how much Coconut oil for a face soap

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Spice

Supporting Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2014
Messages
697
Reaction score
249
Location
NorCali
I want to make a face soap. I would like to use hemp seed oil, but dont I need at least some Coconut for cleansing too? I was thinking of using 10% CO and 26% hemp.
This would be my recipe
CO 10%
Hemp 26%
OO 34%
Castor 1%
Soy (not sure on this one) 13%
Sweet Almond 8%
Grapeseed 8%

I would do a CP
Charcoal and some blend of EO (not sure yet on this part).:think:
 
There's not a "wrong" or "right" answer here. Some folks can't handle Coconut Oil at all, and some love a 100% coconut oil soap.

Your soap will be on the soft side and will probably take a long time to trace. Not a deal breaker, just letting you know.
 
I make facial soap without CO but it's got around 60% tallow. Rest is shea butter, avocado, sweet almond and castor. And it's 0% SF.
Any reason you don't want to incorporate palm, animal fats or butters for some hardnes?
 
There's not a "wrong" or "right" answer here. Some folks can't handle Coconut Oil at all, and some love a 100% coconut oil soap.

Your soap will be on the soft side and will probably take a long time to trace. Not a deal breaker, just letting you know.

I make facial soap without CO but it's got around 60% tallow. Rest is shea butter, avocado, sweet almond and castor. And it's 0% SF.
Any reason you don't want to incorporate palm, animal fats or butters for some hardnes?

Dixiedragon: being soft because of the hard oil not being there, right? Having CO does clean though?

Fuzz-juzz: I hadnt thought about tallow. I have never used it. I would have render that...right? Would that be good and would it clean the skin?
 
Spice- contrary to what the SoapCalc 'cleansing' numbers may tell you, all soap will clean your skin whether or not it has coconut oil or any of the other more cleansing oils in it...even if the cleansing number says '0' (that's one of the troublesome/confusing things I don't particularly like about SoapCalc).

Since all soap will clean with or without coconut oil, the question of the day then becomes, how cleansing do you want your bar to be?

Since the face is one of the more sensitive parts of the body, I would either stay on the low side with the coconut, or maybe don't even use it at all.

I make a facial bar that has no coconut oil in it at all, nor does it have any of the other more cleansing oils such as PKO and/or babassu, and it cleans perfectly fine (and believe it or not, it even lathers with beautiful bubbly lather, which totally surprised me). The oils I use in it are olive, castor, HO safflower and avocado oil.


IrishLass :)
 
I'm lazy... I just use shop bought. :) But I guess you would have to render tallow, if you can't get it in the store.
Lard would be another option. I've used it before, but it gave me lots of DOS.

I prefer bars without CO for my face as my cheeks are really dry. They do clean, even parts of my face that tend to be a bit greasy. I just follow with toner anyway.
 
Spice- contrary to what the SoapCalc 'cleansing' numbers may tell you, all soap will clean your skin whether or not it has coconut oil or any of the other more cleansing oils in it...even if the cleansing number says '0' (that's one of the troublesome/confusing things I don't particularly like about SoapCalc).

Since all soap will clean with or without coconut oil, the question of the day then becomes, how cleansing do you want your bar to be?

Since the face is one of the more sensitive parts of the body, I would either stay on the low side with the coconut, or maybe don't even use it at all.

I make a facial bar that has no coconut oil in it at all, nor does it have any of the other more cleansing oils such as PKO and/or babassu, and it cleans perfectly fine (and believe it or not, it even lathers with beautiful bubbly lather, which totally surprised me). The oils I use in it are olive, castor, HO safflower and avocado oil.


IrishLass :)

This has to be a learning day for me. I just was thinking of doing pig fat for my soap; or tallow. Come to find out, lard is from a pig and I never knew that, I'm Mexican, have been using lard all my life and just got this? That's funny, IrishLass, fuzz-juzz, I will be either using safflower/avocado or the lard oils; till something else comes up.
 
I have made a nice lathery soap with no coconut for my mom who has 80something dry skin. It cleans fine with zero "cleansing" score. A zero cleansing number means is there are no lauric or myristic acids in the recipe so it is not as easily soluble in cold or salty water. It doesn't mean the soap won't clean.

Speaking from memory (dangerous!), I recall the recipe was over half lard with about 15% to 20% avocado, and the rest was either olive or rice bran oil. You could use about 10% or so hemp and reduce the other liquid oils accordingly. Add some sugar for bubbles.
 
Last edited:
I can't imagine a better facial bar than the 'Genny / Lindy' Shampoo Bar recipe:

Water as percent of oil weight: 35%
Superfat: 6%

Avocado Oil: 30%
Castor Oil: 10%
Olive Oil: 40%
Shea Butter: 10%
Soybean Oil: 10%

AWESOME as a facial bar!
 
I can't imagine a better facial bar than the 'Genny / Lindy' Shampoo Bar recipe:

Water as percent of oil weight: 35%
Superfat: 6%

Avocado Oil: 30%
Castor Oil: 10%
Olive Oil: 40%
Shea Butter: 10%
Soybean Oil: 10%

AWESOME as a facial bar!
This is close to what I was planning.
 
I would be hesitant to use 26% hemp oil as stated in the original recipe, unless you don't mind flirting with DOS. I have not used that much so am not speaking from experience, but instead going off of what we know about oils having short shelf lives and needing refrigeration. DeeAnna's suggestion of capping it at 10% seems reasonable. I've used hemp at 5% with no DOS after 2.5 years (I'm currently using my very last bar). You could make up the difference with lard or tallow since you seem open to that.
 
I agree with Genny/Lindy's shampoo bar recipe. The only difference was I didn't use soy as I choose not to use it. It's a very mild nicely bubbly soap.

I would drop the Hemp to 15%. I've used it at that amount with no issues long term.
 
I would be hesitant to use 26% hemp oil as stated in the original recipe, unless you don't mind flirting with DOS. I have not used that much so am not speaking from experience, but instead going off of what we know about oils having short shelf lives and needing refrigeration. DeeAnna's suggestion of capping it at 10% seems reasonable. I've used hemp at 5% with no DOS after 2.5 years (I'm currently using my very last bar). You could make up the difference with lard or tallow since you seem open to that.

I recently made soap with 30% hemp oil. Granted, it's only been 4 weeks but it's a lovely, fairly hard soap.

Here are the percentages I used:

10% castor
30% coconut oil
30% hemp oil
15% palm oil
15% shea oil

It lathers well, it feels good on the skin, it smells like hemp. I'm keeping an eye out for DOS but it's probably a bit early at this point. I haven't used it as a face soap yet, only because I like to let any soap used on my face to cure at least 6 weeks.
 
I like the idea of using hemp, and I've liked the soaps I've used it in. It would be great to know how far you can push it. There are so many variables, and tendencies are just tendencies -- they are not certain. I hope it works out for both of you and I hope to learn from your trials.
 
I will keep updating on this, I think I will be reducing the hemp to 5-10%. I havent used hemp, although what I read on it; it sounds awesome.:)
 
I agree with Genny/Lindy's shampoo bar recipe. The only difference was I didn't use soy as I choose not to use it. It's a very mild nicely bubbly soap.

I would drop the Hemp to 15%. I've used it at that amount with no issues long term.

HI! Can I ask what did you use instead of the soy? I was going to make this today after years on my to-do list! I do not have soy. :(
 
Back
Top