CP recipe advice for a special clientele

[cpacamper]

My daughter is a case manager at a homeless shelter and asked if I would volunteer to make soap for shelter residents and for men, women and children who reside in an offsite campground. My challenge is to make an effective cleansing soap that's healing, moisturizing, and gentle enough for all skin types.

I make a 40% beef tallow, 40% evoo, 15% coconut oil, 5% soap that my wife and I love. I think this recipe is moisturizing and gentle. I also think a coconut oil salt bar would be cleansing but maybe not so gentle. I think a salt bar would stay hard in less than ideal conditions faced by some homeless individuals and families.

My question is how do you think my 40, 40, 15, 5 recipe would work as a salt bar? Soleseife?

 

[new12soap]

I think your recipe looks good but I don't think it would work as a salt bar. Salt supresses lather, that's why most salt bars are all or nearly all coconut oil, it's the only soap bubbly enough to hold up to the salt.

Soap is never really moisturizing, just some are better than others at not overstripping the oils from your skin. Beware of saying things like "healing", that is a medical claim.

My advice would be to make your usual bar, I am sure it would work very very well, and kudos to you and your daughter for being so thoughtful for those less fortunate.

 

[Obsidian]

It really doesn't have enough coconut oil for a good salt bar. Salt bars are generally at least 70% coconut oil. I think your recipe sounds really good the way it is but I would probably replace the tallow with lard only because tallow is hard to get here.

If you want the bars to be a bit harder, try adding 1-2 tsp salt PPO. Dissolve it in the water before the lye. Adding in 5% castor somewhere will really increase the bubbles. No need to use EVOO either, you can use plain OO or pomace.

 

[CanaDawn]

I think your recipe looks good but I don't think it would work as a salt bar. Salt supresses lather, that's why most salt bars are all or nearly all coconut oil, it's the only soap bubbly enough to hold up to the salt.

Soap is never really moisturizing, just some are better than others at not overstripping the oils from your skin. Beware of saying things like "healing", that is a medical claim.

My advice would be to make your usual bar, I am sure it would work very very well, and kudos to you and your daughter for being so thoughtful for those less fortunate.

Seconding all of this.

 

[cpacamper]

It really doesn't have enough coconut oil for a good salt bar. Salt bars are generally at least 70% coconut oil. I think your recipe sounds really good the way it is but I would probably replace the tallow with lard only because tallow is hard to get here.

If you want the bars to be a bit harder, try adding 1-2 tsp salt PPO. Dissolve it in the water before the lye. Adding in 5% castor somewhere will really increase the bubbles. No need to use EVOO either, you can use plain OO or pomace.

Obsidian, is soleseife what you suggest? I live near a salt water bay, maybe I could just use seawater.

 

[cpacamper]

My advice would be to make your usual bar, I am sure it would work very very well, and kudos to you and your daughter for being so thoughtful for those less fortunate.

My daughter is an angel. In my completely unbiased, objective opinion of course

 

[Obsidian]

No, soleseife is 25% salt by water weight, Thats still enough to reduce lather. Adding a bit of salt to a regular recipe will help harden the bar though. I use 1 tsp PPO personally

 

[cmzaha]

I use 30% coconut oil in my soleseif soaps and they lather great. Salt and soleseif bars are one soap that my eczema loves. It does not love most soap. You certainly might try some soleseif bars. I make them with 35 Lad, 30 coconut, 15% palm, 6% castor with the remaining being whatever soft oils you like. I prefer avocado for it's h**ling properties. Nope I did not say that naughty h word..... I can say that my granddaughters very bad diaper rash will be better my 85% overnight with the use of avocado butter

 

[new12soap]

My daughter is an angel. In my completely unbiased, objective opinion of course

Of course! I absolutely believe you, both about your daughter and your objectivity.

As for your soap, since you are already comfortable making a soap that looks like it would be very gentle and mild, I would say there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. If you wanted to add some salt at 1 tsp ppo to help boost the hardness, I am sure that would work for you, but I would not recommend a salt bar or solesiefe (sp?) bar in these circumstances. Anyone that has ever used a salt bar on broken skin can tell you that the smallest scrape stings like heck, and again, I wouldn't want to mess too much with what looks like a good recipe for young and old.

In this particular case, even tho I love soaping with lard, if you can get it easily I would stick with tallow. Your coconut is on the low side and tallow is a little more bubbly and a little harder than lard. If you want to throw in some castor at 5% I would take that out of the olive oil.

JM2C

 

[cpacamper]

Of course! I absolutely believe you, both about your daughter and your objectivity.

As for your soap, since you are already comfortable making a soap that looks like it would be very gentle and mild, I would say there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. If you wanted to add some salt at 1 tsp ppo to help boost the hardness, I am sure that would work for you, but I would not recommend a salt bar or solesiefe (sp?) bar in these circumstances. Anyone that has ever used a salt bar on broken skin can tell you that the smallest scrape stings like heck, and again, I wouldn't want to mess too much with what looks like a good recipe for young and old.

In this particular case, even tho I love soaping with lard, if you can get it easily I would stick with tallow. Your coconut is on the low side and tallow is a little more bubbly and a little harder than lard. If you want to throw in some castor at 5% I would take that out of the olive oil.

JM2C

So I think I could just use ocean water and be OK? See below:

A teaspoon of the fine kosher sea salt in my kitchen cabinet weighs 6.22grams. Assuming my googling is correct, 100 grams of ocean water contains 3.5 grams of salt. My 500 gram oil weight tallow/oo/co/castor oil recipe at "full water" on soapcalc calls for 191 grams of water. If I use ocean water, I'm adding 6.685grams of salt, so if I cut down the water a bit ocean water works. Right?

 

[Susie]

The math is correct, but please think about filtering the ocean water before you put it into your soap. There are micro-organisms in ocean water that you probably don't want to add to soap. I think I would be guilty of just mixing the sea salt with water to use in my soap, but that is just me.

 

[CanaDawn]

there's a whole thread or two on using sea-water, and the end conclusion was that the lye would handily deal with anything. The average soaper hasn't got any sort of filter that would cope with the micro-organisms anyhow.

re the salt content, you're on the right track there. From one of the threads Seawolfe says " normal seawater is generally between 33-36 parts per thousand (ppt) which translates to 3.3-3.5% " http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showpost.php?p=432692&postcount=7

 

[cpacamper]

http://imgur.com/a/DuMw0

Link to pics of making the soap.