Make my tar soap harder and last longer - do I get it right?

[P.H]

Hello, I new here and new to soap making. I like tar soap and use to buy it but they are rather expensive so I decided to try to make my own earlier this year which was working fine. I followed a receipt (cold process) from the nerd farm wife Pine Tar Soap Recipe as below, without any essential oil and added a tsp of salt.

283 gr water (I used tapwater and not destilled, Im from Sweden and the tapwater is fine to drink and has no additives)
108 gr lye
1 tsp salt
510 gr olive oil
213 gr cocoonut oil
4r gr castor oil
85 gr pine tar

The soap was very easy to make and I let them cure for like 5 weeks. The smell is great, they lather good and are overall great except that they don't last long in the shower. The next time I made the soap, I added a tsp of sodium lactate (still kept the 1 tsp of salt) and I did also replace the olive oil with canola/rapeseed oil when I wanted to use local (Swedish) ecological oil instead of olive oil from Italy or similar. The soap was great this time too but don't last so long. Now I have only 5 soaps left and needs to do a new batch.

Then I found a new receipt at Ellys Everyday which I was plannig to try which looks like below.

237 gr water
118 gr sodium
598 gr olive oil
85 gr coconut oil
95 gr cocoa butter
47 gr castor oil
114 gr pine ta
9.5 gr beeswax
38 gr essential oil (23gr tea tree and 15gr cedar)

Next was that I found this forum + sopamakingfriend and the calculator. I added the ingredients for the receipt from the nerd wife and it looked good I guess (?) based propertie and if the green staples means OK, except for the longevity which are below the wanted value. Next was to replace the olive oil with canola/rapseed oil in the calculater which made the values not so good as with olive oil. Then I added the oils from ellys everyday receipt which didn't made any great values which made me a bit confused when it looks like a lot of people likes that soap.

Now have I been playing around with the calculator to increase the values. I haven't added tar to it yet which I know will change the values/persentage. The selected oils is based on what I have at home. I know that its a lot of more and sience in this, but have I got the basic right when using the calculator? Select the ingredients you want to used in your soap and then find the best mix for your needs. In my case, increase the hardness and longevity in the tar soap and keep the rest at some kind of medium value. Thanks!

 

[AliOop]

A high canola oil soap is probably going to be slimy and not long-lasting. I make my pine tar soaps with tallow, and they are quite long-lasting. If you can’t find tallow or want to stay vegan, consider upping the cocoa butter, or adding some soy wax.

Also, remember that the soap calculator isn’t always correct. For instance, almost no one wants their Cleansing value higher than 15. Cleansing refers to how much oil the soap strips off your skin (drying it out) so many of us keep it below 12 or even 10. Soap with a cleansing value of zero will still get you clean.

PS - the reason for using distilled water is that it removes the trace metals that can cause rancidity in the soap, inhibit lathering, and leave soap scum on your sinks and showers. So while your local water may be good for drinking, it’s still best to use distilled or deonised water for soapmaking if you can. If you can’t, then adding a chelator is the next best option. You can do a search here to read more about those.

 

[DeeAnna]

Both of the recipes you are looking at will make soap that will not last long in the bath. When you substitute canola oil in place of olive, the problem will be even worse.

The "secret" to a longer lasting soap is to use a soap recipe that is rich in palmitic and stearic fatty acids. Soap that has a higher percentage of these fatty acids will be physically harder AND will be less soluble in water. Both of these things are important.

Examples of fats rich in stearic and palmitic acids include lard, tallow, palm oil, and the nut butters (cocoa butter, shea, etc.) A small percentage of these fats won't be enough to make a difference, which is the fault of the recipe with cocoa butter. You won't add hardness AND lower solubility if the soap recipe is rich in coconut, olive, castor, or canola oils.

If a soap made without pine tar is hard and long lasting, adding pine tar to the recipe will inevitably make the soap softer and will reduce the life of the soap. So you need to be realistic about what the soap will be like when you use pine tar in soap.

I don't recommend using beeswax if you are new to soap making.

 

[P.H]

A high canola oil soap is probably going to be slimy and not long-lasting. I make my pine tar soaps with tallow, and they are quite long-lasting. If you can’t find tallow or want to stay vegan, consider upping the cocoa butter, or adding some soy wax.

Also, remember that the soap calculator isn’t always correct. For instance, almost no one wants their Cleansing value higher than 15. Cleansing refers to how much oil the soap strips off your skin (drying it out) so many of us keep it below 12 or even 10. Soap with a cleansing value of zero will still get you clean.

PS - the reason for using distilled water is that it removes the trace metals that can cause rancidity in the soap, inhibit lathering, and leave soap scum on your sinks and showers. So while your local water may be good for drinking, it’s still best to use distilled or deonised water for soapmaking if you can. If you can’t, then adding a chelator is the next best option. You can do a search here to read more about those.

Hello AliOop and thanks for the information! I want to try to stay vegan in this soap so no tallow or lard this time. I can relate to the high cleansing value when you feel very "clean" after washing with the soap when the skin gets dry and your hand sticks to the skin when pulling it along. I got that with destilled water, I guess deonised water is the water you use in batteries or a iron which I should be able to get from any gas station or supermarket. We have soft water where I live so the lather has been fine when using the tap water.

It looks to be a lot of options for using a chelator for different purposes when searching. I found the link to Classic Bells during the search which explains a lot about ingredients and have a section on pine tar soap Pine tar soap | Soapy Stuff which explains the issue with pine tar soap. I will dig into that more.

 

[P.H]

Both of the recipes you are looking at will make soap that will not last long in the bath. When you substitute canola oil in place of olive, the problem will be even worse.

The "secret" to a longer lasting soap is to use a soap recipe that is rich in palmitic and stearic fatty acids. Soap that has a higher percentage of these fatty acids will be physically harder AND will be less soluble in water. Both of these things are important.

Examples of fats rich in stearic and palmitic acids include lard, tallow, palm oil, and the nut butters (cocoa butter, shea, etc.) A small percentage of these fats won't be enough to make a difference, which is the fault of the recipe with cocoa butter. You won't add hardness AND lower solubility if the soap recipe is rich in coconut, olive, castor, or canola oils.

If a soap made without pine tar is hard and long lasting, adding pine tar to the recipe will inevitably make the soap softer and will reduce the life of the soap. So you need to be realistic about what the soap will be like when you use pine tar in soap.

I don't recommend using beeswax if you are new to soap making.

Hello DeeAnna, thanks for your answer. I think I got the point with the oils and specially the canola oil and that a pine tar soap wont last so long. I guess the best would be to use tallow or lard and not vegetable oils. The soap I have made so far is great exept that it don't last so long, maybe that will be fine.

My plan was to look into using beewax when I have a lot at home, will read a bit more about that.

 

[P.H]

Made the receipe + soap at yesterday, I got the cleansing down and the hardness and longevity up. I redused the olive and coconut oil and added cocoa and shea butter which got the palmitic and stearic up. I used salt, sodium lactate and beewax to get some extra hardness.

I went hard within less than 2 minutes when adding the lye solution, it was far harder than last time and went like choclate pudding and I had to scoop it up to get into the mold. I cut them today and now its just to wait to mid feb to see how they feels.

Tar soap 2