My handmade soap is making my skin feeling dry

[Obsidian]

I tend to agree, it looks like its a extremely cleansing recipe or its lye heavy. I looked up the palm olein you are using and could find no info about using it in soap.
Since regular palm oil is difficult for you to find, can you use lard or tallow instead?

 

[penelopejane]

People who have used my soap commented that it is not as mild as compared to other bathing products they have used/have been using. They commented that after usage there is a dry tightness over the skin. Skin felt squeky clean but at the same time very thirsty.

I think you have used too much coconut oil. Also could be the palm oil you used. Some people find palm oil a bit drying. If you let it cure for 3 months it might be a little milder.

MY hands look like that if I use anything with SLS etc.

 

[karenative]

Wow thanks for all your output. Really helpful!
I will try to do more test batches and see how it goes

 

[Arthur Dent]

Have you tried the zap test?

 

[karenative]

Have you tried the zap test?

Yes just did the zap test on the bars. No zapping sensation

 

[lsg]

Did you add any fragrance oils to your soap? Some people are allergic to some fragrance oils. If you don't object to using lard, try making a lard bar.

 

[Arthur Dent]

20% coconut makes my hands look like that after a while. Too much coconut gets my vote.

 

[Dahila]

your hands look like eczema, which could flare up after handling some chemicals, the soap is to cleansing ........sorry for what happen, moisturise the hands and use gloves for handling any chemicals

 

[calico21]

It looks how my hands get if I do a lot of dishes by hand, with out gloves. It can even get to the point of raw and painful. Did you wash your soaping equipment right away, this may account for your reaction over others just saying "drying or tight". I've never had a homemade bar give me that feeling after curing, if I'm too curious and don't wait it will cause my skin to flake a little but still doesn't feel tight like most commercial bars make me feel.

 

[Arimara]

My hands look like that after using high coconut soaps. But the coconut levels in your soap seem rather normal for most people. the best thing you can do is experiment with the recipe but leave out coconut oil in one and the palm in another. 1lb batches would be perfect unless you have a scale accurate enough to allow you to make an 8oz batch.

Back to your recipes, unless you are adverse to using animal fat (which might help you here), the only oils I could recommend with faith would be avocado, lard, and tallow. Lard has been a traditional staple for sensitive skin since the dawn of time (not literally but my great grandmother used to make that soap) and many who have skin issues have had good success with it. Tallow is still used in many commercial soaps and I rather like how hard those bars get. I find it to be a touch cleansing but some of my favorite batches has that fat in it. Avocado... I just love it and if I could sub it completely for olive oil in a recipe I totally would (that oil is too pricey for that). Still taking away a small percentage of your olive oil and subbing it with avocado oil is a nice change for a soap recipe.

 

[cmzaha]

Palm Olein is listed in soap calc, and the properties per soap calc are very similiar. Here a link to some info on palm and palm olein http://palmoilworld.org/about_palmoil.html. I would doubt that is the problem with your soap. Palm and Palm olein have within a point or so sap value. Palm Olein does have more unsaponifiables.

My commercial grade dish detergent will do exactly the same thing to my hands, but cuts grease well. I am voting for to high a cleansing factor

 

[cherrycoke216]

Palm Olein is listed in soap calc, and the properties per soap calc are very similiar. Here a link to some info on palm and palm olein http://palmoilworld.org/about_palmoil.html. I would doubt that is the problem with your soap. Palm and Palm olein have within a point or so sap value. Palm Olein does have more unsaponifiables.

My commercial grade dish detergent will do exactly the same thing to my hands, but cuts grease well. I am voting for to high a cleansing factor

I ran it through soapee.com using palm and Palm olein. The 500 gram imagination batch calls for the same NaOH.
I know soapCalc there's different SAP. So NaOH using soap calc shouldn't be the same.
Maybe OP's batch is smaller than 1 lb? Can OP run through SoapCalc using Palm Olein and your specific batch grams (or lb ) ?

By the way, Palm olein is used as frying oil in some Asia country. And it produce a softer soap. Treat it as soft oil %, don't use too much, it's gooey.
And it's Palm taking out Palm stearin.

 

[cmzaha]

I ran it through soaper.com using palm and Palm olein. The 500 gram imagination batch calls for the same NaOH.
I know soapCalc there's different SAP. So NaOH using soap calc shouldn't be the same.
Maybe OP's batch is smaller than 1 lb? Can OP run through SoapCalc using Palm Olein and your specific batch grams (or lb ) ?

By the way, Palm olein is used as frying oil in some Asia country. And it produce a softer soap. Treat it as soft oil %, don't use too much, it's gooey.
And it's Palm taking out Palm stearin.

I know that, we can buy it here for cooking also. I recently soaped it at the rate of 20% and it did not make a sticky soap. Palm Olein still contains a small percentage of stearic acid

 

[cherrycoke216]

I know that, we can buy it here for cooking also. I recently soaped it at the rate of 20% and it did not make a sticky soap. Palm Olein still contains a small percentage of stearic acid

I used 40-60% and it's not one of the best soap I made.
That's before I started look into fatty acid profile & characteristic.

 

[karenative]

Besides my hands, my upper arms also showing some flakiness

 

[kumudini]

Your recipe seems fine, only thing I might add is to add chelation if you happen to have hard water. Like citric acid with extra lye to account for it or EDTA. And I don't remember whether you said anything about moisturizing afterwards, but that's probably still needed. Also check to see if you are allergic to anything in your soap. It won't always be clear cut.

 

[BattleGnome]

Besides my hands, my upper arms also showing some flakiness

What's the weather like by you?

The flakiness of your first pic looks similar to my feet as the weather transitions to spring. The pic of your arm looks similar to how my skin is right now and it's the middle of winter and super dry by me. If I don't use lotion after a shower I just feel uncomfortable all day.

Is regular lotion helping at all? If lotion doesn't help and whatever it is continues you might have just discovered that you have some sort of sensitivity to one of the ingredients.

 

[cherrycoke216]

I think you have a problem with your supplies and you ended up with a lye heavy soap. The oils may have been blended which changes their SAP values. Your calculations become inaccurate. Make sure your lye is pure lye with nothing else added and you are weighing in grams not oz.

.

I think maybe you're right. Oil is blended or else Karenative is allergic to some ingredient.
Does your Palm olein come with an SAP? Or did you buy it at grocery?
Every crop could vary a little, so the average SAP might not be spot on.

 

[christost7]

Same here.
I use some super gentle recipes (high olive, high lard, shea butter, almond oil, no more than 15 coconut, superfat 6-9% etc) yet my skin looks and feels somewhat dry (and a little itchy) after a shower.
Body lotion takes care of that.

 

[cherrycoke216]

Ok, dumb question here. But cristost's reply make me wonder: is this caused by long shower with too hot water? Not lukewarm,not tepid, but hot spring kind of hot?
And also combine with very dry and arid?
Still, the photo looks like one time I washed with lye heavy soap.