Olive Oil-My problem oil

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

Guest

I have two failed veggie soaps, gooey, gummy, no suds...and I think my problem in my veggie recipes is OLIVE OIL...I realized my most successful veggie soap was made with canola.

I don't care about the dos issue because my soap will be consumed immediately,or I will suggest it should...

Going to read over my failed recipes today.
 
Please don't start about the DOS again; you know what the general opinion is.
If you'd let us now from what ingredients other than olive oil your failed veggie soaps were made; we might be able to explain.
Normally, olive oil gives a hard bar with creamy bubbles and a bit of a slimy feel; which gets better when given a good long curing time.
Did you perhaps combine mainly other soft oils with the olive oil?
 
If you post the failed ones maybe we can help. It's not the olive oil, I'd venture to say, but the combo or SF you're using.
Sorry you're having trouble, philly
 
how much olive oil did you have in the formulas (%), how much water (lye concentration), how long are you letting it cure before making that determination, and are you sure it's really 100% olive oil in your bottle because a lot of what looks like inexpensive olive oil is actually a blend and only says so in tiny tiny print.
 
How long have you let them cure? I find that high OO soaps need a long time to cure, even with a slight water discount.
 
as soon as I get home I am going to post my failure recipes vs the one that worked
 
Olive oil is the main oil in every single one of my recipes, minimum amount 40%, usually much higher and I have made several batches of 100% castile. I have yet to see an orange spot on any of my soaps and I cure in the basement!! I am guessing it is not the olive oil, since it is such a stable oil. Since it's gummy, are you sure you're getting your lye amount right?
 
carebear said:
are you sure it's really 100% olive oil in your bottle because a lot of what looks like inexpensive olive oil is actually a blend and only says so in tiny tiny print.

That was my first thought too! I use oo in pretty much everything and no issues....
 
I make nothing but veggie oil bars, and olive oil is an ingredient in almost every single one. I've found if my olive oil is higher than 30% (and even at 30% I balance it out with a lot of hard oils such a coconut/PKO it can take a long time to harden. The high olive oil bars (over though take at least 4 weeks before they are hard enough to handle much. To compare, most of my bars are hard and ready for home use in about 2 weeks (although I wait 4 before giving them away. Should be 6 but I'm impatient!)

Perhaps it just hasn't been long enough for your bars made with olive for them to be the consistency that you're looking for? I've heard many high olive bars need an 8 week cure.
 
Artephius said:
Perhaps it just hasn't been long enough for your bars made with olive for them to be the consistency that you're looking for? I've heard many high olive bars need an 8 week cure.

That is a distinct possibility.

And while you may not care about DOS...you cannot impose your will on customers. "You must use immediately...perishable" is not a good business practice, no matter what the (soap) market. Now, if you sold produce, eggs, milk, fish...yes. Just because you WANT them to use it up right away, doesn't mean they will. Or should. Especially if they buy more than one bar at a time.

This is a serious question, and I hope you will answer honestly....are you in dire financial straights? Like, this ABSOLUTELY has to work because you need it to?
 
EDITED TO SAY: I clearly did miss something.

and my deepest apologies rag!
 
carebear said:
OK, for once I have to say "hunh?" at a post like this.
If there was discussion of selling this soap please point me to it. Sounds more to me like it's a new formula that isn't working out and that happens to all of us no matter your level of experience.

But if I totally missed something and if you are selling this soap Philly - then stop!

This is the line from Philly's original post:

"I don't care about the dos issue because my soap will be consumed immediately,or I will suggest it should... "
And everything Philly has said from the get go has been geared toward selling her soap, so it's reasonable to assume...
 
Vinca Leaf said:
Artephius said:
Perhaps it just hasn't been long enough for your bars made with olive for them to be the consistency that you're looking for? I've heard many high olive bars need an 8 week cure.

That is a distinct possibility.

And while you may not care about DOS...you cannot impose your will on customers. "You must use immediately...perishable" is not a good business practice, no matter what the (soap) market. Now, if you sold produce, eggs, milk, fish...yes. Just because you WANT them to use it up right away, doesn't mean they will. Or should. Especially if they buy more than one bar at a time.

