More bubbles please

[KiwiMoose]

Some of the feedback I've been getting from family and friends is that my soap is not bubbly enough. It's certainly not what I've experienced - I have samples of all of them that seem to lather up very well when I use them.

I guess I've been following advice from here and keeping my 'bubbly' number at about 14 in soap calc so as not to make a soap that's too harsh or drying (coconut oil is at 20%). However I must admit, I've never had a problem with soap being too harsh - I must have tough skin. I recently have been adding sugar to all my recipes to help with bubble boosting.

I'm toying with the idea of making a soap that is 30% coconut oil and all else in the recipe remaining equal (not counting the slight modification I would need to make to other ingredients to counter the increase on CO). Maybe I'll up the castor a bit too? Lessen the OO ( also currently at 20%).

Any thoughts and contributions to this idea welcome.

 

[Andrew]

In terms of oils that increase lather, your best options are coconut and castor. 5% castor will make a big difference. Castor also accelerates trace so you should be happy about that.

Olive oil based soaps greatly benefit from sodium lactate. Try one tablespoon sodium lactate per 1kg oils. It also is a humectant and increases lather.

You can try any and all of these. Probably the easiest would be to add sodium citrate at a dosage of 1% of oils. Or 10g of citric acid and 6g extra NaOH of lye to your lye water.

And there is any of these.
https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/updated-lather-lovers-additive-testing/

 

[Obsidian]

Mind sharing your whole recipe? I use 20% coconut, 5% castor and my bubbly is 18. I think you may have some numbers confused, its the cleansing number you want to keep at 15 or less to prevent to harsh of a soap. Bubbly can be as high as you want.

Handmade soap generally is less bubbly then commercial soap, some people just don't like it.

 

[atiz]

I don't know the other part of your recipe, but I don't think you need to raise the CO that high. I also usually use 20% (max 25%) CO and get a "bubble number" usually between 20 and 25. I tend to use 5--7% castor.
As others have noted elsewhere, aloe juice seems to help, and I also sometimes use some honey. There are some other additives that people have mentioned but I have not experimented with them.

There is another thread about this exact topic right now here (about lather, not bubbles, but probably about both).

 

[Obsidian]

Yes, using straight aloe juice will help get bigger bubbles and it plays nice with the lye. What are you using for your hard oils? Butters can reduce lather too, using palm or lard would help along that line.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Mind sharing your whole recipe? I use 20% coconut, 5% castor and my bubbly is 18. I think you may have some numbers confused, its the cleansing number you want to keep at 15 or less to prevent to harsh of a soap. Bubbly can be as high as you want.

Handmade soap generally is less bubbly then commercial soap, some people just don't like it.

Yes sorry - my bad - it's the cleansing number I keep low.
20% - OO, CO and SW
15% - RBO
10% - Shea Butter and AVO
5% Castor

I don't want to use Palm or Lard, so these are really the only hard oils I can play with, except Cocoa Butter which is far too expensive.

 

[earlene]

Hemp oil is very very very bubbly. No single oil soap I've ever made is as bubbly as the hemp oil soap. I like to add it to soap to increase bubbles.

You can also add eggs to soap and that also seems to really increase both the bubbles and the lather in all the soaps I've used eggs in.

Sugar, straight up, or as an inclusion in another additive (honey, etc.) also increases bubbles.

KiwiMoose, since you also use SW, as do I, in some of my recipes, I would suggest adding the hemp oil, if you can get ahold of it. I wouldn't go above 8% with castor, as it does accelerate and can produce a sticky soap in too high a percentage. I have not tried eggs with SW, so not real sure how well they work together, but I should give that a try, just for my own reference.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Ok, I will try both one batch with hemp oil, and another with aloe and check out the differences.
I won’t do egg either because I’m sticking to vegan soaps.
I’m taking another soap round to my sister now that I made in February. I think she will be pleasantly surprised when comparing it to the one she currently has from my second ever batch.

Hemp oil is very very very bubbly. No single oil soap I've ever made is as bubbly as the hemp oil soap. I like to add it to soap to increase bubbles.

You can also add eggs to soap and that also seems to really increase both the bubbles and the lather in all the soaps I've used eggs in.

