Question on my 7 month Bastille Soap

[soaring1]

I have family that wanted a soap with no essential oils or fragrance.
I infused Chamomile in Virgin Olive Oil and infused Lavandin buds in Virgin Olive Oil to make two different batches.

My Chamomile Bastille has dreaded dos just on the outside as I cut a bar in half. Not bad. The Lavandin is perfectly fine. Wondering why as it is the same recipe.

I CP at room temperature.

Superfat 8%
Water as percent of Oils - 33%
Distilled Water - 1.32 lbs
NaOH - .493 lb

Virgin Olive Oil - 46% (1.84 lb)
Rice Bran Oil refined - 46% (1.84 lb)
Castor Oil - 8% (.32 lb)

Is there anything I can do for the Chamomile Soap? I don't want to give it to anyone with the dos spots on it.

 

[dillsandwitch]

It could be the % of RBO. At higher % it can increase the chances of DOS. The soaps will still be perfectly safe to use, I wouldn't give them away and as long as they dont smell horrible I'd just use them up for personal use.

I personally would change out some of the RBO with some palm/lard/tallow so that the RBO doesn't go over say 20-25%. I have used RBO at 25% with no issues on soaps over 2 years old. I hope that helps you some. If any of the more experienced soaps wanna jump in with anything I have said that they disagree with...

 

[Seawolfe]

I have found in soaps that I will keep a while, any organics will increase the risk of DOS. So the RBO makes it more prone to DOS and the chamomile infusion pushed it over. With a superfat of 8 some of that infused oil did not saponify. I would guess the lavadin's camphor protected it a bit more.

Funny enough my 100% OO castiles with rosemary EO seem to age the best.

 

[DeeAnna]

Rosemary oleoresin (ROE) is a very effective antioxidant for fats and soap. I'm not trying to say rosemary EO is the same thing as ROE, but the two may share many of the same chemical components, so the EO may help a bit. I use ROE in all of my soaping fats.

Essential oils and other botanical ingredients can oxidize and become a trigger for rancidity (DOS), so I suspect Seawolfe's explanation is spot on. It's also possible that your lavindin batch may become rancid, just at a slower pace than the chamomile batch. I've seen that happen before. Rancidity generally develops on the outside of the bar, because the surface is exposed to oxygen, moisture, light, and contaminants -- those are other triggers for the reactions that lead to rancidity.

I would not use that much RBO in a recipe. At 46% of your fats, the RBO has pushed your linoleic acid to 18% or thereabouts. That's pretty high; I usually keep my linoleic acid % fairly low -- usually well under 10%. A rule of thumb that some soapers use is to keep the combined linoleic + linolenic acids below 15% to reduce the possibility of the soap being too soft as well as possibly more prone to DOS. I would also use a lower superfat for a recipe of this type, but that is mostly my personal preference, not a general thing.

Another issue to keep in mind is that a lot of olive oil is adulterated -- perhaps as much as 75% of the OO in the USA is adulterated. Some of this adulterated OO is pure OO that contains additives to make it appear as if it's a higher grade of OO. Other OO is a mix of OO and other oils or even some other oil entirely. Subs for OO include soybean and canola, both of which are high in linoleic acid, so if your soap contains this kind of "olive oil", it may have an even higher linoleic acid content.

What can you do to fix the soap? Really nothing, because rancidity is a permanent change. If the odor is not bad, you can use the soap yourself, but I personally wouldn't give it away. Lessons for future batches ... know your olive oil, reduce the linoleic acid content of the recipe, and consider adding ROE to your oils as you buy them to guard against oxidation.

 

[soaring1]

Thank you for responding. I will play with a new recipe for the chamomile.
Maybe try a SF of 5%
Reducing the RBO to less than 20%
Wondering if Rosemary Oleo-resin would help in the DOS and still be considered not a fragrance.

 

[DeeAnna]

At the tiny amount used, you should not smell RBO in your soap. A typical dosage range is 0.5 to 1.0 g ROE per 1000 g of fat. That's 0.05% to 0.1% ppo (per pound of oils). It is an ingredient you should be including on your soap label, however, if you list your ingredients.

 

[Seawolfe]

ROE is undetectable in saponified oils as far as I know, heck you use so little I cant even tell if its in the raw oils. I dont think it counts as a fragrance?

