Butter recipe advice please

[Hermanam]

I haven't used many butters in my soaps, and I would like to experiment with a blend. Any thoughts on this recipe?

5% cocoa butter
5% Shea butter
5% mango butter
5% castor oil
25% coconut oil
25% palm oil
30% olive oil (or I also have rice bran oil, or sunflower oil??...which would be better?)

I would love some feedback on this blend and the percentages. I am looking for a fairly hard bar that is also moisturizing, with good creamy lather (lol...aren't we all?!?)

Thanks so much!
Ann

 

[judymoody]

Looks like a very nice soap. I would use olive oil as opposed to rice bran or sunflower.

With all of those saturated fats, your soap may come to trace faster and be more prone to heating/gelling. Shouldn't be a problem unless you prefer ungelled soap.

 

[squigglz]

It may also take a bit longer to harden. It seems it will be very nice, but need a good long cure.

 

[judymoody]

It may also take a bit longer to harden. It seems it will be very nice, but need a good long cure.

?? Why would a soap with only 35% liquid oil and the reminder saturated butters and fats take longer to harden?

 

[squigglz]

?? Why would a soap with only 35% liquid oil and the reminder saturated butters and fats take longer to harden?

Not a clue, but it's something I've noticed, as I soap with butters quite often. Even at 5%, they take a lot longer to harden than my soaps without butters.

 

[Hermanam]

Judymoody, thanks for the feedback. Just curious why you recommend olive oil over rice bran or sunflower? What about those two are less desirable?

I always gel my soaps, so no worries there. Just looking for the goldilocks of soaps...not too hard, not too soft, but just right

I wasn't sure if using this much butter, with palm oil and coconut oil, would be a problem. I will watch for quick trace...will soaping at higher temps help that (so the solids don't resolidify)?

 

[Saswede]

I have used a combination of Shea and cocoa butters quite a often, and have never noticed that the bars take longer to harden ...... But I'll look out for this in the future.

However I did want mention that I recently used mango butter for the first time, and had to really hurry to get the soap into the mold because it set up so quickly. I didn't use an EO or a FO, but I did add some dried hibiscus flowers at trace (which I had read can cause problems in soap because they're acidic). So I'm not sure whether it was the mango butter or the flowers that speeded things up - but would suggest that you may want to be ready with your molds and any additives, etc in case the same happens using all 3 butters!


Sent from my iPad using Soap Making

 

[judymoody]

Judymoody, thanks for the feedback. Just curious why you recommend olive oil over rice bran or sunflower? What about those two are less desirable?

I always gel my soaps, so no worries there. Just looking for the goldilocks of soaps...not too hard, not too soft, but just right

I wasn't sure if using this much butter, with palm oil and coconut oil, would be a problem. I will watch for quick trace...will soaping at higher temps help that (so the solids don't resolidify)?

I have used OO and RBO and while I like RBO, I like the feel of the OO soaps better, overall. However, I prefer RBO in lotion. They are pretty similar chemically. Sunflower has a slightly shorter shelf life - it is also a nice soaping oil but I prefer the most stable oils I can find.

 

[Hermanam]

Thanks for the advice on the oils...I'm always interested in learning why soapers prefer certain oils/butters over others. I just finished making the butter blend recipe. It went okay, but I could tell things were thickening up and getting a little lumpy toward the end. Definitely one to move along quickly, but I am eager to see how things turned out when I unmold. I'll post an update...thanks for the advice.

 

[kazmi]

I'm curious to hear your update since I've never used more than one butter at a time. With winter coming I should give it a try.

Sometimes I like using RBO in place of half of the OO since, even though they have similar qualities, I find I can use less palm due to the hardness quality of RBO versus OO.