feels sticky when I wash my hands with it

[soapshark]

My current castile soap feels drying and sticky for handwashing.
I want to create a liquid hand soap.

My friend gave me some of her castile soap to use so before I go make my own, I want to figure out how to improve this for a good hand soap formula.

First - what causes the sticky feeling when using it to wash hands?

I tried adding some aloe, some more glycerin and some vitamin E to the finished product. Still sticky and drying.

is there anything I can add/change to help with this unpleasant feeling when using it for hands?

Current ingredients are sunflower oil, safflower, coconut oil, rosemary extract, vegetable glycerin, vitamin E and aloe

 

[Susie]

If you could post your entire recipe in weights, it would help us troubleshoot. Include how much lye and water, all additives, and the date it was made.

 

[IrishLass]

Do you know what method she used when making it (Catherine Failor's method or the glycerin method), or if it has a superfat? Those would be good things to know because if she used the Failor method, that one always starts with a 10% lye excess or something like that, which is then neutralized down to either a 0% superfat or maybe slightly higher. Many find her method to make a somewhat drying soap (unless superfatted extra).

I myself use the glycerin method when making liquid soap and I superfat from 3% to 6% (depending on my formula- I have 2). My hands feel great after washing with them and need no lotion, but of course everyone's mileage concerning that will vary depending on their skin-type.

As for stickiness- I do find the glycerin method to leave a sticky feeling on my hands right after washing and drying them, but it only lasts for a fleeting 5 seconds before it totally goes away. I've gotten so used to it now that I hardly even notice it anymore.

If you add more glycerin to an already diluted/ finished liquid soap, it will only make the sticky feeling worse. However, to combat dryness, you can superfat it by adding a little bit of oil and an equal amount of an emulsifier like PS80 to make sure the oil does not separate out. I would start with 1% oil/PS80 as per the weight of the soap, stir it in well, see how it feels, and then tweak from there if need be.


IrishLass

 

[sudsy_kiwi]

I just want to clarify something here. I've seen several threads where people describe their skin as feeling "sticky" after washing, and I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding things right. To me, "sticky" would describe the feeling of my skin after (for example) getting honey on it...a stickiness, tackiness or adherence. I've never had soap leave my skin feeling that way.

I have however had soap leaving my skin feeling kind of "tight", which I've described as a dry feeling. But on reflection, running my hand over skin that feels this way, it does kind of "stick" to the skin, as in there's a feeling of more friction to the skin. My hand doesn't just glide across the skin as it normally would. I put this down to the oils being stripped from the skin, hence why I refer to it as "dry". Is this what people mean when they say that soap leaves their skin feeling "sticky"? Have I just been misinterpreting words and using the wrong descriptor? Or are their people out there whose skin actually feels tacky after washing?

 

[galaxyMLP]

This sounds to me, like you have hard water and the sticky feeling comes from soap scum forming on your hands.

I get that sticky feeling from my soaps, less so with Castile then say lard based soaps.

Try using distilled water to wash your hands and see if you still get that sticky feeling. If you don't, it sounds like it's soap scum. To fix that you will have to reformulate the soap with a chelator like sodium citrate or EDTA. That helps really reduce soap scum. Sometimes soap scum can be physically irritating to the skin.

ETA: kiwi, yes, in hard water my hands actually feel sticky after using certain soaps like lard or high palm soaps.

 

[Obsidian]

I've gotten that sticky feeling with soap that has a higher amount of butters, it goes away once the skin is completely dry.

 

[IrishLass]

Just to clarify, the initial sticky feeling that I get just after washing my hands with my glycerin liquid soap is the kind of stickiness/tackiness one would get from having a little bit of residual honey on one's skin, or if I had spilled a little bit of sugary fruit juice on my hands, or if some little kid came up to me and touched me with his hand that had just been holding a bunch of gummy worms or some other kind of sticky candy. My skin doesn't feel tight at all, but just sticky/tacky for a brief 5 seconds before disappearing. Lots of people over on that loooong Dish thread on glycerin liquid soap were experiencing the same brief sticky issue with their glycerin liquid soap.


IrishLass

 

[not_ally]

When I say "sticky" I am describing the feeling IL is above. Re soap scum, I have the hardest water on earth, it generated so much scum that I ended up throwing away hundreds of my bars from my initial batches (30 or 40) b/c they just created too much gross scum to use in the shower (I use a chelator/EDTA now to avoid that.) They did not feel sticky though, even with lard, they just made a nasty mess that I did not want to make my giftees clean up.

 

[Obsidian]

My high lard bars make quite a lot of scum, it leaves a residue on my skin but it doesn't feel sticky. The OP mentions its drying, I have to wonder how much coconut is in the recipe.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I wonder if an actual Castile (only olive oil, which isn't even in the recipe) would be a better option here?

Fwiw, I know that some places describe a Castile as any vegetarian soap, but that is just far too broad of a categorization to be in any way useful.