For The Love of SOY: CALLING All Soy Wax Soapers

[zolveria]

New Year New Formulation

Here is what i did. no im waiting to see how hard we gonna get. without palm or SB or CB

soy wax 20%
CO 30
Castor 10
OO 14
Sunflower 12
Rice 14

Super Fat 4%

water 26.5
lye 35

65g of water is Aloe Juice (Chilled) the rest distilled.
heated SW to 150 oil to 160 then i Mixed both.. temp then was at 159 or so
Lye water was at 120 when i added to oils.

SOY WAX is new Territory for me

So what im hoping for is a quick unmolding.. any experts on how quick soy wax unmold is..
WHAT YALL THINK!

 

[dixiedragon]

No experience soaping with soy wax. I am eager to see your results.

 

[earlene]

I've only soaped with it once. Saranac has a lot of experience with soy wax. She is the one who inspired me to try it.

To answer you question about unmolding, it was one I asked and she answered in another thread here.

Saranac said she usually unmolds about 20-24 hours. When I made mine in Dec. I did not write down how long before I unmolded, but it did not seem to take any longer than I would have expected in reference to when I normally unmold my other soaps, or I would have made a note of it.

 

[zolveria]

I've only soaped with it once. Saranac has a lot of experience with soy wax. She is the one who inspired me to try it.

To answer you question about unmolding, it was one I asked and she answered in another thread here.

Saranac said she usually unmolds about 20-24 hours. When I made mine in Dec. I did not write down how long before I unmolded, but it did not seem to take any longer than I would have expected in reference to when I normally unmold my other soaps, or I would have made a note of it.

I recorded the time trace and when i molded.. it did take a good 5-10 minutes to trace. so i guess this recipe would be a nice one to the swirls..
I a coconut soaper..(unmolding is 8 hours but longevity is at a 0) but am looking for longevity. I read that SW give you that longevity we get for tallow and lard. ( is this true?)

 

[earlene]

Like I said, I've only made one soy wax soap so far and that was just last month. I can't really answer longevity yet as I haven't even used the soap yet. It's only 4 weeks old. I suppose I could start using one of the small pieces.

Okay, I just washed my hands with it and I love the bubbly, creamy lather and luscious feel on my hands as I washed. The recipe I used was: 30% Soy Wax, 20% HO Sunflower, 20% RBO, 17% CO, 10% Hemp Oil, 3% Castor; 2% SF, [33% Lye Concentration]. I still need to wait and see if my skin remains non-dry as I just washed my hands. I don't usually use soap at 4 weeks because I have so much of it, I tend to wait for a longer cure. And early soap tends to dry my skin out more than older soap.

 

[zolveria]

Like I said, I've only made one soy wax soap so far and that was just last month. I can't really answer longevity yet as I haven't even used the soap yet. It's only 4 weeks old. I suppose I could start using one of the small pieces.

Thanks: Let me know.. I will also let you know how mine turns out..
so far i took a peek. it was firm to touch. I cant wait till i use it.. hoping it feels the same as my coconut :/

Guess we will keep each other Posted..

Have a blessed day.

 

[MorpheusPA]

I use it quite a lot as well, at amounts from 10 to 40 percent (only go that high if a somewhat waxy bar won't bother you and you've offset it with a lot of coconut for solubility and lather--I use that in my gardener's soap.

It never seems to trace terribly quickly for me at lower levels, nor does it appreciably accelerate removal time by that much. On the latter, I get better results from sodium lactate and CPOP, where the soap is ready to come out as soon as it cools completely.

In modest amounts, it adds a ton of hardness to the bar with no lather suppression.

And yes, it increases bar longevity significantly over coconut. Even over lard and tallow, really! Soy wax is composed of 87% stearic acid and 11% palmitic, so that should be expected but, unlike stearic acid, it's still a triglyceride so it doesn't accelerate trace nearly as much as stearic acid does.

The only current down side I can find is the rapidly increasing prices as hydrogenated oils are removed from cooking oils. That's going to jack up the price for us and for candle-makers who use soy wax.

 

[IrishLass]

Uh oh.....I feel an experiment coming on. Y'all are such enablers!

What kind of soy wax do you recommend using? I ask because I've noticed that there a few different kinds out there, such as soy wax for container candles, soy wax for pillar candles, etc.... Some have melting points between 115F -120F, while others, such as the one from MMS that I'm eyeing, have a melt of about 150F. I'm thinking that highest melt point is best?


