Lindy's cream soap tutorial

[nframe]

Last month, I finally made Lindy's cream soap following her tutorial (A Cream Soap Tutorial). It worked very well and it now looks lovely - thank you Lindy if you are still around. And now for a daft question: what can I do with it apart from using it as a replacement for bar soap? Are there any other uses for it that you know?

 

[DeeAnna]

Based on the cream soap I've made, I would not want to use it directly as a bath or hand soap. Cream soap has got too much free stearic acid in it to work well on its own as a skin cleanser.

By following the comments of people who regularly make cream soap, I've gotten the impression many use it as a base for making other products such as scrubs.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

And now for a daft question: what can I do with it apart from using it as a replacement for bar soap?

 

[cmzaha]

I agree with DeeAnna, I always used it as a base for scrubs, but changed to a synthetic (syndet) based base for my scrubs.

 

[Misschief]

I have a tub of Cream Soap here and have tried it as a scrub. As my grandson used to say... I no like it. It was an experimental batch and I'll be tossing it even though it pains me to throw away perfectly good (cream) soap.

ETA: I made it about 3 years ago

 

[DeeAnna]

There has been such a mystique about making cream soap -- it seemed like a person had to know a Secret Password and pass an initiation to be allowed onto the original Yahoo group for cream soap makers. Decent recipes and recipe advice can be hard to find, and the terminology of supercream and rotting adds to the mysteriousness.

All this cloak-n-dagger stuff certainly gave me the impression before I made cream soap that it's something amazing to use as well as something amazing to make. The pretty photos of cream soap whipped into fluffy meringue and so on added to this impression. Humph.

Don't feel bad, @Misschief -- my batch eventually went in the dust bin too. I let it sit (rot) for a longish time and tested it once again before I discarded it, just to say I'd gone the entire distance with the cream soap making process. I also made several test batches of sugar and salt scrubs to see how the soap behaved in products like that. But one batch of cream soap was enough.

The closest I come to cream soap nowadays is shave soap. Many shave soap recipes are basically a variation on cream soap with less liquid, usually without adding stearic acid as "supercream", and without the rotting. Shave soap makers still do the pretty whipped meringue pictures, however, except they use a shaving brush rather than an egg whip.

 

[Misschief]

At least @DeeAnna, I can say that I made it. And, you're right, finding information was like pulling hen's teeth. I joined the Yahoo group, I joined the FB group that replaced the Yahoo group; even then, solid information was hard to find. I made it successfully but then wondered what all the hype was about. I was seriously unimpressed.

I find making shave soap much more rewarding because, at the very least, I knew it would be used. My husband loves it!

 

[Obsidian]

Add me to another one who tossed out a batch of cream soap. I was wanting to wash with magical fluff, all I got was weird, waxy, fluffy snot that felt terrible on the skin.
Even in a scrub, it was just too waxy.

 

[nframe]

Oh what a shame! Do you think it could be used as shaving soap?

 

[Susie]

That is exactly why I never made any. Too few uses for my family.

 

[Misschief]

Oh what a shame! Do you think it could be used as shaving soap?

I wouldn't. It's just too waxy, doesn't lather well at all.

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree with the others that cream soap has a heavy, waxy lather and doesn't rinse off the skin well. I don't think I'd like it even as a shave soap.

I did an analysis of 15 cream soap recipes awhile back when I was trying to demystify this soap for myself.

Of 10 recipes that were the most typical for cream soap recipes, the average combined percent of stearic + palmitic was 61%. The combined lauric and myristic % averaged about 13%.

Shave soap recipes tend to have a little more lauric + myristic than this so the soap builds lather a little quicker. They also have a little less stearic + palmitic -- maybe more like 50% combined. Still plenty enough to make a thick sticky lather, but not going overboard about it.

Given that cream soap recipes are also thickened (supercreamed) with even more stearic acid (it stays as stearic acid; it's not actually soap), that would add even more of a waxy, sticky quality to the lather.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

DELETED.

 

[Obsidian]

I saw a recipe on a FB group that didn't have any added steric. She used mostly butters. The finished product looked really good but I never did try it due to cost.

 

[DeeAnna]

Faith Gratz Oriold, a former SMF member, experimented a lot with cream soap. She and I got to comparing notes a few years back. She wanted to develop a formulation that didn't have the disadvantages we're talking about here. She mentioned this --

"...I have done many experiments with low to no stearic acid up front and no to low stearic acid as a supercream and they all start out fine but eventually want to turn translucent and lose their opaqueness...."

The last I knew, she had given up on finding her holy grail of cream soap.

I saved a comment from another cream soap maker who said her goal was 50% stearic in the recipe. (I would suggest the goal of 50% combined stearic + palmitic.) If you can get that high with butters alone, using butters alone is certainly an option.

I think due to cost and availability, most people opt for using commercial stearic acid sold for B&B products. This "stearic acid" is actually just over half stearic acid with the balance being palmitic, FWIW.

 

[Obsidian]

I saved a comment from another cream soap maker who said her goal was 50% stearic in the recipe. (I would suggest the goal of 50% combined stearic + palmitic.) If you can get that high with butters alone, using butters alone is certainly an option.

I left the soaper group a long time ago and can't get back in but there is a small chance I saved the recipe to my computer. I'll hunt for it and see what the stearic % is.

What happens if you don't use a super cream? I'd guess it won't stay whipped or will just be a stiff paste?

 

[jjaded]

Hi there, newbie poster here, even though I've been haunting for awhile .
Sandra Labossiere is on Etsy, her shop is diybathandbody. I purchased her foaming bath butter, and the base is SCI and Coco Betaine, with a tiny amount of stearic in it. I actually made it this last weekend, and while time consuming, the final product was pretty amazing. I whipped it and added sugar to it and loved the end product. I don't think I would make it for sale, to much work, but for family use and gifts, it's perfect.

ETA *her foaming bath butter recipe* not the product itself.

 

[DeeAnna]

@jjaded -- Glad to hear you like the product you made. We're talking about cream soap made with lye in this thread. Synthetic detergent bases are a different animal entirely.

@Obsidian -- The stearic acid added after saponification (aka supercream) is a thickener, just like you'd use stearic acid in a lotion. Faith told me she had found using stearic in the soap itself makes a fluffier product, and adding stearic acid as a thickener after the soap is made (supercream) creates a thicker product. Supercream stearic is usually only a percent or three -- not too much. Again just like a lotion.

 

[Obsidian]

Ok, I found the no stearic, butter recipe. I don't know how stable this is but it looks really nice.

 

[DeeAnna]

I'd say it's not going to be stable in the long run due to not enough stearic. But that's just a guess, so take my thought for what it's worth. Looks nice all whipped up like that!