Bubbly lather in non palm oil soap?

[JuliaNegusuk]

Hi

I'm trying to come up with a base recipe to get some soaps EU certified for sale through a charity shop. The charity want palm oil free soap. I have tried variations on 40/45% olive oil, 30/35% coconut oil, and either 20% shea or 10% each shea and cocoa butters with and without caster oil. (yes - complicated - 4 different variations). However all produce a reasonably good, creamy lather as a hand soap but aren't very good in the bath eg using sponge for example. I found a company online that does 50% OO, 45% CO and 5% shea. Lather is brilliant! However wouldn't that much coconut oil mean the soap is very drying (I don't know the superfat - possibly 8 or 10% to counteract CO at that percentage?) AND possibly be used up quickly - I guess one downside of lots of lather is soap that doesn't last as long. I was thinking of trying 40% OO, 45% CO and 5% each shea, cocoa butter and castor oil, possibly at 8% superfat. Would the butters counteract the dryness of the coconut oil? What about DOS? Or would just adding sugar to the original recipes help. Any thoughts? Is a hard, bubbly, long lasting, non palm oil soap even possible or is this the soap holy grail?

 

[aihrat]

Hi JuliaNegusuk, I feel you pain as a soaper who doesn't use palm oil and would prefer low coconut oil in my soaps. I've found that I've needed to work on the properties of lather, hardness, and longevity separately.

Lather
1. CO obviously adds to lather. With a higher CO soap, you could bump up the superfat to counteract the drying effects of the coconut oil. You're right that too much of a superfat will end up dampening the lather.

2. Castor oil is also a good bet, at a usage rate of 5-10%. The more castor oil you use, the softer your bar will become.

3. Another possible oil to try is high oleic sunflower oil at around 10%. It helps to support lather, and synergises well with other oils to boost it. It will soften your bar.

4. Many soapmakers add extra sugar into their soaps to help it lather. Sugars come in many forms, such as table sugar, honey, and milk. This will work for non-palm soaps as well. You can see toxicon's thread here on how much to add: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=62691

5. Sweet Almond oil produces nice, abundant, fluffy lather. On SoapQueen's single-oil test (see https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-...cks/single-oil-cold-process-soap-lather-tests), the 100% Sweet Almond soap was the test panel's favourite on account of its lovely lather and conditioning feel. It will soften your bar, and is a little expensive. I've added up to 20%. The bars are a bit soft then, and have an unpleasant 'less-dense' feel, but last a reasonably long time and feel great to wash with.

6. Soy wax (see below)

7. Something I personally do that helps with lather is incorporate sodium citrate into my soap. I add about 1-2% ppo citric acid and a small amount of extra lye to counteract the acid. Together, they form sodium citrate in the finished soap. It acts as a chelating agent in harder water, helps boost lather, and also helps prevent DOS. See DeeAnna Weed's excellent blog post about how to add citric acid to your soap here: https://classicbells.com/soap/citricAcid.html

Hardness and/or Longevity

In my experience a lathery bar does not necessarily translate to a shorter-lived bar. Nor does a softer bar necessarily translate to a shorter-lived bar. But there are too many variables in that for me to be sure from my experience alone.

1. To make a harder bar, many people use beeswax at 0.5%-2%. However, beeswax is a notorious lather-killer and people usually increase their castor oil and sugar to compensate.

2. You could use sodium lactate to harden your bars instead.

3. Soy wax. See Akeylah Wellington's excellent blog post on soy wax's performance in CP soap: https://halcyonbaths.com/2015/08/04/the-end-of-the-soy-wax-soap-experiment-an-analysis
Her experience suggests that soy wax can help with hardening bars, and helps the bar lather well in the hands. You could try soy wax in your recipes as well.

4. If you have a little more money to spare, you could also try kokum butter. It adds very good hardness to soap. According to Amy Warden's blog post (here http://www.greatcakessoapworks.com/handmade-soap-blog/index.php/tag/kokum-butter-soap), kokum butter lathers a bit better than cocoa butter and is slightly more moisturising. I can't get kokum butter where I am but I do add about 5-15% cocoa butter to my recipes for hardness.

