How can I make this soap more slippery?

[narnia]

Hi everyone! I have a recipe that I would like to make more slippery, so that it can be used for shaving as well as full-body use.

6% Beeswax
3% Palm kernel oil flakes
7% Shea butter
20% Coconut oil
40% Olive oil
17% Castor oil
7% Sweet almond oil

What can I change or add to make more slippery? I have seen some recipes with bentonite clay. What does that do?

Thank you for your help in advance!

 

[mx5inpenn]

First thing I would do is eliminate the beeswax. It tends to make soap draggy in my opinion. Or even reducing it to 2% (I typically see it used at 1-3%) should make a difference.

Adding kaolin clay also helps with slip.

 

[narnia]

First thing I would do is eliminate the beeswax. It tends to make soap draggy in my opinion. Or even reducing it to 2% (I typically see it used at 1-3%) should make a difference.

Adding kaolin clay also helps with slip.

Thank you! I don't have Kaolin....would bentonite work as well?

So, if I reduce the beeswax, what would I sub the other 3% with? Clay? Or more of one of the oils?

 

[Nao]

If you have no problems with animal fats I would add a big portion of tallow, it's like the slipperyest ting in the world and used a lot in shaving soap for that reason.

Also drop the castor to 5%, more than that doesn't really add anything good.

You would also like to formulate your recipe to end up with about a 50/50 ratio of hard/liquid oils with you are nowhere near at the moment. I recommend playing around in a soap calculator with whatever oils you have available until you have a soap with its property numbers within range.

I'm under the impression that a fair number of people uses their salt soaps as both body and shaving soaps, so that is also an alternative that might be easier if you don't have much experience with soap making.

 

[biarine]

Beeswax makes a soap bar feeling waxy.
Try to put kaolin clay and silk.

 

[psfred]

I think you will be disappointed trying to make a dual purpose shaving/body soap -- the characteristics that make one good are very undesirable in the other.

Good, slick shaving soap (especially for face shaving) requires a very high stearic acid content (50% or more in the fatty acid profile) and fairly low oleic and linoleic acids. Typically this is accomplished by adding purified stearic acid and glycerine to the rest of the oils, and most people also want around 30% tallow.

Body shaving is easier, as the hair is finer as a rule and daily shaving isn't necessary, so a less lubricating soap would be more acceptable.

That said, adding clay to a bath soap isn't gonna make much of a shaving soap out of it, at least by my standards.

Your recipe should make a very nice bath/body soap. For shaving soap, I'd try:

50% stearic acid (really stearic and palmitic mixed, which is fine)
30% tallow or lard
10% Coconut oil
5% Cocoa butter
5% shea butter.

glycerine at 10% of oil weight

60% KOH/40% NaOH for lye (or 100% KOH)

Hot process (the stearic acid will seize in CP) and add half the cocoa and shea butters after the cook.

This makes a delightful shaving soap that lasts a very long time. Lather will dry in place rather than collapse, and it takes very little to shave with (although I have no experience with shaving anything but my face). Very slick.

Make a 100 gram batch and see what you think, I suspect you will not try to make a dual purpose soap instead.

 

[narnia]

Thank you, PSFred, for giving me a recipe. That gives me a much better understanding!

 

[psfred]

Glad to pass along what I've learned.

If you want to read a LONG thread on shaving soap, search for SongWind. Very long read, but worth it if you want to make shaving soap.

 

[toxikon]

My regular lard recipe has plenty of slip and slide to it! I add 1tbsp bentonite PPO.

60% lard
20% olive
15% coconut
5% castor

 

[cmzaha]

Thank you! I don't have Kaolin....would bentonite work as well?

So, if I reduce the beeswax, what would I sub the other 3% with? Clay? Or more of one of the oils?

Clay
s an additive not a replacement for oils or waxes. If you are making a shave soap for legs using lard will give nice slip. A bar soap does not give the glide or cushion required for face shaving.

 

[Rune]

Soft oils + waxes = hard oils, or?

You would also like to formulate your recipe to end up with about a 50/50 ratio of hard/liquid oils with you are nowhere near at the moment.

