Bastile soap experiment

[CTAnton]

Well, my slow season has just about started and I thought this winter I'd work at finding a bastille soap recipe that really 'floats my boat".
I started today with the following:
Olive Oil 50%
Coconut Oil 30%
Sunflower 10%
Castor 10%
5%SF
I'm going to change the liquid between water,aloe vera juice,dairy cream and coconut milk. Add or not add sugar and silk.Lower the SF to 2% and 3% and perhaps a batch at 8%.This is the first time I've ever added so large a percentage of coconut oil to a recipe, the reasoning is to cut the sliminess of the olive. Castor for the bubbles. Sunflower is simply a starting point; I looked at adding more of it but the linoleic and linolenic levels got too high. I am trying to stay away from lard but personally I'm not opposed to using it. For some reason I want the olive oil to be the major oil so I'm starting at 50%.
What's my goal? A bastille that has some creaminess more than bubbles, doesn't take a year to shine and leaves your face highly moisturized. The recipe I'm trying has a cleaning number of 20 but I'm hoping the high conditioning value of 63 will counteract that.
Just thought I'd throw this out to the group and see what anyone has to add...thank you all!

 

[Arimara]

Looks interesting but I hope the conditioning factor helps you out. I could be just being a scaredy cat but are you sure about the superfat levels?

 

[DeeAnna]

If you really want to call the soap a "bastile", then olive should be well over half of the fat in the recipe. Not that there's any "bastile police" to enforce the idea, but my impression is a fair number of soapers (myself included) would call a soap a bastile only if it has 70% or more olive in it. In other words, a bastile is mainly an olive oil soap with a modest addition of other fats. But YMMV.

 

[IrishLass]

Your formula is actually very close to my own Bastile formula.

I use 50% OO and 28% bubbly oils in mine (a mixture of CO, PKO, and Babassu). It has a cleansing of 19 and a conditioning of 59, and I find it to be quite lovely. It's one of my go-to regular formulas (my veggie formula), and also contains rice bran oil, castor oil and cocoa butter.

For what it's worth, my other go-to regular formula is a tallow/lard blend that I've jokingly nicknamed my Veggie con Carne formula. lol

Anyway, I superfat mine anywhere from 3% to 7% depending on my additives.

Not that there's any "bastile police" to enforce the idea, but my impression is a fair number of soapers (myself included) would call a soap a bastile only if it has 70% or more olive in it

Yep- there's no Bastile police, and opinions will vary on the cut-off point for sure, but for what it's worth, I'm amongst those that are perfectly happy considering anything 50% OO and up to be a Bastile.

IrishLass

 

[newbie]

No soap will moisturize your skin although it may strip less oil off. Just not in the nature of soap to moisturize. If you want something a little less cleansing, I would drop your coconut oil back a touch and give it to the olive. Castor is more of a lather stabilizer and some people find 10% leaves the bar a little sticky, but some people like it at that level. You could also try a small batch with castor at 5-7% to see if it makes a substantial difference. THe SF of 5% is fine in general. You will find your personal preference.

I agree about the word Bastile indicating a much higher OO percentage but, as DeeAnna said, there are no Bastile police and as long as you don't sell it under that name, I don't think it matters much.

I know someone will come along and recommend you try a high lard recipe if you want something nice for your skin during the winter, so I thought I'd jump to the chase.

 

[Arimara]

Veggie con Carne formula. lol


IrishLass

I'm so going to use that term from now on. LOL :mrgreen:

 

[reinbeau]

I'm with DeeAnna on this one - it's a soap recipe fer sher, I wouldn't call it a bastile

 

[CTAnton]

My apologies for the misuse of the word Bastille...I just didn't know what to call a soap with so high an amount of Olive oil...

 

[reinbeau]

Don't apologize, it's just a point of discussion

 

[IrishLass]

Seeing as how 'Bastile' is just a made-up word coined by a fellow soaper purely as a joke, much in the same vein as my Veggie con Carne (I remember when it was first coined about 10 years ago or so over on the Dish forum), I would not worry about it. I know that many bloggers on the net say it is soap with no less than 70% OO, but I can show you posts on the Dish where a Bastile is considered 50% and above.


IrishLass

 

[DeeAnna]

There's no apologies needed. Like I said, there are no bastile police around, and I'm certainly not taking any offense. Just pointing out there are varying perceptions about what consitutes a "bastile" soap.

Castile out in the public world can legally be used to describe an all-veggie soap without a drop of olive. And it's been that way for at least a century. We soapers just need to understand that our castile is not the same as the everyday consumer's castile.

Ditto for the perceptions about a bastile soap.