Ode to Castor oil

[ResolvableOwl]

Sorry, I underestimated the language barriers between hardware store/interior architecture/hospital speak . I was referring to the gypsum stuff with which one fills holes in the walls after ripping out Fischer wall plugs, or similar minor corrections around the house.



This 20% castor soap is bright white, with a dull/matte surface. It feels waxy when dry, and wet it has a grip that reminds me of blackboard chalk (which is incidentally made from gypsum as well these days). It is remarkably hard, but with a terrible longevity (the piece at the top left used to be just as thick as the others, I just used three times for lather tests).

 

[soapman5]

Sorry, I underestimated the language barriers between hardware store/interior architecture/hospital speak . I was referring to the gypsum stuff with which one fills holes in the walls after ripping out Fischer wall plugs, or similar minor corrections around the house.

View attachment 60835

This 20% castor soap is bright white, with a dull/matte surface. It feels waxy when dry, and wet it has a grip that reminds me of blackboard chalk (which is incidentally made from gypsum as well these days). It is remarkably hard, but with a terrible longevity (the piece at the top left used to be just as thick as the others, I just used three times for lather tests).

Did you use any waxes? I tried 20 % castor and thought that it mostly was sticky.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

No, the recipe was 20% of each castor, sesame oil, CO, palm stearin and mango butter.

ETA: Good opportunity to have a closer look on the notes. I had added vinegar to the lye, so the recipe has 2% TOW sodium acetate. Fair enough, I haven't done enough vinegar lye batches to tell apart if the chalkiness comes from the acetate or the castor. Shame on me

 

[earlene]

Well, I don't think the Castor contributed to the chaulkiness. As I said my 100% Castor bar was translucent, not in the least opaque and certainly not at all chaulky. It did not look at all like your photo. I don't have a photo as I wasn't photographing my soaps yet when I made my single oil soaps.

I am not sure what contributed to the chaulkiness, but the bright white surprises me with 20% sesame oil. Whenever I use sesame oil at that high a percentage, I don't get white soap. But the CO and mango butter are certainly white, and I suspect the palm stearin is as well, although I am not entirely sure, as I have only used one brand of stearic acid (and it was white). So maybe those oils overpowered the sesame oil when it comes to color.

Now that I think of it, chaulkiness to me means a feel or even a taste, rather than a color, so maybe I am mis-interpreting your meaning there as well. Chaulky as a feel, to me means pretty much like gypsum wallboard (what we call drywall here) that is broken and the gypsum is deteriorating to a crumbly matter. As an aside, my brothers & I found breaking up drywall to be great fun, before we got punished for ruining a small portion of wall in the garage in one of our childhood homes.

As for the waxy feel, I think that vinegar contributes to a waxy feel, at least that's what I experience when I add vinegar to certain soap formulas. It may or may not with all oils, though, so it's just an impression I get from my own limited experience.

Anyway, thank you for clearing that up for me - the 'plaster' reference. There are words that have different meanings for different folks in different countries, different regions within the same country and even with different upbringings and I have run into so many conversations where folks are not understanding each other simply because the same word means something completely different to both people. When I am sure I don't understand, I ask. But how many times have I thought I understood and did not really? It happens.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

On a darkness scale from 0 (colourless) to 10 (dark EVOO), I'd judge the CO and castor oil with 1, sesame oil a 3, mango butter with 2, and the palm stearin at 0.5. Oil melt and batter were unsuspiciously pale yellowish, just zero reason to expect this absolutely neutral, bright white colour to develop within one hour of saponification (I first thought it'd be soda ash, but it goes through the whole volume). Brightness on par with 100% CO and HO sunflower castile soaps.

You know what? I'll do it again, just without the vinegar. Good opportunity for shopping sesame oil again, and the only way to narrow down what really happened here. Though the batter isn't easy to work with at true CP conditions (palm stearin is a beast wrt false trace), I'll attempt a gel vs. no-gel comparison as well.

 

[earlene]

It also depends on the sesame oil you purchase. I currently have some light colored sesame oil, but more often, I purchase a darker colored sesame oil, which is what I use when I cook with it and have used in soap. So that is another way it can alter the color of soap. I forgot to mention that in my post above.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I know well what you mean , but no, this was (mild, pale) virgin sesame oil, not the roasted stuff that is best reserved as a condiment in Asian cuisine. I'll go for the same mild oil again, just because I remember that my last 250 mL bottle of roasted sesame oil lasted several years…
I did forget something too: my LS test thread showcases the exact same oils (sans the palm stearin) from the same bottles/batches, after saponification.

 

[earlene]

Yes, and I especially love the hot sesame oil for my Asian cuisine. Oh, what connoisseurs of fine oils, are we!

 

[Virgogoddess]

Yesterday I broached a soap I had made back in April. It has a smooth texture, but feels kind of gritty and rough on the skin. After washing it feels a bit chalky, clean but not in a pleasant fashion (think of castile soap, but with fine sand added).
Looking back to the recipe, there was only one suspect: castor oil! I've used 9% and had totally forgotten that this soap was also to test if there is an upper limit to castor oil usage. It seems there is.

In the meantime I've also made a tiny test batch with 20% castor, and it had the exact same downsides, just much stronger.

From whatever testers of single-oil castor soaps reported, I had expected a gummy, overly slippery or even slimy experience, but the complete opposite was the case. The 20% soap looks and feels like a piece of plaster.

The gist: I'll stay with 3…5% castor.

I use 10% in all my recipes and I’ve never had that experience

 

[ResolvableOwl]

BAD NEWS for the castor friends among LSers!!!

I've diluted a castile-like soap paste, part with distilled water, part with concentrated castor liquid soap. The castor soap (INCI: Potassium ricinoleate) causes major thinning of the LS. On my super-elaborate LS viscosity scale, the addition of castor soap turned a respectable soap turn into runny– a thinning caused by an increase of the total concentration of soap! I'm perplexed.

Woefully, I can't give numbers here yet, but I will for sure examine this further, and hand in quantitative insights soon.
Gosh, this explains so many weird inexplicable deviations from the expectations of LS dilution and blending! Grrrr … I don't want to give up castor!

 

[Johnez]

BAD NEWS for the castor friends among LSers!!!

I've diluted a castile-like soap paste, part with distilled water, part with concentrated castor liquid soap. The castor soap (INCI: Potassium ricinoleate) causes major thinning of the LS. On my super-elaborate LS viscosity scale, the addition of castor soap turned a respectable soap turn into runny– a thinning caused by an increase of the total concentration of soap! I'm perplexed.

Woefully, I can't give numbers here yet, but I will for sure examine this further, and hand in quantitative insights soon.
Gosh, this explains so many weird inexplicable deviations from the expectations of LS dilution and blending! Grrrr … I don't want to give up castor!

For a moment there I was afraid there was a supply issue. Phew!

Castor is a strange bird. Looking forward to the numbers.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

News from elevated-castor bar soap:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/20-castor-cp±op-2-vinegar.85833/post-916850tl;dr: Don't.