Isn't it possible to just make hard oils? I mean, what makes an oil hard in the first place? So, let's say you take some stearic acid and melt it in olive oil, and let it cool. Wouldn't that be the same as a hard oil? It will be solid in room temperature, anyway.

I am a total newbie, but I wonder about such things for a reason:

1: A selection of hard oils are almost impossible to find here, I know of only two.
2: They are very expensive.
3: Only one of them can be used, since the other is a mixed product of several oils, and impossible to calculate lye from unless the manufacturer gives out the recipe.
4: Soft oils are available here, and two of them are very cheap

I guess it is somewhat like that in other countries as well, maybe.

If I should use 50% hard oils, that would mean 50% coconut, which is said to be drying for the skin. And it would be a very expensive soap. Not worth it at all.
So I try to go back to basics and thing about things, from scratch, to see if something can be reproduced from other substances. And hard oils seems to me like soft oils blended with hard components, like waxes. But I don't know.

And does it have to be around 50% hard oils if the soap ends up being rock hard in the end by addition of beeswax, stearic acid, clay and maybe salt?

I'm also a bit concerned about clay. Wouldn't it clog the drains? Clay can't be destroyed by a regular drain opener/lye, so it have to be mechanically pushed out. Clay is like THE worst thing to get in the drains, because it will solidify. But I guess it depends on the particle size of the clay if they will be flushed out immediately or clump together here and there. The finer the clay the better for the drains.

 

[DeeAnna]

Although the phrase "hard fat" is often used loosely, it does have a specific meaning in soaping.

"Hard" fats are the fats high in palmitic and stearic acids. Lard, tallow, palm, and the butters -- cocoa, shea, mango, etc.

"Brittle" fats are fats high in lauric and myristic acids. Coconut oil, babassu, palm kernel.

Liquid fats (soft fats) are fats high in oleic, linoleic, and/or linolenic acids. They can be further divided into high oleic and low oleic fats. Moderate to high oleic -- olive, high oleic sunflower, HO safflower, avocado, rice bran, etc. Low oleic -- flaxseed, grapseed, corn (maize), soy, standard sunflower, standard safflower, etc.

Fats used in soap add glycerin to the final soap. Fatty acids used in soap do not. This may or may not be important to a soap maker, but it's a point to know.

Wax, clay, and salt may contribute hardness-like-a-rock and perhaps some longevity to the soap. But they are considered "fillers" in that they don't make actual soap.

Many fillers have been used over the centuries, including potatoes and other starchy foods, washing soda (calcium carbonate), silica and silicates, and even water. Too much "filler" and the soap is not very useful nor pleasant to use.

Soap has historically been made from fats available in the soap maker's local region. This includes fats recovered from textile manufacturing, kitchens, bones, and other sources we normally don't think of when we make soap nowadays. So if certain fats aren't available in a given region, the soap maker simply has to adapt to what is available.

 

[penelopejane]

I'm also a bit concerned about clay. Wouldn't it clog the drains? Clay can't be destroyed by a regular drain opener/lye, so it have to be mechanically pushed out. Clay is like THE worst thing to get in the drains, because it will solidify. But I guess it depends on the particle size of the clay if they will be flushed out immediately or clump together here and there. The finer the clay the better for the drains.

You will use max 1 teaspoon of clay ppo. This will make maybe 5 cakes of soap 1/5 tsp clay per cake=1 g clay. You use the cake for say 3 weeks = 21 days = 0.045 g clay per shower. I don't think that's going to clog the drains. :mrgreen:

 

[Rune]

Thank you both! Now I'm quite a lot wiser I always write stearic acid even if I mean palm stearin or stearic acid, or if I don't know what I mean. And that is not the same. I checked SoapCalc and they are wastly different. But I knew they were different, but not exactly how different. So I think I mean adding palm stearin to a soft oils (if I want to use anything from palm, I don't know yet). That will be much better than stearic acid.

I actually read just a few minutes ago about hard and brittle oils. I read about it on a site called, hmm? I will find out.... Lovin Soap Studio, that was the place!