This is a serious question, and I hope you will answer honestly....are you in dire financial straights? Like, this ABSOLUTELY has to work because you need it to?

My absolutely honest answer is...my goal is to make a bar that is good for African American skin types(basically keeps us from being "ashy"). If a more perishable bar does the job then that is what I would like to make.

I have to produce recipes that may be "outside the box", if others before me had stayed within the box, then I (meaning those with more ethnic cosmetic needs) would not have a variety of hair greases, burgundy lipstick, chemical hair straightners, etc....or the flip side is I'd be spraying my hair with Aquanet, and wearing pink lipstick and blue eye shadow. 8)

ETA: when I first started making soap, I ordered from two soapmakers online, I actually keep one bar in front of my computer. Since April, the bar has NOT developed dos, nor has it lost it's scent...and yet when I used it, it was incredibly drying...so was the other soapers bar. They were both lovely durable bars but having dry ashy skin it was no different from a bar of Palmolive.

If anything the flip side of the concern about one soaper's affects the market for all soapers...an African American or a person with dry skin who might read rave reviews, might say..."boy-oh-boy whats the matter with me, this stuff wasn't lovely, it dried me out, I'll stick to Tone and Dove"
 
oldragbagger said:
carebear said:
OK, for once I have to say "hunh?" at a post like this.
If there was discussion of selling this soap please point me to it. Sounds more to me like it's a new formula that isn't working out and that happens to all of us no matter your level of experience.

But if I totally missed something and if you are selling this soap Philly - then stop!

This is the line from Philly's original post:

"I don't care about the dos issue because my soap will be consumed immediately,or I will suggest it should... "
And everything Philly has said from the get go has been geared toward selling her soap, so it's reasonable to assume...

Ah - thanks for pointing that out. how could I have missed it?

outside the box doesn't have to mean crap, Philly - so stop working as though being you makes it ok to make it so.

THAT IS FREAKING ABSURD. Philly, seriously - get real. Please. No really. Pretty please. Or fail quietly - that'll work too.
 
phillysoaps wrote:
My absolutely honest answer is...my goal is to make a bar that is good for African American skin types(basically keeps us from being "ashy"). If a more perishable bar does the job then that is what I would like to make.

I have to produce recipes that may be "outside the box", if others before me had stayed within the box, then I (meaning those with more ethnic cosmetic needs) would not have a variety of hair greases, burgundy lipstick, chemical hair straightners, etc....or the flip side is I'd be spraying my hair with Aquanet, and wearing pink lipstick and blue eye shadow.

I can't keep quiet any longer! THAT IS THE MOST REDICULOUS STATEMENT I HAVE EVER HEARD AND PLANE IGNORANT!!!!!!!!!

I'll tell you what I think. I've been watching your posts Philly for some time and you have a nice sly little pattern going. You say just enough to get people riled up, sit back and watch until it just about dies down and then hit it again.
It is amazing that anyone would take the beatings and lashings you have and still be here and not even be bothered by them, you don't even get angry. Suspicious!!
I am not one to jump in and start something or even join in an argument but you have gone too far. I also don't make accusations but I think your a sly little troll who likes to keep things slightly stirred up to see how long you can get away with it.
If your statement above and all the others you have made about DOS and such is how you feel then you need to go back to 101, no you need to forget soap all together. My worst soap (from the begginning) is better for the "African American Community" than your best!

I'm done, but I suggest many of you take a look at Phillys pattern. I'm not the only one suspicious....but I'm darn fed up!

ONe of the deffinitions of a troll is someone who keeps the board members riled up. With you constantly bringing up DOS and the fact that you knowingly sell it.....KNOWING it is going to set someone off.....or at least you should by NOW.....makes you a troll!!
 
I never said I would SELL soap with dos, what I said was I found more success with canola.

I can only imagine if this were 50 years ago and this were a hair product making forum, and the majority were trying to go from making heavy products like VO5 or Aquanet...and create products for more free flowing styles...at the same time someone was trying to create more moisturing products for the AA community...I'm sure folks would be up in arms, yelling "grease??" "OILS??" "Thats ridiculous!", ykwim?
 
phillysoaps said:
I never said I would SELL soap with dos, what I said was I found more success with canola.

