Hello evryone , from France !

[Emmanuel]

Hello evryone !

My name is Emmanuel , I live in France(english is not my first language).
I started soapmaking 4~5 years ago as a hobby then I did chemistry studies and started to work on the research field. However the idea of living of soapmaking started to be more and more present. In 2019 I decided I was going to create my soapmaking buisness and I will probably start launching it around april/may 2020. I don't know how it is in USA but in France it's quite a big decision to start a soap company because you need to be registered by the FDA equivalent and your soap formulation (even the simple ones) needs to be checked by a toxicologist.
The goal of my soap is to have very low impact soap. My soap contain generally 70% of oils grown in france (in order to limit the carbon footprint of the transport) and a large portion is grown organically (in order to reduce the impact of pesticide on insects and by extension birds and wildlife in general). I want to do 100% natural soap. I'm working on creating a soap formula that will contain only oil grown in france (the choice is quite limited as hard oils are not grown in france) and that will lather (I don't like castille soap to be honest).
I will also make other solid hygiene product.

As for me , as you could imagine I'm very environement friendly (well maybe more "environement angry" to be honest ^^). I'm also a big music fan , I listen a lot of metal (mainly athmospheric and black metal) and also new wave , cold wave , post rock etc ... Spirituality take a big place in my life and I'm interested in the occult , alchemy , paganism ,etc...

My goal here is to learn with y'all and share experiment. Also give some tips with the help of my knowledge in chemistry.

Have a nice day evrybody !

 

[Rsapienza]

Welcome Emmanuel. You've come to the right place for information! If it pertains to soap, there's a conversation about it here. There are some different views on 100% natural soap. One being that it really can't be 100% natural as we use sodium hydroxide to make it. I could be wrong but I've read that soap made with all soft oils can take FOREVER to cure (like more than a year). I'm not sure if that is true or not. Something else to research...LOL
Good luck with your business!

 

[Emmanuel]

Welcome Emmanuel. You've come to the right place for information! If it pertains to soap, there's a conversation about it here. There are some different views on 100% natural soap. One being that it really can't be 100% natural as we use sodium hydroxide to make it. I could be wrong but I've read that soap made with all soft oils can take FOREVER to cure (like more than a year). I'm not sure if that is true or not. Something else to research...LOL
Good luck with your business!

Thanks for the luck ^^
To be honest it's totally possible to do soft oil soaps and they don't take that long to cure , but they will always be really soft and maybe that's what people assume is "not enough curing". The real problem is the oxydation. Some of my soft oils experiment have turn totally orange ^^.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Bonjour! Welcome to the forum. You could look at making saline soaps too for a harder bar with the soft oils : )

 

[Rsapienza]

Thanks for the luck ^^
To be honest it's totally possible to do soft oil soaps and they don't take that long to cure , but they will always be really soft and maybe that's what people assume is "not enough curing". The real problem is the oxydation. Some of my soft oils experiment have turn totally orange ^^.

If they're soft, won't they waste away in the shower? That is a big reason many people don't buy handmade soaps. If not hard and formulated for longevity, they don't last very long.

 

[Emmanuel]

If they're soft, won't they waste away in the shower? That is a big reason many people don't buy handmade soaps. If not hard and formulated for longevity, they don't last very long.

that's true and non of my soft oil soap was sufficiently good to be selled , I'm first working on creating lather with local oil then the hardness as it is (in my opinion) much easier to control than lather.

Bonjour! Welcome to the forum. You could look at making saline soaps too for a harder bar with the soft oils : )

I'm actually curing a bar of castille with "sea water" ^^

 

[KiwiMoose]

Can you get some beeswax locally?

 

[Emmanuel]

Can you get some beeswax locally?

I was thinking of that : beeswax or clay , salt etc ... But I'm working on the lather right now
I perssonally love beeswax but I don't want to cut from my vegans customer ^^

 

[KiwiMoose]

You could do a range with beeswax for those that aren't vegan maybe. Gee - lathering oils that are local to France... must be difficult. How about putting some aloe in your soap? That's good for lather. I use it in most of mine - cut straight from my own garden.

 

[Emmanuel]

I didn't know about aloe ! Be sure I'll try.
What I discovered is that soap calc is mainly correct with lather calculation but not always ! sometimes you can get unexpected result from the combinaison of oils.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I didn't know about aloe ! Be sure I'll try.
What I discovered is that soap calc is mainly correct with lather calculation but not always ! sometimes you can get unexpected result from the combinaison of oils.

Just peel your aloe and blend it until a puree - it turns into a thin juice. Strain out any clumps. Use it as your full water content - or for at least 50% of your water content.

 

[SeaSuds]

As you aware, if you are hoping to sell in the future you will need to have safety data sheets for all of your ingredients. You can purchase the following additives (with data sheets) to boost lather: aloe vera powder, coconut milk powder and sorbitol which are all lovely. Beer and honey are lovely lather boosters too.

For butters, if you are happy to expand your range of ingredients to Europe and not just France then I believe that the mango butter I use comes from Italy. I also use soy wax in my soap (makes a creamy lather) and have recently discovered Eurosoy800 which is non gmo and grown in Europe.

 

[SeaSuds]

You might be interested in this thread too: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/dual-lye-castile.59747/

 

[shunt2011]

Hello and welcome!

 

[sirtim100]

A very warm welcome, Emmanuel!

 

[Emmanuel]

As you aware, if you are hoping to sell in the future you will need to have safety data sheets for all of your ingredients. You can purchase the following additives (with data sheets) to boost lather: aloe vera powder, coconut milk powder and sorbitol which are all lovely. Beer and honey are lovely lather boosters too.

For butters, if you are happy to expand your range of ingredients to Europe and not just France then I believe that the mango butter I use comes from Italy. I also use soy wax in my soap (makes a creamy lather) and have recently discovered Eurosoy800 which is non gmo and grown in Europe.

Thank you so much , this is great information !
Tbh , the mango butter probably came from mango grown outside of europe

 

[SeaSuds]

Aw that would be a real shame if they are misleading their customers

Uses: Typically used in lotions, body butters, balms, soaps, shaving cream, hair care products and lip balms.
Skin Type: All skin types, especially dry skin or skin suffering from eczema or dermatitis
Country of Origin: Italy
Product Type: 100% Pure Butter

 

[Emmanuel]

Aw that would be a real shame if they are misleading their customers

Uses: Typically used in lotions, body butters, balms, soaps, shaving cream, hair care products and lip balms.
Skin Type: All skin types, especially dry skin or skin suffering from eczema or dermatitis
Country of Origin: Italy
Product Type: 100% Pure Butter

The problem is that you can do french mango butter if the raw mango have been pressed into butter in france.

 

[Relle]

Welcome Emmanuel .

 

[szaza]

Welcome Emmanuel!
A very noble goal you have to soap with 70% locally grown oils! I've also had this thought about the footprint of all the exotic oils I use for hardness and bubbles, but didn't dare to go without them (yet). I'm very curious to see what you come up with!
One tip I can give you is that there are some threads (mainly by UK soapers) about rapeseed wax. That might be locally grown in France. (Though the thought also occurs to me, what's the environmental impact of the hydrogenation process?)
There are also some threads on hemp oil where a good lather is reported, maybe that's something you could look into?
Salt definitely helps with hardness and longevity but kills lather, so a high amount of salt is often offset by lots of coconut oil, which I guess is not what you want.. (unless if you open up a coconut plantation in the south of france)
A recipe I once used and quite liked (though still a bit slimy) was 92% olive oil, 3% beeswax and 5% castor (though I guess castor is not an option for you), white wine for full liquid and a pinch of salt added.

Happy soaping!