Linoleics Anonymous

[FragranceGuy]

@Mobjack Bay I ABSOLUTELY believe that you can solve mysteries of soap making, because you believe that you can. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t take you very seriously. But I do!! I’m a plumber. If you ever decide you need plumbing help for soap experimentation, let me know!!

 

[AliOop]

@Mobjack Bay what about marketing specialists, janitors, and (this would be my personal favorite):

DISHWASHERS. As in, real people who wash up my soapy dishes for me.

Ooooh, and a personal shopper to compare prices on the various products, and then order them for me.

But I think I've hijacked this thread, so I apologize... back to the regularly scheduled programming now.

 

[Tara_H]

access to a good high performance computing cluster and data analysts and modelers on my team.

Funny, I was just thinking yesterday that I wanted a good ML backed soap c@lculator... I'm afraid I'm not one who delights in the details of the specific fatty acids, although I very much appreciate that they exist, and the effort of those who are prepared to untangle the mysteries.

What I want to do is say: I have these base oils available, make me a recipe that maximises (eg) hardness while minimising cleaning and keeping these other values within a specific range. Although the ML example of the computer that was learning to land airplanes keeps coming to mind...

 

[ResolvableOwl]

@FragranceGuy Many thanks for your “coming-out”. I can understand you so well! Fully in line with science, your statement poses more question than it answers.
I'll probably miss some points worth discussing about, but I'll try to catch a few of the more relevant ones:

• Science and the “explain everything” illusion. This point of view exists indeed, but science has realised a long time ago that it is, by the sheer number of atoms in the universe and their relative positions, not remotely realistic to ever come up with valuable insights from taking Laplace's_demon seriously (from the mere physics point of view – quantum mechanics made everything worse; and still there is no place for things like life or consciousness in such models). Scientists (among themselves, not so much in the popular recognition) are eager to admit how much they don't know. The naïve positivism of classical modernity in the way we teach it to our children has never existed in its popularised form (nor was it any fruitful besides thought experiments). On the contrary IMHO: it was fertile ground for a unreflected belief in “progress”, by itself a welcome excuse for generations of stupid and selfish decisions “in the name of science”. Look how successful we as a species, in the clearest state of our mind, are at destroying our own living resources as sustainable as possible… If scientific evidence were evident and self-explanatory, we wouldn't need to fight for it.
• I can't and won't encourage you to stay skeptical. Why should you put blind faith in skepticism?
• I will not forgive you for your “good vent”. Please, feel free to relapse! Sometimes we need some audience to just straight on talk about philosoapicial thoughts (May I ask you to forgive me this pun?) – Who knows who is quietly listening with great curiosity?
• Sadly, now it's time to return to topic. I remember the dark ages of my very early soap career. My, idk, third batch ever was 50% coconut and 50% canola (inadvertently qualifying for the grocery store challenge ), at 8% lye discount. I used it myself, enjoyed its abundant lather and was not worried how quickly it was used up. But I also dared to give out of hand one piece to a sibling. He reported back what I later recognised as a full-grown DOS outbreak after a surprisingly short time. Back then, I was just perplexed and could reply only that I haven't seen any issues with my bars. With such anecdotal stories in mind, it is up to your/everyone's skepticism to collect own experiences with high-lauric & high-PUFA soaps.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@Mobjack Bay I’m a plumber. If you ever decide you need plumbing help for soap experimentation, let me know!!

A good plumber is a treasure . My dad owned a plumbing and electrical contracting business for 40 yrs.

 

[earlene]

I think there’s a lot of room for thinking outside of the box on this. Is it possible that a higher linoleic acid profile can help offset the high stearic, palmitic, lauric and myristic qualities of high coconut oil soaps? I think it’s possible. I think it’s possible that 40% CO soap might be tolerable if balanced with a high linoleic profile, even with a low SF. I don’t know this, but I’m going to try and I PROMISE I’ll be the first to admit if I’m wrong. There’s a certain pleasure involved when admitting when you’re wrong.

There IS something to what you say, although I do not know specifically what. For the most part, my skin cannot tolerate high CO soaps, BUT I have made some that were okay with a higher CO content than I normally use. I never got around to verifying what specific component was the causal factor, and I may never bother, or I may. Only time will tell. My impression at the time was that in one case it was added eggs in an egg soap. In another case, it was added lanolin that I thought may have played a part, but I didn't pursue further investigation. But all I could really say for sure was that it was formula dependent, in other words, the overall mixture that made the difference.

Funny, I was just thinking yesterday that I wanted a good ML backed soap c@lculator... I'm afraid I'm not one who delights in the details of the specific fatty acids, although I very much appreciate that they exist, and the effort of those who are prepared to untangle the mysteries.

What I want to do is say: I have these base oils available, make me a recipe that maximises (eg) hardness while minimising cleaning and keeping these other values within a specific range. Although the ML example of the computer that was learning to land airplanes keeps coming to mind...

What is ML?? Machine Learning? Something else?

 

[Tara_H]

What is ML?? Machine Learning? Something else?

