OO vs SAO vs RBO at 75%

[szaza]

About 3 weeks ago I did a color test with 3 natural greens added to lye water (pandan, moringa and matcha).https://www.soapmakingforum.com/index.php?threads/75277/ Since I was masterbatching I thought I might as well throw in 3 different recipes so I could compare 3 oils that I often use and have a similar fatty acid profile.
I really like a 20% CO, 5% castor, 75% Olive oil soap and wanted to see if subbing the olive for either sweet almond or rice bran oil would make a difference.
Today was the first lather test. I had forgotten which oil was paired with which colorant so I could test without knowing which oil I was testing. Obviously the differences weren't big, but I still definitely noticed a difference in lather. The pandan/OO had a very fluffy/bubbly lather, while the moringa/SAO started out fluffy, but developed a creamier lather with smaller, denser bubbles over time. The matcha/RBO was the creamiest, but also felt a bit slimy.
My favorite so far is the sweet almond oil, so I'll probably start to use it more in my soaps[emoji6] I'll try to remember to report back in a few weeks after a full cure.
(Sorry, no pics.. home alone and have no clue how to wash my hands and take pictures at the same time[emoji12])

 

[szaza]

Just a quick update.. The soaps are now at 8 weeks and fully cured. I tested them again and all the differences between the 3 oils seemed to have disappeared. The SAO soap took the longest to harden, but is now just as hard as the others. The olive might lather a bit easier than the rest, but the difference isn't that noticable.
I also tried a 75% high oleic sunflower oil bar that I made 2 weeks ago and it seems to do just as well as the others were at 3 weeks.
My conclusion at this point would be that when it comes to high Oleic oils, the kind of oil doesn't really seem to matter, so going for the cheapest one is probably the best approach.

 

[Dawni]

Interesting. So this was a lather test yes? How bout how they felt on your skin? Also no differences?

 

[szaza]

Interesting. So this was a lather test yes? How bout how they felt on your skin? Also no differences?

Lather test. There was not enough time in between to test skin feel, but after washing my hands 7 times they still feel soft[emoji854]

 

[szaza]

I was a bit frustrated with my outcome of Sunday, since I've read so many soapers swear by one oil over another and I started to doubt if I'd payd close enough attention, so I tested again today. A bit more thoroughly this time: I first tried to make the most lather possible with each bar, then I rinsed all the lather off and did a standerdised test, rubbing each soap 20x on my hands and then rubbing my hands together 20x. I looked very closely at the lather, specifically the size and amount of bubbles.
U fortunately my conclusion is still the same. The olive seems to lather a bit easier, but they all had a few big bubbles in beween a bunch of small-medium bubbles (there weren't any tiny bubbles, which was to be expected since there's very little stearic/palmitic acid in the recipes). The big bubbles in the olive seemed to be a bit bigger than those in the almond and RBO, but that's about it.
Anybody have any idea why? Am I not seeing something, is there something else to be aware of when lather testing?
I'll test each soap again with a bit more time in between to test skin feel, but for lather I wanted to be sure I remembered exactly how each lather looked like to be able to compare.

 

[Dawni]

Maybe they need more time? They are high oleic after all... Like how a 100% olive is best at a year, I'm assuming a 75% one should also take longer than 2 months?

Maybe the lather will still change then? I could be wrong though..

 

[szaza]

Maybe they need more time? They are high oleic after all... Like how a 100% olive is best at a year, I'm assuming a 75% one should also take longer than 2 months?

Maybe the lather will still change then? I could be wrong though..

