bubbly soap recipe

[phpworm]

I'm trying to come up with or find a recipe that has a crazy amount of bubbles, but is still low on the cleansing side (preferably 14 or lower) as this is for dry sensitive skin. The oils I have to work with are olive, coconut, castor, palm, palm kernel, shea butter, and soybean.

The main thing is that I want as many bubbles as possible. I've read that adding sugar helps, but I would like an already bubbly recipe to start with to see if I can't get even more with the added sugar.

Any ideas?

 

[dagmar88]

Well, just play around on soapcalc.net a bit.
Normally, when you keep your 'bubbly oil' (like coconut and pko) under 30, it won't be too hard on the skin. Especially in combo with higher levels of olive. Be sure to ad some 5-8% of castor to aid your bubbles.
Good luck!

 

[carebear]

and keep in mind that a more generous superfat/lye discount can counter the coconut's drying thing.

 

[phpworm]

Thanks. I was playing around with the calc the other night but having trouble getting the right numbers I'm after. I was hoping someone might have an existing "super bubble recipe" that has proven to work, which I could borrow from..

I'll keep trying!

 

[holly99]

I just sit around playing with SoapCalc a lot. Like now I'm watching Bonnie Hunt (waiting for The Pioneer Woman to be on!) and I just punch stuff in. I can't say that it's been overly successful but it is fun when you aren't pressed for time and can play around with it.

So far, I've found that to bring up the bubbly oils, my cleansing factor goes up too. Butters and higher superfat brings the lather back down to more lotion-like. Same with milks. I've tried doing a high coconut oil bar but it was just too harsh even with the high superfat. (I know a good bar can be made this way though, but mine wasn't).

So keep playing and let us know if you come up with something! I'll let you know if I do too.

 

[MikeInPdx]

Thanks. I was playing around with the calc the other night but having trouble getting the right numbers I'm after. I was hoping someone might have an existing "super bubble recipe" that has proven to work, which I could borrow from..

I'll keep trying!

Here's one to plug in to soap calc and see if you like the numbers.....try this on for size as a starting point and play from there!

Palm 35%
Olive 30%
Coconut (76 deg, solid) 20%
Soybean Oil 10%
Castor Oil 5%

Here are the numbers for that recipe...

Hardness 39
Cleansing 14
Conditioning 57
Bubbly 18
Creamy 30
Iodine 63
INS 146

Have fun.....just don't go much above 10% on the castor or you run the risk of a sticky soap.

 

[honor435]

i tried coming up with something, but that cleansing number is too low for high bubbles, does that make sense? ive made some really nice moisturizing soap with cleansing number at 20-22. Usually pko and coc and oo and castor makes a nice bubbly soap, with a little shea very nice.
heres one
oo 12
co 9
po 4
shea 4
castor 3 oz 10.5 water 4.4 lye hard 40
cleansing 19
cond 56
bubbles 27
creamy 29
or co 5
oo 11
po 5
pk 5
shea 4
castor 3 10.8 water 4.5 lye 41, 20,55, 28, 29
so, you can do high bubbles, but the cleansing number goes up.

 

[Christianbeauty]

So I am not sure completley about percentages....i speak in terms of oz.

I just made a soap tonight --still pretty amateur to hot processing...
So ultra bubbles for a small 2 lb batch of soap...you can play with the ounces as others mentioned

I used:
Olive oil - 16 oz
Coconut Oil - 12 oz
Palm - 8.4 oz
Then:
Lye - 4.8 oz
Coconut Milk/Water - 10.7 oz


I believe that the coconut milk aided in the production of a rich lather with a high intense bubble factor paired with that coconut oil! It was a soft soap--it was orange from the unrefined palm oil

 

[dagmar88]

Hi Christianbeauty, you can easily covert your oz to percentages when using soapcalc.net. Just fill in all of your oils in oz, press calculate recipe and it will instantly show the %.

 

[phpworm]

I came up with a recipe and gave it a try with the following numbers,

hardness: 29
cleansing: 14
conditioning: 67
bubbly: 59 (woo!)
creamy: 60
iodine: 62
ins: 136

Just cut it up and doesn't look bad. Has a green apple/menthol smell to it. I used a 25% water discount to harden it up and also added sugar for that extra bubble. Will need to let it sit for a couple weeks before I'm ready to test it out but when I do I'll let you know and maybe add some pictures if it works.

 

[holly99]

Wowza, how did you get such a high bubble number with a low cleansing number?

 

[honor435]

really, what is it? the highest bubbles ive ever done is 30 and that made my cleansing 20. tell us, pleasssse.

 

[holly99]

really, what is it? the highest bubbles ive ever done is 30 and that made my cleansing 20. tell us, pleasssse.

Yeah, that's the best I've gotten too.

 

[Ollieblue]

..........

 

[phpworm]

Yeah, I used a lot of castor. With the water discount and the preparation (I added my lye to the castor first) I'm hoping to avoid the "sticky" issue.

 

[honor435]

i dont know if thats going to be good soap, i can give you a recipe with 30 for bubbly, it is creamy and bubbly and not slimy, let me know.

 

[ohsoap]

Since we are talking about bubbly soaps, I have a question...
I can never seem to get my bubbly past 23 or my cleansing below 19, my soaps are always very creamy though, which I love. However one of my girlfriends said that "the soap was nice, but did have a lot of bubbles."
Will adding sugar make a noticable difference, or should I be considering a new formula?
Can my soap still be creamy? AND bubbly? I seem to either have one or the other.

 

[holly99]

I found a recipe that is a happy balance between bubbly and creamy.
The bubbly is only 26 but it starts with big, poofy bubbles and then calms to soft, foamy bubbles and for me it feels like I'm washing with bubbly lotion. So for me it is perfect. But it does seem that the kind of water you have, soft or hard, makes a big difference on bubbles and such. So for my water, it's the perfect combo.

My recipe uses olive, palm, coconut, castor, mango butter, and avocado.
I haven't really tried working PKO in there yet but I know it ups the bubbly.

Hardness 41
Cleansing 17
Condition 56
Bubbly 26
Creamy 33
Iodine 56
INS 155

ETA: I do add sugar and salt to my lye water but I've not tried the recipe without them so don't really know the difference.

 

[artisan soaps]

..

 

[phpworm]

Please share your recipe in % amounts so we may try it too ..

castor oil (50%)
palm oil (25%)
palm kernel oil (11%)
coconut oil (11%)
olive oil (3%)