I guess a soap recipe has to be balanced with a little bit of everything. We have coconut, so I can use that. And olive oil and palm stearin and/or beeswax. Olive oil alone does not work very well, I have tried. It makes a great soap, but it becomes way to mushy in contact with water. So it must be made more water insoluble to be fully usable. But maybe I did something wrong with my olive oil soap, I don't know. I use a good soap tray, but it gets mushy like in no time. So I have to let it dry completely between each use.

Yes, fillers, but I thought more that waxes would also moisturize the skin very well, and also makes a harder, more water insoluble bar of soap, to counteract the supersoft olive.

Adapting to what's available, that is a good tip! Because it will be too expensive to order all sorts of stuff other people in other countries or areas puts in their soaps, like mango butter and what not. If they have a soap supply store around the corner or at least in their country (we have not even 1), it will be way more available to them. But we might have way more available here than I'm aware of, and what's displayed in the grocery store. I think so, and I will try to find out.

I hope I can find something that is a hard or brittle oil and low-cleansing. Maybe I'm wrong, but I imagine that the more cleansing, the more drying it will be for your skin. And zero cleansing olive oil makes you clean enough anyway.

What about "Milk fat", as it is called in SoapCalc? Which is butter, I guess. Will that work? The values are okey, but I'm concerned about DOS. I imagine that butter does not have a very long shelf life. It must be clarified anyway first, to remove the water, and I suppose the shelf life then will be higher, but... Have any of you tried butter in a recipe?

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Rune. Sounds like you should open a soaping store for the Scandinavian countries, eh?

What are restaurants using for cooking? Have you checked restaurant supply stores, or do you know any friends with commercial kitchens? You might be able to get a restaurant owner to add a a few kilos of lard or tallow (or something) to their regular orders for you (that you'd pay for, of course.)

I've been told that soap made with milk fat will always smell like sour milk. I've never tried it.

 

[DeeAnna]

Your hard fat is palm stearin. Your brittle fat is coconut oil. And then you have olive as the liquid fat.

You should be able to make a very nice soap from these three fats without having to use beeswax or stearic acid.

Milk fat does not oxidize and become rancid any more than any other fat. Milk fat (butter fat) contains a higher amount of butyric acid, which is the basis for the odor of cheese. In cheese, this smell is fine, but many people really do not like this odor in soap.

On top of that, soap with butyric acid can be irritating to the skin, similar to soap that contains a high % of myristic acid. These are both shorter-chain fatty acids, and they don't make nice soap. The high myristic acid content in coconut oil is the main reason why soap made with lots of coconut oil is very harsh and drying on many people's skin.

 

[penelopejane]

Pure olive oils soap (if you can buy real olive oil) makes a very hard soap but it needs a long cure to get there. It is very gentle and mild. Make some and try it at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. Then try it at 18 and 24 months. I think you will amazed at the difference.

You do not need a high percentage of "hard oils" to make a great soap.

 

[soaperwoman]

I think lanolin makes the best shaving soap. It goes in all my shaving soap. It's unique lathering ability makes it the perfect shaving ingredient. Adding olive oil as your primary oil will also make your bar more slippery. Seriously though try the lanolin!

 

[Rune]

Rune. Sounds like you should open a soaping store for the Scandinavian countries, eh?

What are restaurants using for cooking? Have you checked restaurant supply stores, or do you know any friends with commercial kitchens? You might be able to get a restaurant owner to add a a few kilos of lard or tallow (or something) to their regular orders for you (that you'd pay for, of course.)

I've been told that soap made with milk fat will always smell like sour milk. I've never tried it.

Yes, but I think there are too few that are soapers. And the shipping fees between Norway and Sweden are very high, even though we are as close as anybody can be. Plus there will be customs, because we're not an EU country, but Sweden is. And we are only 15 million people in total in Sweden and Norway, the closest of the Nordic countries. Maybe enough, but since it is few soap makers, then it is not enough. I guess that's why there are no soaping stores here.