Sugar, straight up, or as an inclusion in another additive (honey, etc.) also increases bubbles.

KiwiMoose, since you also use SW, as do I, in some of my recipes, I would suggest adding the hemp oil, if you can get ahold of it. I wouldn't go above 8% with castor, as it does accelerate and can produce a sticky soap in too high a percentage. I have not tried eggs with SW, so not real sure how well they work together, but I should give that a try, just for my own reference.

 

[dibbles]

Coconut oil doesn’t seem to bother me, and I often use it at 25%. I keep castor to 5% or less. I use sugar at 1 tsp PPO dissolved in the water before adding the lye. Maybe try reducing the soy wax or shea butter by 5% and add it to the coconut oil. And then try reducing it an additional 2-5%.

I think a lot of people start making soap because of dry skin or other skin issues, and find that keeping the CO low is what helps them. I think it’s time for you to play with it a little to see if you and yours like a bit more.

 

[Lin19687]

https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/soapcalcs-soap-quality-numbers/
https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/updated-lather-lovers-additive-testing/

Great info on how things work

 

[IrishLass]

What kind of water do your tester's have? Could it be that is on the hard side compared to yours? Hard water is a notorious lather killer. If that's the case, a chelator is in order to try....either sodium citrate or tetrasodium EDTA.

I've got very hard water, fairly off-the-charts hard. I use .5% testrasodium as per the weight of my entire batch, as well as 5% sugar ppo, which equates to 2 US tbsps sugar ppo. I do this for every batch I make, and it really does make a noticeable difference. I also use a high amount of coconut oil or a combo of coconut and PKO than what others usually recommend: 28% in my all-veggie formula, and 30.5% in my tallow/lard formula (my 2 main formulas). For us, these amounts work great.

I agree with Dibbles- if coconut does not bother you, it may be time to play with a higher amount to see if you and yours like it more.

Oh- and my castor amount is also on the higher side than what others normally recommend: in my all-vegie formula it is at 10% and in my tallow/lard formula it is at 10.5%. Surprisingly, these amounts are not sticky to us at all in my formulas. And I don't find that the amount causes my soap to trace too fast at all.....at least for what I consider to be fast anyway. Normally 10 minutes to med-thick trace with on & off stick-blending, or up to about 45 minutes or so with just hand-stirring (both with a 33% lye concentration).....providing I'm working with a well-behaved FO, that is.

For what it's worth, the main soap quality numbers for my all-veggie formula are:

Cleansing 19
Conditioning 62
Bubbly lather 28
Creamy lather 26

I superfat this one between 5% and 7%, depending on the time of year and/or who I gift my soap to.

And for my Tallow/Lard formula:

Cleansing 21
Conditioning 50
Bubbly 31
Creamy 34

This one I always superfat at 8%

We are nothing if not bubbly lather lovers in my household, and with our hard water issues, I never, ever get complaints that my soaps from these 2 formulas aren't bubbly enough. And with our skin-types being what they are, I thankfully also never get complaints that they are too drying.


IrishLass

 

[Carolyne Thrasher]

You might try coconut milk too.

 

[DWinMadison]

Some of the feedback I've been getting from family and friends is that my soap is not bubbly enough. It's certainly not what I've experienced - I have samples of all of them that seem to lather up very well when I use them.

I guess I've been following advice from here and keeping my 'bubbly' number at about 14 in soap calc so as not to make a soap that's too harsh or drying (coconut oil is at 20%). However I must admit, I've never had a problem with soap being too harsh - I must have tough skin. I recently have been adding sugar to all my recipes to help with bubble boosting.

I'm toying with the idea of making a soap that is 30% coconut oil and all else in the recipe remaining equal (not counting the slight modification I would need to make to other ingredients to counter the increase on CO). Maybe I'll up the castor a bit too? Lessen the OO ( also currently at 20%).

Any thoughts and contributions to this idea welcome.

Not saying it’s the be-all-end-all but this is my basic recipe these days. It has good, balanced scores in all categories, and I add coconut milk for the liquid above my 50/50 LW, and that seems to be enhancing the lather. Hope it helps in some small way.

