Organic cocoa butter in soapmaking

[AliOop]

Thank you so much for this info. I've been meditating on making laundry soap for myself and one of my daughters who loves things homemade.

That is wonderful, @Ladka! I mix my homemade laundry powder in these proportions:

1 part homemade laundry soap, dried and grated as small as possible
2 parts borax (sodium tetraborate)
2 parts washing soda (sodium carbonate)

Optional: ½ part sodium carbonate peroxyhydrate - this is an optical brightener with hydrogen peroxide. Not necessary to get the clothes clean, but I find it helps with stain removal and with keeping the whites whiter.

I wear a dust mask while mixing everything together. I only need 1 T of the mixture to wash a small/medium load, and 2 T for a large or very soiled load.

Like most soap-based laundry powders, it performs much better in warm or hot water. If you prefer to wash in cold water, you can dissolve the powder in a cup of hot water, and then pour that into your washer. If you have hard water, you should include a chelator such as citric acid, EDTA, or sodium gluconate in the soap. Otherwise, the soap won't rinse out well, and your clothes will start to look dingy.

Hope that helps, and let us know how your laundry soap project turns out!

 

[Ladka]

Thank you, AliOOp!
What is T , as in 1 T, 2 T?

 

[AliOop]

Thank you, AliOOp!
What is T , as in 1 T, 2 T?

Oh sorry!

T = tablespoon here in the US. My bad!

 

[Botânica Mágica]

Don't waste your lard and castor oil on laundry soap, as they are low on cleansing value.

Go with 100% CO and O% SF. It is high cleansing and very soluble, which is perfect for laundry or dishes.

On the other hand, your proposed recipe would be nice for hand/body soap, if you sub out 15% of the CO for something like olive, avocado, rice bran, etc.

I am making with 66,6% olive oil and 33% coconut. I think it is fine. Do you think olive oil is bad for laundry?

----After I slice the bars and cure for 4 or 5 weeks I grate in the food processor and leave it resting (and drying) for a couple of weeks before blending with sodium, borax...... Long process. How are you doing it? thanks

 

[AliOop]

I am making with 66,6% olive oil and 33% coconut. I think it is fine. Do you think olive oil is bad for laundry?

----After I slice the bars and cure for 4 or 5 weeks I grate in the food processor and leave it resting (and drying) for a couple of weeks before blending with sodium, borax...... Long process. How are you doing it? thanks

Hello @Botânica Mágica!

I wouldn't say that olive is "bad" for laundry, but in my opinion, it is not ideal for laundry. Olive oil has a very low cleansing value, low solubility value, and a high conditioning value. That is positive for skin, but not so positive for cleaning clothes.

To make laundry soap, I prefer 100% coconut oil for several reasons:

1. High cleansing. This is good for removing dirt, body oils, etc. You can use far less soap if it is 100% CO.

2. High solubility. This means that it rinses out of the clothes more easily than an olive oil soap, which will tend to cause more build-up.

3. Low on conditioning. While this could be a drawback for skin soap, clothes don't need to be "conditioned" so there is no need to use high conditioning oils like olive, lard, etc.

For these reasons, my go-to laundry soap is 100% CO with 0% SF. I normally hot-process it, so all saponification is done immediately. As soon as it is firm to the touch, I cut it into chunks, shred it in the food processor, and spread it out to air dry for a week or two. It doesn't need to "cure" in the sense of becoming gentler. But it is easier to grind into a powder after the water has evaporated -- and the evaporation happens much faster if it is shredded rather than cut into bars.

After grinding, then I mix it with washing soda, borax, and sodium percarbonate. It is a rather long process, but I do a big batch at one time, probably once a year or so.

ETA: Liquid Castile soap (100% OO) is often used for hand-washing delicate clothes. I think that is a good exception to what I stated above. Like all liquid soap, it is still very low on the superfat, which is what you want for a laundry soap of ay kind.

 

[lenarenee]

I’m afraid the term ‘cleansing’ on a soap calc doesn’t actually mean what you think; it refers to the skin drying, or stripping natural oils from the skin, instead of actual washing potential. Any soap will clean.

I’ve used lard and co laundry soap and saw no difference, even when used as a stain sick. (I expected 100% co to remove grease better, but didn’t)

I did prefer the how co laundry soap grated and dissolved better, but still had to soak both of them in hot water for several minutes before using....and still found evidence of undissolved bits in the clothes. Over time the clothes became gray despite double rinsing with vinegar and I gave it up. Too bad too, as I loved making laundry soap!

 

[AliOop]

I’m afraid the term ‘cleansing’ on a soap calc doesn’t actually mean what you think; it refers to the skin drying, or stripping natural oils from the skin, instead of actual washing potential. Any soap will clean.

I’ve used lard and co laundry soap and saw no difference, even when used as a stain sick. (I expected 100% co to remove grease better, but didn’t)

I did prefer the how co laundry soap grated and dissolved better, but still had to soak both of them in hot water for several minutes before using....and still found evidence of undissolved bits in the clothes. Over time the clothes became gray despite double rinsing with vinegar and I gave it up. Too bad too, as I loved making laundry soap!

I do understand the "cleansing" number, and am very aware that all soap cleans. That's why I enjoy high-lard soaps on my body and face. Despite super lower cleansing numbers, they clean me just fine, but they don't strip my skin into a dry, peeling mess.