5. Water discounting. If you discount your water, you'll give your bars a headstart in being hard. The steeper the discount, the harder your bar will start off. Of course, a long-cured bar of non-water-discounted soap will be just as hard as a non-water-discounted soap after enough time has passed. But steep water discounts really do help if you don't have months to spare for something like a high-OO soap. It can also help your soap by shortening the time needed for your soap to achieve its full lathering potential. One disadvantage of water discounting is that it can speed trace, and it raises the temperature needed for your soap to gel. So you may need more insulation or an external heat source to gel your water-discounted soaps, and work reasonably quickly with the batter (and not stir/blend too much!)

Good luck!

 

[Nao]

Do your soaps need to be vegetarian? If not, lard/ tallow is a good substitute for Palm.

You could also experiment with different combinations of butters if the budget allows it.

 

[Silver]

You could try using babassu oil instead of coconut oil if you have the extra funds - it is supposed to be a non drying alterantive to CO. Alternatively, maybe you could try a batch of salt bars? Salt bars only use coconut oil, olive oil and salt and have about 20% super fat. They are both hard, mild, palm free and bubbly!
Good luck!

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

Thanks - yes it has to be veggie - personally I find tallow soap is great, but charity want a veggie soap. Also a salt soap will feature as one of the range hopefully if I can get the recipe approved, and is a great soap, but I don't want all salt soaps, but good thought, thanks. The reason I thought extra bubbles might mean a short life is that I have tried 100% coconut oil with 20% super fat soap - also a fab soap, but ends up down the plughole very quickly! Trouble is that I am hoping that people will come back and buy again, so the soap has to be attractive and good value, which I think means reasonably long lasting. Am I overestimating the importance of bubbles? I guess it is all a balance in the end. Hadn't thought of sweet almond oil- I'll look into that. Presumably could use instead of some olive oil. Lots of good ideas - thanks very much.

 

[Seawolfe]

I get really good lather with sweet almond oil, coconut & sugar in the mix.

 

[kchaystack]

I have started using a dual lye recipe for all of my palm free veggie soaps. Here is DeeAnna's excellent webpage about the how to:

https://classicbells.com/soap/dualLye.html

The KOH creates more soluble soap, and that gets you better lather without having to use alot of coconut, palm kernal or babassu

 

[LilyJo]

We make a palm free soap using relatively high CO and tbh the feedback is pretty good - also doesnt seem to get used up too quickly unless people leave it sat in a mucky pile on the side!

The only thing I would say is dont get too hung up on lather or drying - everyone is different and has their own view. We have been testing new soaps for a whle now and every single one I reject as not having enough lather or being too drying someone else will say they love how bubbly it is and how silky their skin is afterwards!

 

[Candybee]

Have you tried mango butter? I love a mango and cocoa butter blend soap when I am not using palm or animal fats. Or even mango and shea together.

 

[Arimara]

You could try using babassu oil instead of coconut oil if you have the extra funds - it is supposed to be a non drying alterantive to CO. Alternatively, maybe you could try a batch of salt bars? Salt bars only use coconut oil, olive oil and salt and have about 20% super fat. They are both hard, mild, palm free and bubbly!
Good luck!

I use babassu oil and it can be deceptively drying if you're not careful. You can get away with using a little more of it than coconut oil but you do not want to get too carried away with an oil that has a higher cleansing rate than coconut oil does.

 

[Silver]

I use babassu oil and it can be deceptively drying if you're not careful. You can get away with using a little more of it than coconut oil but you do not want to get too carried away with an oil that has a higher cleansing rate than coconut oil does.

Oh, I had no idea! Ive only heard that babassu oil was supposed to be a good replacement for coconut oil and it was on my 'to get list'. Thanks for letting me know!

 

[toxikon]

Here's a good link to check out fatty acid profiles of different oils to tinker with recipes and oil replacements.

http://www.lovinsoap.com/oils-chart/

Cocoa butter seems to have fairly similar properties to palm/tallow/lard so that could be an option, depending on how expensive it is for you to buy.