You're probably right.. though I did see a big difference between the soaps at 3 weeks, which seems to have disappeared now. Maybe it'll show up again in a few months [emoji6] I'll have to remind myself to re-test when they've cured a bit longer.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Keep up the great work I will be following with interest! I believe that I can now tell the difference between bars that are > 50-60 % lard vs. palm in terms of lather and how they feel when I use them. The lard lather is denser and creamier. The palm lathers well, but doesn’t seem as creamy as the lard (but the recipes are not simple subs). The castile I made (ZNSC) doesn’t make as much lather as the lard and palm, but it’s still nice. I would call it a “light” lather rather than a deficient lather. It is very gentle to my skin. The bars I made with clay and using a recipe high is soft oils lather nicely and have the clay “slip” to them. I have some relatively high butter bars that I was not at all impressed by after 4-6 weeks (draggy), but they produce a nice lather now that they are 5 months old and, as expected, they don’t feel drying. I’m not really to the point of being able to tell if the softer oils differ in feel or are adding anything special. I made some lard-based comparison bars a couple of months ago subbing OO vs Avocado vs safflower, but haven’t remembered to do the side-by-side comparisons. We really, really like the one that has the avocado oil in it. In general, I like every “second generation” soap that I’ve made for different reasons, but I am also tending to stick mostly with the recipes that are the most economical.

P.S. SAO is pretty expensive in my part of the world. It’s interesting to me how much the prices/availability vary for the different oils and butters around the world. I suppose it depends in part on where the growing regions are, but also the trade agreements and tariffs.

 

[penelopejane]

Just a quick update.. The soaps are now at 8 weeks and fully cured. I tested them again and all the differences between the 3 oils seemed to have disappeared. The SAO soap took the longest to harden, but is now just as hard as the others. The olive might lather a bit easier than the rest, but the difference isn't that noticable.
I also tried a 75% high oleic sunflower oil bar that I made 2 weeks ago and it seems to do just as well as the others were at 3 weeks.
My conclusion at this point would be that when it comes to high Oleic oils, the kind of oil doesn't really seem to matter, so going for the cheapest one is probably the best approach.

I am not into bubbles at all but I use a lot of those oils and I like a bit of lather.
I think the 20% CO that you've added is going to negate any of the subtle differences between the OO, RBO and SAO when it comes to lather or bubbles. You might want to test those oils without any CO at all. Most of my recipes don't have CO and none have it at 20%.

The reason I use SAO is the skin feel. It takes about 12 weeks to cure as I use high OO as well and it makes a really nice soap that doesn't dry your skin out. It is the one ingredient that people actually comment on at 30% and all the people I have blind tested it on prefer it to avocado oil at 30% in the same recipe. BUT Avocado oil has huge label appeal.

RB is really, really cheap here and I only use it to cut down cost. It doesn't add anything to soap - IMO and, infact, it makes any recipe softer.

I love OO. I love castile cured for 12 - 24 months. I use first cold pressed Australian EVOO. It is lovely. My recipe is not bubbly but it has a creamy lather. It doesn't dry out my skin and my DH can use it on his eczema without a worry. I think there is a vast difference between pomace and EVOO in the final soap regarding skin feel and bubbles and lather.

No doubt you've seen this experiment?
http://alchemyandashes.blogspot.com/2014/03/single-oil-soap-experiment-phase-3-one.html

 

[szaza]

I am not into bubbles at all but I use a lot of those oils and I like a bit of lather.
I think the 20% CO that you've added is going to negate any of the subtle differences between the OO, RBO and SAO when it comes to lather or bubbles. You might want to test those oils without any CO at all. Most of my recipes don't have CO and none have it at 20%.

The reason I use SAO is the skin feel. It takes about 12 weeks to cure as I use high OO as well and it makes a really nice soap that doesn't dry your skin out. It is the one ingredient that people actually comment on at 30% and all the people I have blind tested it on prefer it to avocado oil at 30% in the same recipe. BUT Avocado oil has huge label appeal.

RB is really, really cheap here and I only use it to cut down cost. It doesn't add anything to soap - IMO and, infact, it makes any recipe softer.

I love OO. I love castile cured for 12 - 24 months. I use first cold pressed Australian EVOO. It is lovely. My recipe is not bubbly but it has a creamy lather. It doesn't dry out my skin and my DH can use it on his eczema without a worry. I think there is a vast difference between pomace and EVOO in the final soap regarding skin feel and bubbles and lather.