 

[Susie]

She's doing non-palm vegan recipes DW. I know, I was going to point her to lard also.

Andrew, I have no idea where you got the idea that a reasonable amount of castor oil will speed trace, but it just isn't so.
Your water amount, temperatures, EO/FOs, other oil choices can certainly play a role in speeding trace, but not 5-10% castor oil.

 

[Dawni]

I rarely use Castor oil nowadays and even if my bubbly number is equal to my cleansing number, which is low at only around 12-14, I'm satisfied with the bubbles and so is my family.

In vegan soaps I use 10-15 each of Cocoa and Shea and don't find it cuts lather much, but I do add sugar into the water before my lye, sugar water after my cook (for fluidity mostly) and coconut milk powder to my oils. Maybe that's making a difference?

But if the same soap is ok for you then it's probably down to three things: hardness of the water, how they use the soap, personal taste. For the first, as mentioned above, a chelator is in order.

For the second, working up a lather in your hand vs. rubbing the whole bar on your body vs. using a loofah, cloth, etc. makes a difference to me. The first will give you the least lather but consequently makes your soap last longer lol

There's nothing much you can do about the last one haha other than reformulate, especially if you have a target market. Check what water they have there first I guess. But I think your formula that you posted should have enough bubbles for the average user..

 

[DWinMadison]

She's doing non-palm vegan recipes DW. I know, I was going to point her to lard also.

Andrew, I have no idea where you got the idea that a reasonable amount of castor oil will speed trace, but it just isn't so.
Your water amount, temperatures, EO/FOs, other oil choices can certainly play a role in speeding trace, but not 5-10% castor oil.

Oh that’s right. I‘ll be quiet now.

I rarely use Castor oil nowadays and even if my bubbly number is equal to my cleansing number, which is low at only around 12-14, I'm satisfied with the bubbles and so is my family.

In vegan soaps I use 10-15 each of Cocoa and Shea and don't find it cuts lather much, but I do add sugar into the water before my lye, sugar water after my cook (for fluidity mostly) and coconut milk powder to my oils. Maybe that's making a difference?

But if the same soap is ok for you then it's probably down to three things: hardness of the water, how they use the soap, personal taste. For the first, as mentioned above, a chelator is in order.

For the second, working up a lather in your hand vs. rubbing the whole bar on your body vs. using a loofah, cloth, etc. makes a difference to me. The first will give you the least lather but consequently makes your soap last longer lol

There's nothing much you can do about the last one haha other than reformulate, especially if you have a target market. Check what water they have there first I guess. But I think your formula that you posted should have enough bubbles for the average user..

Have you tried adding aloevera?

 

[Dawni]

Have you tried adding aloevera?

It's on my list. Not very cheap to buy here and I keep forgetting to check who has a plant and is willing to give me a leaf or two hehehe

Oh.. Beer makes a bubbly soap, too!

 

[KiwiMoose]

My numbers for my 'best' recipe are:
Hardness 49
Cleansing 14
Conditioning 47
Bubbly 18
Creamy 40
Iodine 53

The people commenting are all in Hamilton, and we all share the same water supply.
I've taken round to my sister a bar with the recipe as above and we'll see if she finds that any better and I'll report back.

Thanks for all your good ideas and input everyone.

It's on my list. Not very cheap to buy here and I keep forgetting to check who has a plant and is willing to give me a leaf or two hehehe

Oh.. Beer makes a bubbly soap, too!

She won't try my beer soap because she doesn't like the smell of it.

 

[Dawni]

She won't try my beer soap because she doesn't like the smell of it.

Awww.. Even scented?

Did you like it? I haven't tried mine either except for a small ball I scraped off the pot. Abundant lather is what I'd say it has..

 

[KiwiMoose]

Awww.. Even scented?

Did you like it? I haven't tried mine either except for a small ball I scraped off the pot. Abundant lather is what I'd say it has..

I've tried an offcut, and the scent is lovely. I used cypress and bayberry which blends with the hops smell really well. She likes real girly stuff though - florals and lavender and such like.
I didn't think it blew me away with its suds, but it was pretty new - might try it again.