I'd personally try a recipe something like this:

40% Olive Oil/Avocado (or combo)
30% Cocoa Butter
25% Coconut/Babassu (or combo)
5% Castor

3-5% SF

With 1-2 tbsp sugar PPO or sub aloe juice for water for a lather boost. And 5% KOH for lye.

 

[Arimara]

Oh, I had no idea! Ive only heard that babassu oil was supposed to be a good replacement for coconut oil and it was on my 'to get list'. Thanks for letting me know!

Don't get me wrong, it's a great soaping oil, albeit a tad pricey. I just want the newbies to keep in mind that it is still a cleansing oil and hangnails are no joke.

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

Hi all

Thanks for all these helpful replies and suggestions. That recipe looks good but also breaks the "rules" no cocoa butter over 15% or your soap will crack!!! (The other one being - no coconut oil over 30% or your skin will dry up). Perhaps I am getting too hung up on the "rules" and also am probably suffering from soap envy. I will try a few things though. But I guess LilyJo is right and what pleases one won't necessarily please another. I'll let you know if I achieve my dream recipe.

 

[aihrat]

Hi all

Thanks for all these helpful replies and suggestions. That recipe looks good but also breaks the "rules" no cocoa butter over 15% or your soap will crack!!! (The other one being - no coconut oil over 30% or your skin will dry up). Perhaps I am getting too hung up on the "rules" and also am probably suffering from soap envy. I will try a few things though. But I guess LilyJo is right and what pleases one won't necessarily please another. I'll let you know if I achieve my dream recipe.

I have plenty of recipes with 20% cocoa butter that don't crack, in part because they don't contain a high proportion of hard, brittle oils like coconut, palm, or animal fats. It's easier to break rules once you understand why they are there, so you can adjust the rest of your approach to reach the goal of the rule.

 

[TandCC]

Great info, Aihrat!
I experimented with Lol um Butter and loved how hard my bars got and lather was good too.

 

[toxikon]

You can make 100% cocoa butter soap if you want! There are a few "single oil" soap posts floating around the internet and I believe the 100% cocoa butter performs decently - not much lather but not brittle.

@aihrat is right, so much depends on your formula. If you follow the general formula of 60% hard oils and 40% soft oils, you can make many different combinations work.

 

[WeaversPort]

You can make 100% cocoa butter soap if you want! There are a few "single oil" soap posts floating around the internet and I believe the 100% cocoa butter performs decently - not much lather but not brittle.

@aihrat is right, so much depends on your formula. If you follow the general formula of 60% hard oils and 40% soft oils, you can make many different combinations work.

In my experiments I did a 100% cocoa butter soap, just to see what would happen.

You sum it up accurately - it's very hard (not brittle) and not a lot of lather. I'll probably cut it up and use it for embeds at some point, so as to use it.. But I wouldn't jump on it as a go-to soap.

 

[cherrycoke216]

Great info, Aihrat!
I experimented with Lol um Butter and loved how hard my bars got and lather was good too.

Hahaha! Must love autocorrect! I would like to try some kokum for Lol um effect!

 

[JuliaNegusuk]

Yes Aihrait, I have to admit I'm not a very scientific soaper. I do try a few experiments but I find the huge time that CP soap making takes is hugely frustrating - 4-6 weeks before you can even use your soap, and if you want to test things like longevity the another 6-8 weeks on top of that. At the moment with 4 recipes on the go I am doing everything 4 times. In the bath the other day I washed one arm with shea without caster, one arm with shea with castor, one leg each with shea and cocoa butter with and without caster etc . Its very exhausting. I've got all the different soaps in different colours so I can tell the difference and I've written all down with all the ingredients to last gram. I'm also testing essential oils and natural colourants, so I've paprika at trace, paprika in the lye sieved out, 5 fold orange oil, 10 fold orange at 2% and 3%, with patchouli and without, with powdered orange peel and without, and that's just the orange ones! I'm going to end up buried under a vast soap mountain. I was thinking of trying hot process to try and speed things up a bit but I've remembered I donated my mum's crockpot to the charity that I'm doing the soaps for! I'll have to try and cadge it back off them.

Happy times! Its certainly keeping me busy.