Please check... 4-oil recipe!

[Chaiat5]

Hi every buddy!

My son and I have been practising We have made 1-, 2- and 3-oil soaps and now that we have some palm kernel oil, we'd like to attempt a 4-oil soap. This is our proposed recipe (soapcalc doc attached):

Olive oil (EVOO) - 60%
Coconut oil - 20%
Palm kernel oil - 15%
Castor oil - 5%

I have not had much luck with olive oil in large quantities and sometimes miss out important recipe details, so I'd appreciate it if you could give this a look-see and let me know if it needs tweaking or if I've missed anything?

Additional questions:
1. This looks like it will be a decently hard soap, yes? So I'll have no need for sodium lactate, am I right? I used it for a Castile soap, but since this has CO and PKO, am I right to assume that there is no need?
2. I had used bottled water before [we have hard water here] and 1 or 2 of our CO soaps had spots which we think were DOS. We are using distlled water for this soap to be safe... should we consider citric acid or not?

Thanks so much!

 

[KiwiMoose]

Palm kernel oil and just palm oil are two different types of oils with a different fatty acid profile. Palm kernel oil is sometimes used as a substitute for coconut oil in recipes because it contributes to the cleansing capabilities of a recipe. To combine Palm kernel oil with coconut oil in those quantities could make a very cleansing soap which many would find too harsh/drying. Try using a combined amount of the two of no more than 25% and make up the difference with OO.

Sodium lactate doesn't really make the soap any harder - it just makes it easier to unmold. I ran out about a year ago so I stopped using it, and to be honest I have not noticed any difference.

 

[Chaiat5]

Thank you so much! I have much to learn! It does get awfully dry here in winter. I’ll amend the amounts.

 

[Ekuzo]

In addition to the above, you can raise the lye concentration to 35% (or even better - 40 if you're comfortable). Your recipe will become bastille with lots of liquid oils and that will help with the unmolding. You can also add some plain table salt for the same reason. If you don't have ROE, citric acid is a good enough choice to help you have peace of mind. The DOS you have in your old batches are most likely caused by the bottled water (no matter if it's mineral or spring water it still has ions in it and it will still contribute to oxidation). So using distilled/deionized water is definitely needed

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Have you tried the Zany No Slime Castile as a bastille recipe? It’s the one that uses faux seawater made with salt and sodium bicarbonate. I ask because it has proven itself to be almost foolproof and it makes a high olive oil soap that many people like. If you’re interested, let us know.

 

[A-Polly]

Hi @Chaiat5 — that's so cool that you can soap with your son!

If you have access to regular palm oil as well as the palm kernel oil, another forum recipe you may want to consider is Zany's Palm Olive. The link shows the recipe set up for a small 16oz. or ~500g test batch. It is only 3 oils, though, so you'd need to tweak it a little if you want 4 oils in there. I've tried it as written, and it made a very smooth, hard bar. I used clay as Zany mentions in the post, but not the ROE (usually there's some added to my olive oil already). And typically I use citric acid or sodium gluconate as well, because we have moderately hard water around here.

I'm also a fan of the Zany's No Slime Castile/Bastille @Mobjack Bay mentioned above, but that wouldn't use your new palm kernel oil. Maybe you could substitute palm kernel for the coconut oil in the bastille version? Might be interesting to try!

I hope you both have fun with your next experiments!