I can only imagine if this were 50 years ago and this were a hair product making forum, and the majority were trying to go from making heavy products like VO5 or Aquanet...and create products for more free flowing styles...at the same time someone was trying to create more moisturing products for the AA community...I'm sure folks would be up in arms, yelling "grease??" "OILS??" "Thats ridiculous!", ykwim?

There's a difference between using and selling something that has ingredients that may be different, but are innocuous (like grease, etc.) and selling something that is clearly rancid or rotten or can reasonably be expected to become so.

I am done talking to Philly. Waste of time. Waste of breath. I agree, she's out to wind us up and watch us flail in the wind with exasperation. I got better things to do, like make good, safe, pure, healthy soap.
 
Actually I use "Canola" in my soap and I prefer it from OO as we live in a very hard water area and OO is just yucky. (100%OO that is).

Now I live in the UK, and what is sold here as vegetable oil is not exactly the same as Canola. But it's also not the same as cold pressed Rapeseed Oil from the UK. Supermarket Oil is usually a blend of oils from several european countries and in central europe and eastern europe rape is a animal feed plant and has been bred for centuries to have less of whatever that stuff is what is not in Canola.

I have no issues with DOS in my bars. And I use a SAP number half way between Canola and Rapeseed Oil. I have an inkling that Canola does have DOS issues, because the genetic modification might have removed an antioxidant along the way. If you get DOS from Canola, try cold pressed organic rapeseed oil, although as the Canola-Rape is now so widerspread through the US it may be the same oil, just more expensive.

I do think Philly has some points, but also some weird issues.

Philly, I am still not sure what your question is and why your bars are failing, as I haven't seen the recipe yet. I have been doing loads of trials recently as I want to eliminate palm from my all-veg soap, but so far I have had no luck, unless I add an insane amount of cocoa butter and shea butter (insane cost-wise, to my skin these bars are lovely), so I have bitten the bullet and gone back to palm.

Philly, do you want to make vegetarian soap or does it not matter ? Do you want to add expensive butters ? Where do you get your oils from and what oils do you use ?

I know what you mean with the ash-skin. But soap can only do so much for that, as it naturally cleans (otherwise what's the point) and, depending on how hot your shower is, the top layer of skin gets disturbed. As a caucasian I do get that as well, it's just not visible on my skin, the hotter the shower, the worse it is. Yes some bars are more dying than others. My favourite soap has lard in it and rarely leaves me with flakey skin. Tallow on the other hand does.

I tell you what, if you don't need to make a veggie bar, try this recipe, let it cure for 8 weeks (yes, thats important) and see how you like it:

206g Coconut Oil
100g Canola
250g Lard (hydrogenated cheap stuff, not expensive kidney fat)
200g Olive Oil (Pomace, not VOO)
25g Sweet Almond Oil

307.8g Water
117g Lye

yes, it seems to have a high coconut amount, I live with rock hard water. (hard water by the way also contributes to skin-ash). It makes a relatively hard bar though and my skin loves it. No dryness and no flakes. Don't put any Fragrance Oils in this one to start with, just to make sure it isn't the FO/EO causing any issues.
 
I'm not riled up...and I don't think anyone else should be either....

Philly. Really. Selling DOS soap is NOT the same thing as someone in the 70's trying grease for AA women. It's not. Say canola *IS* the best for AA skin, can you find a source other than the community grocery that has the freshest canola, so you're not selling soap made with who-knows-how-old canola? For example...say Canola has a shelf life of 6 mo. Say said canola is sitting on the shelf at the community grocery for 4 months and you make soap w/it...just because you purchased old product AUTOMATICALLY shortens the life of your soap. If you found a source (I dunno where, online maybe?) that has a high enough turnover to send you "fresh" canola, that would extend the life of your bars greatly.

AND, in other soaping news...there is little difference between canola, sunflower, soy....and i think the latter has a better shelf life.

Have you considered using tea for its antioxidant properties?

Have you considered tweaking your superfat? What are you currently SF at?

Have you utilized soapcalc?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top