No doubt you've seen this experiment?
http://alchemyandashes.blogspot.com/2014/03/single-oil-soap-experiment-phase-3-one.html

Thanks for your input! Yes, I've seen the single oil tests. I wanted to test with 20% CO because that's what I regularly use in recipes (sometimes more, sometimes less, I've used between 7% and 30%). I'll probably be using these soft oils at 30-50% in a recipe and if I don't notice a difference at 75% there's no use buying a more expensive oil. Let's see how it is after a longer cure..
Very interesting that RBO makes your soap soft. I haven't used it a lot in soap yet, but in this experiment the RBO soap traced the fastest and set up quickly to become a nice, reasonably hard bar (considering it's 80% soft oils). Olive was only a bit slower while almond took a long time to trace and stayed softer than the other two until about 6-8 weeks of cure. Maybe the matcha powder that I used to color the RBO soap had an influence? Wouldn't expect it to, but who knows..

 

[Lin19687]

Personally IMHO Single Oil tests do not tell you what you want in the end. To know what you like or what works you need to try the recipes and then test.

I did a couple tests on 2 recipes to see what I wanted and no.
5 months later, the lather is SO much better and it is much milder. At 2 months is was not what I wanted.
That is the hardest thing about soap making recipe trials is the wait

 

[earlene]

When I did the single oil soaps I did not necessarily learn how each oil interacts with the others, that is true. But I did learn that some single oils are perfectly fine for making soap all by themselves and do produce bubbles or lather or whatever, contrary to what some people say. For example, sesame seed oil all by itself did produce lots of bubbles. And 100% Cocoa Butter did not produce a crumbly bar of soap like some people say it would. Stuff like that. Some stuff people seem to say about single oils did turn out to be pretty accurate, but not in all cases. So I still found it to be a valuable experiment. And it did give me a clue about oil shelf life.

 

[penelopejane]

Thanks for your input! Yes, I've seen the single oil tests. I wanted to test with 20% CO because that's what I regularly use in recipes (sometimes more, sometimes less, I've used between 7% and 30%). I'll probably be using these soft oils at 30-50% in a recipe and if I don't notice a difference at 75% there's no use buying a more expensive oil. Let's see how it is after a longer cure..
Very interesting that RBO makes your soap soft. I haven't used it a lot in soap yet, but in this experiment the RBO soap traced the fastest and set up quickly to become a nice, reasonably hard bar (considering it's 80% soft oils). Olive was only a bit slower while almond took a long time to trace and stayed softer than the other two until about 6-8 weeks of cure. Maybe the matcha powder that I used to color the RBO soap had an influence? Wouldn't expect it to, but who knows..

So maybe the conclusion so far in your experiment would be:
If you use 10-20% CO in a mix adding 30-50% of Almond oil OR Rice Bran Oil OR OO didn't make a detectable difference to the lather or bubbles so the cheaper oil is fine if lather or bubbles are your only aim.

10-20% RB makes no difference to the hardness of my soap. It's more of a surface sliminess after a lot of use of a high RB soap - so at the kitchen sink - that I notice rather than a soft soap per se.

 

[szaza]

So maybe the conclusion so far in your experiment would be:
If you use 10-20% CO in a mix adding 30-50% of Almond oil OR Rice Bran Oil OR OO didn't make a detectable difference to the lather or bubbles so the cheaper oil is fine if lather or bubbles are your only aim.

10-20% RB makes no difference to the hardness of my soap. It's more of a surface sliminess after a lot of use of a high RB soap - so at the kitchen sink - that I notice rather than a soft soap per se.

Thanks for clarifying about the RBO!
If I want to be totally correct my conclusion at this moment would have to be that at 8 months the difference in lather between 75% OO, RBO or SAO combined with 5% castor and 20% CO is not detectible to me. So if I want to make a bar I want to use at 8 weeks that contains 20% CO, 5% Castor and either of those oils I would go for the cheapest one at this point.

