Formula Feedback Please - No Olive or Coconut

[Muskette]

Hi everyone! A customer has asked me to make her a custom batch of soap with no olive or coconut oil, no fragrance, and no color. She is allergic to many things, but has confirmed that she is ok with Palm, Avocado, and Rice Bran. She doesn't care if the soap doesn't lather well, and she'd also like a bamboo charcoal swirl in this soap. I've come up with a formula that I think would be good for her, but I'd love some feedback on it, and any issues I might have with it that I'm not thinking of. Thanks in advance!

 

[reinbeau]

I would up the PKO to 30 and lower the RBO and AO to 15. The problem is the palmitic acid, I think some people are sensitive to it, and this one is high in that. Upping the SF to 8% might help, might not.

 

[TeresaT]

Although I don't use any palm, I prefer lard, the numbers look good to me. You might want to toss in some sugar or honey to pump up the bubbles. I know she said she didn't care about the amount of bubbles, but that is minimal bubbling while being very creamy. I find it to be lotion-like in its consistency. This type of lather is my favorite, but most people want bubbles and a lighter feeling texture. Do you know if she has hard water or soft water? I would add a chelator to the soap just to be on the safe side. Citric acid (which you can find at your local grocery store in the canning section) is a good one to start with if you don't have sodium citrate or EDTA already. It will help reduce soap scum caused by hard water and help increase the bubbles a little bit. I have very hard water so I have to put it in every batch. I use sodium citrate because then I don't have to add extra NaOH to offset the citric acid. I did just buy a 5# bag of citric acid, though. So I'll be back to using that in a little while. However, I am going to switch to EDTA once I'm out of citric acid and sodium citrate. Is your customer opposed to using lard? Have you thought of substituting some of the palm/pko for lard? Lard makes an amazing bar of soap, and it's very white, too.

 

[Arimara]

It looks fine to me but the bar might be a little waxy. I think you can reallocate 10% of the palm to both the avocado and the PKO flakes equally and not have too bad a result. I'm also a little leery of the lye concentration but if you think it's fine, use it.

 

[cmzaha]

I would lower the palm to 40%, up the pko to 15%, lower the rbo to 15% and up the avocado oil with the balance. I find 50% palm makes a soap waxy and hard to lather up. I have used up to 30% avocado with no issues and know of one company that makes 100% avocado soap. I would also not go with 40% lye concentration with such high palm. I know some say it slows trace but I do not find it does. I like 34% lye concentration, but that is certainly up to you

 

[Muskette]

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I'm going to decrease the palm, slightly increase the PKO, and adjust the others as suggested. Teresa-T, thank you for suggesting lard, and while I do looove me some lard soap, the customer was very specific about the oils she wanted. I'll update with results. Thanks again!

 

[snappyllama]

If your customer would be okay with it, I'd probably take your recipe and substitute the water for goat milk, coconut milk, or aloe water. The milks will give a creaminess and the aloe will give a silkiness. Both enhance the bubbles.