butterfat equals lower conditioning & harder bar?

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Nite Hawk

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 31, 2013
Messages
172
Reaction score
16
would appreciate your feedback on these recipes. Always thought milk fat recipes would be more cinditioning, but it seems the numbers tell a different story..

olive oil 11.1 oz
p.k.o. 4.85
coco 1.7
castor- 1.45

Hardness-36
cleansing -22
conditioning -61
Bubbly-29
creamy 20
lye-2.65
------
second recipe--
Olive oil-11.1
PKO-4.85
coco-1.7
castor-1,45
butterfat-4.5

Hardness-40
Cleansing-21
conditioning-53
Bubbly-27
creamy--24
lye-3.33
7% discount
-----------------
Seems the lye goes up with the butterfat, and yet it seems when one replaces water with butterfat, and leave the butterfat out of the oil measure,, the lye remains the same..
any thoughts on why lye remains low on the when replacing butterfat with the water, and yet goes up when butterfat is added as am oil????
Any thoughts?
 
I've played around using butterfat, ghee & clarified butter in several different recipes and I've learned that it's not the best fat to use...several good "noses" here picked out a rather sour scent if you rub a dry bar with your fingers, but not noticeable in the shower...I couldn't detect it until I used 5% or more...even scenting with lavender didn't disguise it...I do have a neighbor that's in her 80's that absoloutely swears by my 15% butterfat soap (heavily scented with lavender & lemongrass)

IMHO, there's sooooo many other and better fats & oils out there to use, that in the future i'll pass on butter in soap.
 
"...lye goes up with the butterfat, and yet it seems when one replaces water with butterfat, and leave the butterfat out of the oil measure,, the lye remains the same. any thoughts on why...?"

The short answer to your question is that you are doing it wrong if you replace water with butterfat. The amount of water is not included when the lye is calculated for a particular recipe.

Butterfat is a fat that lye must saponify to make soap. Butterfat has to be included in the list of oils for the lye calculation so you use enough lye for the recipe. If you don't, you will end up with a mess.

In the first part of your message, you just tacked on 4.5 ounces of butterfat to your original recipe to make a new recipe with more fats in it. You are comparing apples to oranges.

If you want to compare "apples and apples", then replace some of the oils in your original recipe with the same amount of butterfat so your total oils remains the same. Then you will have a reasonable comparison of your two recipes.

I hope this helps.

Edit -- I am puzzling over your questions and had a question of my own. Are you confusing milk with butter, by any chance? Milk contains some butterfat, but is mostly water. Butter contains some milk but is mostly butterfat. The two products are not interchangeable.
 
Last edited:
Maybe I didn't make clear on "butterfat". when I think butterfat, I am meaning cream.
Is whole milk a better option than cream / butterfat? Possibly a better soap, less greasy more conditioning? I know so far one family member has done much better on the eczema issue on goats milk soap, but then I am not sure I have seen any soap calculator that deals with say cows milk versus goats milk...Thanks for the input.
 
"...when I think butterfat, I am meaning cream...."

Um, okay, but cream and butterfat are really not the same thing, so talking about "butterfat" when you mean "cream" is confusing. Butterfat (aka milk fat) is the pure fat found in dairy products. Cream (or milk) is only partly butterfat. You won't see "milk" or "cream" in a soap calculator, because only the "butterfat" counts when calculating the lye for a soap recipe.

"...Is whole milk a better option than cream ... ? Possibly a better soap, less greasy more conditioning?..."

I don't understand. Why do you think a soap made with cream will not be a good soap? Is there some experience you have had that has led you to think this soap will be greasy or will not be conditioning to the skin?

Whole milk, skim milk, low fat milk, half and half, single cream, double cream, whipping cream, heavy cream, yogurt, buttermilk, and butter can all be used to make fine soap. It's all in using a good recipe, understanding the ingredients, and making the soap correctly for those ingredients.

Whole milk and similar dairy products are a bit easier to use in a soap recipe because they can be handled more like water when figuring the recipe and making the soap. Ignore the butterfat in the whole milk when you do your recipe calculations -- just keep in mind the dab of butterfat in the milk will add about 1% of extra superfat to your recipe, assuming you are using whole milk produced in the USA.

If you want to use a dairy product with a higher fat content than whole milk -- such as any cream product or butter -- you really should calculate the amount of butterfat provided by the dairy and include that butterfat as part of the oils in your recipe. The rest of the liquid in the dairy product is included in the water phase of your recipe.

Anne Watson, in her book Milk Soapmaking, reports that her testers found no difference between cow's milk and goat's milk in blind testing of soaps from recipes she developed for her book. The testers did prefer milk soaps made with fluid milks better than soaps made with powdered or evaporated milks.
 
Last edited:
Having made plenty of butter from whole milk, ( probably around 5 % butterfat--Jersey milk ) raw cream can be on the greasy side of things to handle and work with...
When using whole 5% butterfat jersey milk instead of commercial milk, would it be an idea to slightly drop the superfatting?
 
The superfat would be raised roughly 2% if I used your Jersey milk for all of the water-phase liquid in a soap. If I ignored the butterfat when doing my lye calculations, then I would drop my calculated superfat a percent or two to compensate for the added butterfat. But that's me personally. I suspect there are others who would not make any adjustments, but I don't care to raise my superfat unless I have a specific reason.

As far as a soap being greasy or harsh due to the butterfat -- neither will happen if you design a reasonable recipe and make it properly. Butterfat is roughly comparable to palm oil, tallow, and lard in its general properties, so it can be used in place of a portion of these other fats.

I made a recipe recently using about 1/2 lb of cow's butter to contribute 16.5% of the fats in the recipe. I chose other oils to complement the butterfat, so the finished soap cleans gently, provides a lot of conditioning, and has a nice blend of creamy and bubbly lather. It is just 4 weeks old at the moment, but even my DH noticed and commented on this soap's full lather and mildness. It's most certainly not harsh nor greasy.
 
Is olive oil a good complimentary oil to butterfat? Not as hard and mild?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top