Yes, machine learning. In this particular case with the objective of min/maxing particular outcomes without needing to program in all the specific combinations.

 

[FragranceGuy]

Hey fellow soapers, enthusiasts and philosophers! I’m sorry for taking so long to respond. I got my second vaccination yesterday and I’ve been so tired and cloudy headed I couldn’t muster up the energy to appropriately respond.

@ResolvableOwl
Thank you for tolerating and encouraging my rant! I bet you and I could talk for HOURS!! My first introduction (aka obsession) with science/physics was Einstein’s special theory of relativity and his general theory of relativity (Hey, general relativity is special too, right? ) Both intrigued me deeply to the point that I lost sleep trying to “realize” and make real in my psyche how this makes sense. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours trying to understand relativity theory. One of my first experiences in a forum was a science forum asking for advice for understanding special relativity. The answers I got were “Nobody can wrap their minds around relativity, but we know it’s true because of it’s predictive capacity. So just accept it.” Okay (enter my skeptic nature) BUT, I desire to understand, I’m going to do everything I possibly can to try to understand, I’m not trying to play God, but I’m not satisfied with being told to give up on understanding. I mean, I learned to sleep on it, but I’m not giving up!” After after about a year and a half of daily thought experiments on special relativity I was finally able to visualize slivers of the relationship between space and time. Small, but satisfying. I realized that special relativity is such a close approximation to measurable reality that it’s ultimately functional in any manner that I could possibly use. It’s closer to the truth than I’ll ever need in human life. General relativity, not so close, but damn functional!!! I was impressed that Einstein also believed that his general theory of relativity was incorrect, rather a close approximation. I have to point out that I don’t believe I’m more intelligent than Einstein. I simply believe that less intelligent people are ALWAYS welcome to question people who are more intelligent. Obsession is where genius lies, not intelligence. I entered the rabbit hole While my views on the double slit experiment and Laplace’s Demon have evolved over the years, there is a haunting intelligence that seems to hover above us. I think that greatness in any endeavor is often viewed in our culture as something we have to work ourselves UP to, but I truly believe that greatness is something that offers itself down to us. There isn’t any need to build a tower. We don’t need to fight gravity to overcome it. I mean, we don’t need to understand gravity to fall on our bums! (As you comedically pointed out with your 50/50 soap Your early yet sincere efforts didn’t save you from DOS ) But if we understand gravity, we might be able to use it to make better soap or at least makes some aspect of our lives better. Thanks for that rant Thank you my philosophical friend

@Mobjack Bay
I’m so glad to hear your father was a tradesman!! I bet he was a science minded person like yourself. What line of science are you most interested/working with?

@earlene
With your soap making experience, what drives you to tweak a recipe or keep it? Have you ever made a soap batch that truly surprised you how good it was and why do you think it was so good?

@Tara_H
ML sounds very intriguing Add your own ingredients and see what values the calculator spits out and tweak from there..

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@FragranceGuy I really shouldn’t call myself a scientist these days because I’ve been an administrator for over a decade. I‘m trained in oceanography and marine ecology, but call myself an estuarine ecologist because most of my research focused on Chesapeake Bay.

 

[FragranceGuy]

@Mobjack Bay Once a scientist always a scientist!!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

The punishment for linoleic hubris is – DOS!!!



Actually, I'm impressed how long this tiny soap survived, until rancidity caught up with it. I made it back in February, from pure cottonseed oil (ca. 53% linoleic acid), with zero DOS countermeasures. Just oil, lye, water. I had aimed for 5% SF as good as one can for a 15 g CPOP microbatch with a scale of 0.1 g resolution.
Last time I had it in hand was probably in August – no yellow spots back then. It doesn't smell bad (doesn't smell characteristic at all), and the spots seem to be shallow. I have no illusions that its days are numbered, but it had gone strong!

I gave it a bathroom sink & lather test, and I can only say I love it . DOS aside, it has an agreeable feel (pleasantly rubbery, with an elegant slip), readily gives off abundant, dense and fluffy lather, rinses off easily, and leaves the skin with a clean, silky feel.

Just now, I have tested a two months old 100% cottonseed oil soap (ca. 80% unsaturated with L:O 3:1) that has hardened up lovely, but once wet, it becomes just as ropy and slimy as a high-oleic castile soap.

It was this very soap. Turns out, when giving it another half a year of curing, said castile slime effect completely cured out! My conclusion back then is untenable, and I happily revoke it! Somehow, the linoleic acid initially behaves similar to oleic acid (castile slime), but either it gets figured out over time how to evade that slime phase, or it has to do with the above-average content of saturated FAs of cottonseed. Time to compare to HL sunflower soap.


Now I'm torn if I should enjoy using it up (it'll last just a few days), or keep it to watch how it develops further.

 

[beckster51]

My 80% RBO soap cures out the same. Slimy and ropy during the first couple of months, then lovely and silky with a 6 month cure. I have used EDTA in all my batches, and it is a couple of years old with no DOS.