IrishLass

 

[earlene]

Okay, I just washed my hands with it and I love the bubbly, creamy lather and luscious feel on my hands as I washed. The recipe I used was: 30% Soy Wax, 20% HO Sunflower, 20% RBO, 17% CO, 10% Hemp Oil, 3% Castor; 2% SF, [33% Lye Concentration]. I still need to wait and see if my skin remains non-dry as I just washed my hands. I don't usually use soap at 4 weeks because I have so much of it, I tend to wait for a longer cure. And early soap tends to dry my skin out more than older soap.

Well after washing my hands with it hours ago, and having no dryness of skin the rest of the day, I am very happy with it. Great bubbly creamy lather, luscious feel on the skin made me want to keep on lathering and not rinse. It looked and felt great as a soapy experience. So now I have to compare it to the other soaps I made without soy using the same recipe (other than changing out another oil for soy with each of 4 or 5 recipes) and do comparative tests with each. Note-keeping along the way of course.

Uh oh.....I feel an experiment coming on. Y'all are such enablers!

What kind of soy wax do you recommend using? I ask because I've noticed that there a few different kinds out there, such as soy wax for container candles, soy wax for pillar candles, etc.... Some have melting points between 115F -120F, while others, such as the one from MMS that I'm eyeing, have a melt of about 150F. I'm thinking that highest melt point is best?


IrishLass

I believe on Saranac's recommendation I looked for AkoSoy (415) Wax. It has a melting point of 120-125F. This is what I bought from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RFWG3V6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[MorpheusPA]

Candlewic's Soy 120 is also listed as pure soy. Some soy waxes might otherwise be a hydrogenated soy and hydrogenated palm blend, which isn't really an issue unless you're avoiding using palm oil (which I do). Chemically they're a lot alike.

 

[IrishLass]

Thank you Earlene and Morpheus!


IrishLass

 

[zolveria]

Well after washing my hands with it hours ago, and having no dryness of skin the rest of the day, I am very happy with it. Great bubbly creamy lather, luscious feel on the skin made me want to keep on lathering and not rinse. It looked and felt great as a soapy experience. So now I have to compare it to the other soaps I made without soy using the same recipe (other than changing out another oil for soy with each of 4 or 5 recipes) and do comparative tests with each. Note-keeping along the way of course.



I believe on Saranac's recommendation I looked for AkoSoy (415) Wax. It has a melting point of 120-125F. This is what I bought from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RFWG3V6/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Getting ready for work.. i always use it right after 24H after i cut.. cleansig value at 20 and conditioning at 45 .. I felt squeeky clean.. but i did not add my silk to the soap.. just aloe water. so.. we will see by the end of FEB.. and in march what it feels like.... will make another batch tomorrow with SIlk..my skin felt tacky afterward. more like squeeky. but it could be that it still going through its process.. unlike my coconut soap.. I can use it quickly and not squeeky clean..
maybe i should up the SF a bit.. from 4 to 7 or 8.. any advice ?

 

[Saranac]

Not much I can add. In a recent thread, I added some updates about how I handle soy wax. I won't bore anyone, but if you want to know more, check out my response (post 12) here. earlene was kind enough to also link some older posts to that thread.

As for the type of soy wax, I buy mine from NG; it's their NG 100% Soy Wax. When shopping for soy wax for soap, be sure that it DOES NOT contain any candle additives (hardeners and the like). Look for something that states that it's safe for food consumption. The 100% Soy Wax from NG fits that bill, but they have others that don't. This particular wax is Golden Foods 415 soy wax (although the case label reads AkoSoy; I think they bought-out or merged with GF).

With shaving soap being the exception, I don't go over 40%. Truthfully, since SW is almost 100% stearic/palmitic, there's rarely a need to go over 40%. Even a 100% lard bar is only about 41% stearic/palmitic. With that said, I've used it at 40%, but to echo MorpheusPA, the lather was lacking (with 20% coconut and 5% KOH). These days I keep it at about 35% and like the results very much.

I keep my SF low. When I first started testing, I made a SW batch and a lard batch; both at 5% SF. I tweaked both in SoapCalc until the FA profiles were "close enough for government work." After a 4 week cure, I felt as if the SW batch wasn't rinsing as well as the lard. I attributed this to too much SF and started dropping the level of SF in subsequent batches. Others may have a different experience.

 

[zolveria]

OMG OMG.. WELL IT BEEN a few weeks.. I love the soy soap.. It just needed To settle a bit.. it feels amazing.. and the bar keeps it shape. last much longer also.. I AM SOLD ON SOY WAY

 

[Complexions]

I use soy wax in almost all my soaps, I love it! I have noticed prices are going up a bit though :-(