's own. Personally, I would avoid adding even softer oils in amounts larger than 10%.

Your recipe for some reason scares me and makes me think of jellyfish soap (an aquatic species of soap bars which after 1-2 weeks of use transform into jellyfish and migrate down the drain).

Finally, castor is pretty expensive. Do you have some cheap source or how come are you happy using it in huge quantities ?

 

[carebear]

Olive oil isn't "soft". Even at 100%, it actually results in rock hard bars given an appropriate cure period.

canola - avoid it at more than 10%. trust me on this. we've all thought we could get away with it and have learned otherwise. DOS. and yes, that's how we refer to the formula - % based on OILS only. so maximum 10% of the oils as canola.

33% of oils as castor is going to give you a soft, sticky soap. Keep it low. Some go as high as 15%, I didn't like it above 5%, and now I don't use it at all.

If you are looking to make soap from oils you can get from the grocery store, you can get Palm oil under the Spectrum brand in Whole Foods and other "natural" food stores. It looks like Crisco and comes in a tub. Coconut oil is available in some Wal*Mart stores. And lard is absolutely lovely in soap. I'd not feature castor and canola - a blend of castor, olive and canola do NOT just so happen to make for very good soap. Especially at the levels you mention (1/3 each) you will have a sticky soap that will go rancid quickly.

distilled water at the grocery store & drug store. less than $1.25/gallon last I checked.

The carbonation of the mineral water won't do anything.

But heck - just make some soap however you desire and have some fun and go from there.

 

[carebear]

It's carbonated actually, naturally fizzy or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonated_water

the wikipedia site shows it is mineral water - if you look to the right side of the page it shows the minerals, even. i'm reading this on my blackberry and cannot really see it well, but I don't think any of those "minerals" are problematic in terms of promoting oxidation (DOS). so other than probably being a waste of money, I see no reason not to use it.

someone with a better view of the screen may be able to speak differently about it.

I take it back. According to Dr Dunn (thankfully posted here by another soaper: http://soapmakingforum.com/forum/viewto ... 839#244839) Calcium is problematic, and it's found in Perrier MINERAL water as per their own label. So I personally would recommend against it. But as above - make stuff and see for yourself - it truly is the best way to learn.

 

[RatherLather]

It's really the carbonation im interested in mainly but thanks for the heads up on the calcium carebear, also thanks for the cautionary ratio's for the oils. Yes I have heard olive oil makes for a hard bar that takes a long time to cure so I am certain my bar will be hard and slimy but have a rich smell and provide a very deep and nourishing clean

 

[carebear]

It's not slimy that really concerns me, but that the soap goes rancid very quickly if large amounts of canola are used. Where will the rich smell come from?

Take pictures for us, please, and let us know how it goes.

Oh, I recommend using a 33% lye solution - or stronger. Those oils will take a while to harden up in the mold, and less water will help that out a bit.

 

[IrishLass]

I wasnt really saying that 33% of the whole solution would be castor, I was referring to the ratio in oils, so in saying more like 3 parts as equal as I can get them.

Hello RatherLather and welcome to the 'soapverse' as Fragola said. Your percentages as written (33% olive oil, 33% canola, 33% castor) are going to be problematic because all soap formulas must be formulated based on a total oil amount of 100%, i.e. the total amount of oils in your formula taken together must add up to 100%. Lye and water are not included in that 100%, but are further calculated based on that total 100 % of oil. I hope that makes sense. Your formula only goes up to 99%. If you try to type that into any of the online calculators, it won't work.

A blend of castor, olive and canola simply because they are easily accessible and just so happen to make for very good soap because of thier properties.

It's true that each of those oils have good properties, but it's essential to know how to 'work' them, if you will, when formulating a soap recipe. Too much of a good thing can be very detrimental and spell disaster depending on how much of which particular oil is used in any given formula. It's all about synergy and balance, and although on the bare surface of things an equal blend of those 3 oils (or equal amounts any oil) looks perfectly balanced because the amounts are the same as each other, on the deeper, fatty acid level, things look much different. It is much better to formulate based on the total fatty acid profile of a formula and to know how much of each fatty acid will affect your finished soap rather than to base on individual oil qualities alone.

Canola oil, for instance is very high in linoleic acid, which is very fragile and has a very short shelf life. In soap, this means that if too much canola is used and the linoleic % of the profile goes up too far, it will make your soap easy prey to rancidity, as Carebear pointed out. I've had this happen to me when I used 25% canola once. It caused spotty, stinky soap and I had to throw it away. And if you live in a high humidity area, it makes the rancidity to rush in all the quicker.

As for castor, I make a soap with 23% castor, but it's balanced with 65% tallow, which is very high in stearic acid so that my finished soap doesn't come out all soft and sticky. In my 'softer' formulas I only go as high as 10% castor because of the stickiness issues it causes.

I was really hoping for some more thorough input on the perrier, its naturally carbonated (as far as I know) and was wondering if anyone had used it before and what it may or may not have done to soaps

I did a search on this and from what I found out (from someone who used grape falvored seltzer water), it is best to let the carbonation go flat before mixing with lye. If you don't, you will have a big, nasty, caustic volcano on your hands. Not good.

HTH!
IrishLass

 

[BakingNana]

Everything Irish Lass said, plus...It's essential to keep a detailed, and I mean DETAILED, record of every batch you make. You can't solely depend on a soap calculator to predict the final quality of your soap. When you begin playing with the properties of the various oils on the on-line calculators, you'll see how the numbers change according to what oil you plug in and in what percentage. The problem is (and this is learned by experience and trial and error, plus a lot of research and advice from experienced soapers) the numbers don't always mean your soap will be good or bad. For example, the 100% coconut oil bars we all love look ridiculous in a soap calculator, and you would be led to believe that 100% olive oil would never result in a hard soap when in reality fully cured 100% olive oil bars are rock hard. Your batch records are your best friend.