On the other end of the cleansing spectrum, my experience has been that 100% CO is far more effective at stripping oil and grease from clothes and dishes than other, less cleansing/stripping oils. The dish soaps that I tried with mixed CO+lard, and then CO+OO (all 0% SF) left streaks on my dishes - 100% CO does not. I can only imagine what those mixed soaps would leave behind in something more absorbent - like clothing. That's where the high solubility of CO has an advantage, as well.

For whatever reason, I don't get the build-up in the clothes that others have experienced with homemade laundry powder. I do mix the grated CO soap with borax and washing soda, I do wash in hot water, and I don't have very hard water. When I lived in a place with hard water in the past, we got a softener. All of those factors probably contribute to my positive outcome.

Everyone needs to experiment to work out the best set up for their situation. But there is a reason that all the "green" commercial laundry soaps use CO. I've never seen one that uses lard.

 

[lenarenee]

So sorry, I didn’t mean to offended. The wording just doesn’t seem to make the cleansing term clear to a newbie who may not know the difference between cleansing as in removing skin oils, and cleaning as in removing particles of dirt.

We also live with soft water, but even the grated 100% co soap didn’t dissolve well after soaking in hot water. Do you cure yours? I don’t, and used 0% fat. I’m sure different washing machines factor into it to. I’m disappointed it didn’t work well for us.

Lard isn’t considered green so a green soap wouldn’t contain it. I don’t think that alone is reason to declare coconut soap a better cleaner, especially when a Castile olive oil soap strips me cleaner than pure co soap. I wonder is the item being washed matters....skin vs cloth? Sounds like a type of experiment that smf members might have done in the past!

 

[AliOop]

No offense taken, @lenarenee! I totally agree, it is good to make sure that people know that "cleansing" means "stripping away oils." We've probably all seen many posts by newbies where they think a high cleansing number is good, because they think they will be "cleaner."

No doubt, results with different soaping oils do depend greatly on the washing water, as well as personal body chemistry. I personally don't have good results with OO or high CO on my skin (unless it's a well-cured salt bar).

But 100% CO, both in powdered form and in stain stick form, rocks my laundry and gets out grease, blood, food stains, and normal body oils. It cleans my dishes well, too, but I often find myself slipping back into the convenience of liquid soap for those. That's what great about making our own stuff - we get to make what works for us, right?

 

[Botânica Mágica]

Hello @Botânica Mágica!

I wouldn't say that olive is "bad" for laundry, but in my opinion, it is not ideal for laundry. Olive oil has a very low cleansing value, low solubility value, and a high conditioning value. That is positive for skin, but not so positive for cleaning clothes.

To make laundry soap, I prefer 100% coconut oil for several reasons:

1. High cleansing. This is good for removing dirt, body oils, etc. You can use far less soap if it is 100% CO.

2. High solubility. This means that it rinses out of the clothes more easily than an olive oil soap, which will tend to cause more build-up.

3. Low on conditioning. While this could be a drawback for skin soap, clothes don't need to be "conditioned" so there is no need to use high conditioning oils like olive, lard, etc.

For these reasons, my go-to laundry soap is 100% CO with 0% SF. I normally hot-process it, so all saponification is done immediately. As soon as it is firm to the touch, I cut it into chunks, shred it in the food processor, and spread it out to air dry for a week or two. It doesn't need to "cure" in the sense of becoming gentler. But it is easier to grind into a powder after the water has evaporated -- and the evaporation happens much faster if it is shredded rather than cut into bars.

After grinding, then I mix it with washing soda, borax, and sodium percarbonate. It is a rather long process, but I do a big batch at one time, probably once a year or so.
.
ETA: Liquid Castile soap (100% OO) is often used for hand-washing delicate clothes. I think that is a good exception to what I stated above. Like all liquid soap, it is still very low on the superfat, which is what you want for a laundry soap of ay kind.

Thank you for your message. I also mix the soap with crystal soda, borax, and sodium + essential oils. Long process, indeed, but the result is wonderful. I wanna try only CO. Now I had 10 kg of CO + OO curing and drying! :/ I tested many dirt fabrics with it and was ok, but I follow your recommendation. Thank you and all the best.

 

[AliOop]

Thank you for your message. I also mix the soap with crystal soda, borax, and sodium + essential oils. Long process, indeed, but the result is wonderful. I wanna try only CO. Now I had 10 kg of CO + OO curing and drying! :/ I tested many dirt fabrics with it and was ok, but I follow your recommendation. Thank you and all the best.

You can always make a batch of 100% CO and mix it with your other batch of OO + CO to bring up the cleansing value.

But no matter, as @lenarenee pointed out, all soap will clean. We do a lot of work around the house, garden, and chicken coop, so maybe your clothes are not as dirty or greasy as ours and will not need so much cleansing as we do.

 

[lenarenee]

No offense taken, @lenarenee! I totally agree, it is good to make sure that people know that "cleansing" means "stripping away oils." We've probably all seen many posts by newbies where they think a high cleansing number is good, because they think they will be "cleaner."

No doubt, results with different soaping oils do depend greatly on the washing water, as well as personal body chemistry. I personally don't have good results with OO or high CO on my skin (unless it's a well-cured salt bar).

But 100% CO, both in powdered form and in stain stick form, rocks my laundry and gets out grease, blood, food stains, and normal body oils. It cleans my dishes well, too, but I often find myself slipping back into the convenience of liquid soap for those. That's what great about making our own stuff - we get to make what works for us, right?

Glad to know. It’s so hard to “hear”emotions with typed words.