Confused about Oleic fats in soap
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It depends on the person, some will like it, others won't. Personally, I don't like really high oleic soap. It dries my skin out and just doesn't feel like it cleans well. My go to recipe has 42 oleic but I'm going to start using a different recipe that is only 36 oleic.
I'm sort of leaning towards that you don't really need to care about how much oleic acid you have in a recipe. Most of the times when people talked about high amounts of oleic acid as a bad thing is in the context of Castile soaps, or other soaps with high amount of olive oil. Castile soaps will make weird slimy lather that most people don't like.
But with a well balanced recipe you never really have to worry about that.
But with a well balanced recipe you never really have to worry about that.
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Ditto what Obsidian said, it depends on the person- some folks like it while other folks don't.
Group me with the folks that like it and find it to be desirable. The thing that makes it desirable to me is what I call the 'oomphy factor', for lack of a better term.
I find that it adds a certain oomphy dimension to my lather (the same with ricinoleic acid from castor oil), or a certain 'body', if you will. It's hard to describe, but one of the best explanations I can give is that it makes the lather feel richer to me- like it has more depth to it. A good example of this is 'oomphy factor' is the comparison of 2 different soaps that I made: 1) a 100% coconut oil soap with a 20% superfat, and 2) a 100% hydrogenated PKO soap with a 20% superfat:
Both made super-bubbly soaps with a copious amount of lather, but I found there to be a definite difference in the 'feel' of the lather of each, and that I much preferred the lather of the coconut oil soap over the PKO soap. The difference was that the lather of the coconut oil soap had more depth or 'oomph' to it and felt more luxuriant to me in comparison..... sort of like the difference one would notice if they were to compare drinking 1% milk to drinking whole milk or maybe even cream. In looking at the fatty acid profiles of each oil, I noticed that coconut oil has twice the amount of oleic acid compared to hydrogenated PKO.
Even though I find oleic acid to be desirable in my soap, there does come a point of diminishing returns where I find that too much starts to affect my lather in a negative way, at least for me and the type of lather I prefer- basically, it starts producing too much 'slime' for me.
For what it's worth, I have 2 favorite, well-balanced formulas that I make the most out of all my formulas - an all-veggie 50% OO formula and a tallow/lard formula. The 50% OO contains 41% oleic acid and the tallow/lard contains 35%. Both produce desirably 'oomphy' lather to my satisfaction without tipping over into the 'slimy zone'.
IrishLass
This is the formula I experimented with tonight. I think it might be higher in Oleic than I usually make. This is the first time I have used Safflower oil and it is a clearly stated on the bottle it is high oleic. I wanted to have a light soap base because of the fragrance oil I was using. So I used the safflower oil and lard to start out as light as I could.
I think the balance is okay. Welcome opinions if anyone wants to suggest tweets to the formula.
This was very slow moving. I soaped at about 100 degrees and had lots of time for swirls. I tried a new hanger swirl that was posted recently.
This is a picture of what it looks like in the mold.
You may want to recalculate your recipe and choose High Oleic Safflower rather than plain safflower, if you want to see a more accurate fatty acid profile for your recipe.
In my experience, I don't see the classic slimy oleic soap behavior come out strongly until the recipe is around 60% or more oleic acid.
In my experience, I don't see the classic slimy oleic soap behavior come out strongly until the recipe is around 60% or more oleic acid.
