Best facial bar ever

[Obsidian]

I'm sure there are other people who have already discovered this but if you have dry skin, Genny's shampoo bar is a amazing facial bar. Try it

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=30946&

 

[TVivian]

Yes!! I absolutely can vouch for this!

 

[DeeAnna]

Or even as an all-over bath soap for dry skin. I can vouch for that too!

 

[lpstephy85]

Making it as soon as I get my Avocado from WSP

 

[shunt2011]

If you have a Costco they have Avocado Oil at a pretty reasonable price....it was more than 16 oz and it was 9.99 a bottle. I'd never seen it there before but want to go back and pick some up as it's a great price.

 

[lpstephy85]

If you have a Costco they have Avocado Oil at a pretty reasonable price....it was more than 16 oz and it was 9.99 a bottle. I'd never seen it there before but want to go back and pick some up as it's a great price.

Nope, no Costco but WSP is right down the road from where I work so I can pick up can get a discount for doing so. Living in NE Ohio finally has it's perk :mrgreen:

 

[roseb]

If you have a Costco they have Avocado Oil at a pretty reasonable price....it was more than 16 oz and it was 9.99 a bottle. I'd never seen it there before but want to go back and pick some up as it's a great price.

Crying...our Costco carries a very limited amount of oil! Definitely, no avocado!

 

[roseb]

My mother was the one that told me about the poo bar being good for bathing. She got confused and used the poo bar on her body and body bar on her head. LOL

 

[Obsidian]

Out of three local costco stores, only one carries the avocado.

 

[cmzaha]

Our costco no longer carries avcocado. Cibaria soap supply does carry it. I am fortunate that they are within 40 miles and I pick up

 

[fuzz-juzz]

They sound lovely! I'm yet to try avocado oil. I'm currently using lard and olive oil facial bar. I haven't used lard before and I can say I'm converted.

 

[cmzaha]

I absolutely love lard soaps. Everytime I mention to my hubby that a soap is exceptional I go check the recipe and it is always a lard recipe. I do not make all soap the same recipe. I also love lard and canola together in soap

 

[Dahila]

In Canada costco carry avocado 1 l for 10.99 and 1.5 kg organic virgin coconut oil for 17.99 then olive oil 28.99 for 6 litres. I do not think the co is good for soap.

 

[Jaccart789]

Almost all health food stores carry Avocado oil but its so pricey! I was just at one and for 1lb. 20.00! I buy for 4.00 a pound normally. I will wait for the next order. Thanks for sharing and telling us your results.

 

[DeeAnna]

I've been showering with "shampoo" soap for a few days now, skipping my usual (handcrafted) lotion. So far so good -- I'm not remotely shriveling into an itchy, peeling, wrinkled mass of dry skin. At least not just yet ... but winter is definitely of a mind to stick around here in Iowa.

On a related note, I wanted to tweak Genny's recipe to make it my own and to use it more for a face and dry skin soap. Most of my recipes have some coconut oil in them (cleansing = 8 to 12%), and sometimes even that seems too much for my skin in winter. My goals were to keep the 10% castor and 30% avocado that Genny used, keep the conditioning level as high as possible, and drop the cleansing to zero.

I like to use lard, and I generally don't stock shea or olive -- I use rice bran oil and/or high oleic safflower in place of olive. I don't normally have avocado either, but this recipe just begged me to use it, so I gave in and bought some special for the recipe. I also wanted to try pink (rose) clay as a colorant, just because I wanted to try it.

Here's Genny's shampoo (aka facial and dry skin) soap recipe:
Castor Bean Oil 10.0%
Shea Butter 10.0%
Soybean Oil 10.0%
Avocado Oil 30.0%
Olive Oil 40.0%

Here's my recipe:
Castor Bean Oil 10.0%
Safflower Oil, High Oleic 17.1%
Avocado Oil 29.6%
Lard 43.3%

Superfat 5%.
Nonfat cows milk (from our local micro-dairy) for the water phase.
3% ppo white sugar.
Added 10 grams pink clay to 1500 g oils (this looked about like a heaping tablespoon of clay, but I didn't measure the volume.)
CPOP at 170 deg F for about an hour.

Got this made yesterday. The soap is harder coming out of the mold than Genny's (which I've made in the past). The recipe was fairly slow to trace (about 10 minutes = slow for me). Otherwise, nothing remarkable to report -- the finished soap doesn't zap, and it looks and lathers like soap (duh!). The bars are going to dry down to an attractive dusty-coral color. I'll have to see how it smells, looks, and lathers with time.

I told my mom about this batch and she seemed really interested in trying it out -- at a vibrant 83 years young, her skin tends to get dry too.

 

[jaggedrande]

can anyone tell me what I could sub out for soybean oil?? or is that just shortening???

 

[Obsidian]

No, its not shortening. Its the liquid vegetable oil you find in the grocery store.

 

[jaggedrande]

oh ok, thanks, also how it this bar for hardness, does it turn to mush after the first use?? also I ran it through the soapcalc and there is no cleansing is that normal for a shampoo bar??

 

[Obsidian]

I've never had any issues with the bar getting mushy but I have a wire soap holder so the bar can dry between uses. If you let it sit in water, it would get soft.
Yes, shampoo bars have a low cleansing number which is why its so gentle for hair and dry winter skin. If you have oily skin/scalp this particular recipe might not be quite cleansing enough.

 

[DeeAnna]

Genny's original recipe is admittedly on the somewhat softer side compared with most of my soaps. But if you allow the bar to cure and dry down and also let the soap dry properly between washings or showers, it will do fine. In my version, the lard increases the initial hardness and the overall insolubility of the soap.


Some comments...

Zero "cleansing" doesn't mean you won't get clean. It just means the soap does not have any myristic and lauric fatty acids in the recipe.

Soap made from these fatty acids is highly soluble in hard/cold/salt water and is going to be an aggressive cleaner. If you're washing clothes in cold water, you'll probably want to make a soap high in lauric-myristic. Many folks make 100% coconut oil soap for household cleaning and clothes washing. The so-called "cleansing" number is the approximate % of lauric and myristic fatty acids in a recipe.

If you're washing yourself, you will want to design a recipe with just enough myristic-lauric soap to suit your skin -- anywhere from zero to whatever. Dry or sensitive skin needs less -- a lot less -- than oily skin. But even oily skin can be stripped of too much oil, so overdoing the myristic-lauric % can be harsh on even oily, tough skin.


Also, there's a difference between hardness and insolubility ... and a related tradeoff between abundant fluffy lather and moderate creamy lather.

A 100% coconut oil or palm-kernel oil soap is hard, but soluble. It will dissolve quickly and make lots of fluffy lather. The myristic and lauric fatty acids in CO and PKO are responsible for this.

A 100% lard or tallow or palm soap is hard and insoluble. It will last a long time and make a moderate amount of whipped-cream lather. The palmitic and stearic fatty acids in lard/tallow/palm are responsible for this.