Only used hard oils

[Ketchy]

Hello everyone, I am very new to soap making and had just completed my first batch last week. I researched soap making heavily for 2 months and not until after I finished my batch did I think about my choice of oils. You see, I used no liquid oils, just hard (shea butter and coconut oil). I had these 2 oils picked out from the very beginning because I use them both as moisturizers for both my skin and hair, and thought I needed to try them out in soap! I entered my recipe into soapcalc.net to find a good balance of the oils and the only "negative" part of my choice of oil combination was that I would have a very hard soap. I guess I actually don't know if hard soap is a negative or not, because I certainly wouldn't want my soap to fall apart or dissolve easily. Is it a general rule to use both hard and liquid oils when making soap? Is there any real negatives about using only hard oils or only liquid oils?

 

[judymoody]

Hi Ketchy, There is no hard and fast rule about what proportion of oils you need to use. A site which may be helpful is this one which discusses the properties of single oil soap: http://www.zensoaps.com/singleoil.htm

What is important is that the qualities of your soaping oils change when they interact with lye. So many people experience high % coconut oil soaps as drying and increase the superfat/lye discount to compensate. A 100% coconut oil soap with 20% superfat is one such formulation. Shea in high % can depress lather; I usually keep it at 10% or lower.

The only way to find out for sure is to soap a small test batch (say 1-2 lbs) and see for yourself.

A recipe that is high is hard oils will trace faster and will tend to heat. You will also have to soap a little warmer to keep your oils fully melted (for all CO and shea, I would soap at 110-120). So a recipe like this will probably be speedy and could possibly overheat. You'd want to keep an eye on it and check periodically after pouring.

Hope this helps!