 

[szaza]

3 month update!
I've been testing these on rotation at the sink for several days. I might have seen a slight difference between the soaps, yay!
I now understand the softness/sliminess @penelopejane was talking about with RBO. It gets a weird texture after use that's not very pleasant. It does have a nice creamy lather, but for me that's negated by the slimy feel.
The OO seems to lather a bit easier than the rest, but is also a bit more drying on my skin.
SAO seems to be the shortest lasting soap. Other than that it's fine but it doesn't stand out to me. It doesn't have the slimyness (or creamyness) of RBO, nor the lather (or drying effect) of OO and I think it feels quite similar to the 75% HO sunfl oil soap I made end of july.
I'll try to retest at 6 months to see if there's a difference.

 

[Lin19687]

Try using one of the bars for 3 days in the shower, then the next then the next.
I find that my hands take a lot more then my body.
Unless you are just making hand soap.

 

[Dawni]

I incidentally just tried my 70% RBO soap this week and I don't have slime.

What I did get is a soft soap even after it's been dried between uses. I tried a small test piece and I like the lather, but the smaller it got, the softer and more bendy it got. Bendy as in I can probably use it like soap dough now lol

Thanks for the updates @szaza! You just also reminded me that I have several experiments that need updating lol including the high RBO post.

 

[szaza]

Try using one of the bars for 3 days in the shower, then the next then the next.
I find that my hands take a lot more then my body.
Unless you are just making hand soap.

Thanks lin, that's a great idea! I'll try that as soon as the bar of soap I got in the shower now gets used up!

I incidentally just tried my 70% RBO soap this week and I don't have slime.

What I did get is a soft soap even after it's been dried between uses. I tried a small test piece and I like the lather, but the smaller it got, the softer and more bendy it got. Bendy as in I can probably use it like soap dough now lol

Hmm.. interesting! My RBO soap hasn't been used up far enough to get that, but I've had that happen to soaps before (though mainly when they didn't have enough time to dry). I'm curious what the RBO soap will do when it gets smaller!

 

[penelopejane]

3 month update!
I've been testing these on rotation at the sink for several days. I might have seen a slight difference between the soaps, yay!
I now understand the softness/sliminess @penelopejane was talking about with RBO. It gets a weird texture after use that's not very pleasant. It does have a nice creamy lather, but for me that's negated by the slimy feel.
The OO seems to lather a bit easier than the rest, but is also a bit more drying on my skin.
SAO seems to be the shortest lasting soap. Other than that it's fine but it doesn't stand out to me. It doesn't have the slimyness (or creamyness) of RBO, nor the lather (or drying effect) of OO and I think it feels quite similar to the 75% HO sunfl oil soap I made end of july.
I'll try to retest at 6 months to see if there's a difference.

Will be interested how you feel about the OO soap in 6 months. I find they become less drying, harder, much more creamy and bubblier. But, I could be a tiny bit biased.

 

[szaza]

It's been a while, the soaps are now 7,5 months old, so I thought it's about time for another update.
I tested the soaps in the shower (I think in October), but didn't really notice anything different in skin feel than when washing in the sink. I did notice that some (other) soaps could be realy drying with repeated use, so I figured testing these soaps by washing 3x in a row (without any time in between) with each soap, wile leaving long intervals between all 4 soaps (I included the sunflower oil soap that's only 6 months old) would be the way to go for testing.
The HO sunflower soap increased a lot in lather (it's now similar to the OO soap at 3 months), but wasn't drying.
The OO soap had a lovely, much creamier lather than before, but unfortunately it was still drying on my skin..
The RBO soap was the hardest to lather up, but still produced an adequate amount of small dense bubbles and my skin actualy felt better after using it! (my hands were still slightly dry from the OO soap) I have to say I'm quite impressed by this.
The SAO soap had a decent lather and wasn't drying, but still not impressive enough for the difference in price (2x that of OO and RBO and 4x that of HO sunflower)

So, in summary, I still like the lather of the OO soap best, but it's drying. The RBO soap has an amazing skin feel, but not so amazing lather and both SAO and HO sunflower are somewhere in between.