I worked in a commercial kitchen, and did check what was available. Not too much, and the prices was not too good either. It's mostly deep frying oils which is high oleic sunflower and olive, rapessed, maybe soy or something like that. Plus liquid butter, margarine and butter replacements. Where I worked, we did not use anything else than oil, butter and margarine. I did not check all though, because I had to have somebody to do it for me since I was not allowed to use the computer. Most commercial kitchen use something I don't know in english. Like semi-pre-made products. Instant this and that, and ready made hamburgers and all that. Not much are made from scratch. Even baked goods are bake-off, frozen dough, pre shaped, that just needs to be baked.

Bakeries are the way to go, they have the stuff that we need. All the hard fats. So I will try to buy some, if I'm allowed to do so.

 

[Rune]

Your hard fat is palm stearin. Your brittle fat is coconut oil. And then you have olive as the liquid fat.

You should be able to make a very nice soap from these three fats without having to use beeswax or stearic acid.

Milk fat does not oxidize and become rancid any more than any other fat. Milk fat (butter fat) contains a higher amount of butyric acid, which is the basis for the odor of cheese. In cheese, this smell is fine, but many people really do not like this odor in soap.

On top of that, soap with butyric acid can be irritating to the skin, similar to soap that contains a high % of myristic acid. These are both shorter-chain fatty acids, and they don't make nice soap. The high myristic acid content in coconut oil is the main reason why soap made with lots of coconut oil is very harsh and drying on many people's skin.

Thank you so much for the great advices!

Okey, then it definately not will be any butter in my soaps. Now I understand, in depth. And that is always a good thing. And I will try exactly to do so, make soap with palm stearin, olive and coconut. And I still am confused about stearic acid and palm stearin, even though I perfectly well know the difference. I replied to someone as late as today, and wrote stearic acid instead of palm stearin. I guess it is because in the beginning, I thought stearic acid was the english name for stearin, which it is not.

The least thing I want is soaps that are drying to the skin. Because here in Norway in winter, almost everybody have dry skin because of the cold and dry air. Not that I will sell any soaps before I have learned more and perfected recipes and techniques, but I have dry skin as well. So it must be moisturizing. Luckily, olive with superfat is.

Something that is extremely moisturizing, not as a soap, because I don't know, but just as is. That is cocoa butter. I bought some and have used it as a base for a simple perfume - cocoa butter and vetiver essential oil. The cocoa butter should by the way be raw and all that with fragrance on its own, but no, no fragrance. But since I use it as a perfume, and melts it in my hand before applying it here and there, I have some left on my palms. I just rub that all over my hands, and get instand baby hands! So soft and wonderful, and it dries fast leaving no oily grease behind. With actually long lasting results. It is summer now, so it might not work that well in the harsh winter, but I think it will. So a hot process soap with cocoa butter as superfat, that would be something. But regarding the price of it, now, I would rather use it pure as it is from the jar. Maybe the vetiver essential oil added to my cocoa butter contributes to the feeling, I don't know. But it does for sure not do any harm.

I have by the way stopped using any commercial regular hand cream decades ago. That is the very worst ever to use for dry hands. But industrial "invisible glove" is great. Kerodex71 is the name of the cream I use, and it is just like magic. Not too healthy, but. Also does lip balm sticks work well, but only those with no scent and no aloe vera and stuff, just the plain ones, and it must be the hard ones, not liquid. So that is what I have used lately. I actually can not believe that people still buy those nasty hand creams. If you want dry hands, ten times dryer than before, and hurting, yes, they sell hand destruction creams in the grocery stores. Good Lord should know that they are the total opposite of what they write on the package! When I used such creams decades ago, I actually got so dry I started bleeding! Yes, we have a very harsh climate for hands, it might not happen elsewhere other than Alaska, Canada and Siberia.

The strange thing is that pure olive oil is not any moisturizing for your hands. I have tried, of course, since I have tried absolutely everything to get thru the winter. Baby oil the same, not any effect.

Yes, I remember, and I think you are the one to ask such questions. Baby oil is often made of something called "olus oil", which I have googled to find is not an oil from a plant, like olive or such, but triglycerides of oils. I guess a mixture of whatever oil that is cheapest. And olus oil is an alternative to mineral oil. But, since it is not mineral oil, and since it is not in any soap calculator. What is this oil really? I mean in soaping context. Will it saponify? And what do triglycerides add to soap?

Googling could not give an answer. But I might not google hard enough.