DeeAnna yes - I have a sneaky suspicion that Rosemary EO and ROE share some characteristics, but ROE is obviously more suited to the task.

 

[Steve85569]

I was just going to ask if I could use rice bran oil to make a "castille" since the fatty acid profiles are similar. Seems the experiment has already been done!

Thanks to those that replied to this and where can I find some RBO?

 

[DeeAnna]

I have purchased RBO from Soapers Choice (Columbus Foods).

I have seen RBO sold in gallon jugs in the horse feed and supplements section in my local feed store (Tractor Supply Co). RBO can be added to a horse's feed to add extra calories if a horse is skinny or sick. The feed store RBO might not be the lowest cost, but it might still be cost effective considering you won't have to pay the shipping.

I'm not sure I'd use RBO as an "olive wannabe" oil -- RBO is a lot higher in linoleic than olive and quite a bit lower in oleic. I personally would consider using either high oleic sunflower or HO safflower as an olive substitute rather than RBO. I did a bastile soap using a blend of 70% HO safflower + 30% lard a couple of years ago. It behaves a lot like a castile soap -- same low creamy lather, hardness, and slick (slimy) gel formation.

 

[shunt2011]

I was just going to ask if I could use rice bran oil to make a "castille" since the fatty acid profiles are similar. Seems the experiment has already been done!

Thanks to those that replied to this and where can I find some RBO?

You can get RBO at Soaper's Choice. Also,I wouldn't think it would be a castille as castille is 100% Olive.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Wondering why as it is the same recipe.

If there is really a distinct difference in the stability of the two soaps, and they are identical recipes that have been kept in the same environment, it's possible that the chamomile infusion triggered the DOS.

Botanicals can pick up metals from the soil that are very active catalysts for oxidation. The reason we use distilled water is to avoid those metals, but you don't know what you are adding with the infusion.

It would be a good precaution to add a chelator to the water to neutralize any metal contaminants. You could use EDTA or sodium citrate.

 

[hmlove1218]

I personally would consider using either high oleic sunflower or HO safflower as an olive substitute rather than RBO. I did a bastile soap using a blend of 70% HO safflower + 30% lard a couple of years ago. It behaves a lot like a castile soap -- same low creamy lather, hardness, and slick (slimy) gel formation.

Not to derail the thread, but what would you personally say is the max for HO Sunflower or safflower oil that should be used in a recipe? Most resources say keep it under about 15%, but I'm betting these are speaking of the regular oils, not the HO versions.

 

[Steve85569]

You can get RBO at Soaper's Choice. Also,I wouldn't think it would be a castille as castille is 100% Olive.

I knew it would not be a real castille which is why I put it in quotes. I was curious about the rice bran oil because of the similar profile to OO.
Since I don't want a bad case of DOS I just won't go there and will stick to low amounts of rice for conditioning effects.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Not to derail the thread, but what would you personally say is the max for HO Sunflower or safflower oil that should be used in a recipe? Most resources say keep it under about 15%, but I'm betting these are speaking of the regular oils, not the HO versions.

I happen to be here, so let me take the liberty of answering this question because HO sunflower is my standard liquid oil that I use for most batches, and the answer roughly applies to other oils labeled high oleic.

There is a lot of confusion between the regular (linoleic) and high oleic versions of oils like sunflower and safflower. They are completely different oils even if they come from the same species of plant. The advice you heard not to exceed 15% was for the regular version of sunflower oil. It's true of all linoleic oils that you generally shouldn't use more than a limited amount.

There is no particular limit to the usage of an oil like high oleic sunflower just as there is no limit for olive oil, which can be used as 100% of the recipe for castile soap. However, you wouldn't want to go quite as high with the oils labeled high oleic because they lack some of the hard components that help firm up olive oil soaps.

The simple answer is that you can use them freely but in combination with some harder oils.

 

[hmlove1218]

Thanks! That's kind of what I figured the answer would be but I've never seen anyone say it that I remember.

 

[DeeAnna]

What TOMH said.

You can just set up a test recipe in a soap recipe calculator to see the fatty acid distribution. That will show a high oleic oil can be used with a freer hand -- more like an olive or avocado oil. A high oleic sunflower or safflower oil won't bump the linoleic % nearly as high as you would get if you used the regular low-oleic versions of these oils.

See this for more info on the differences between mid, low, and high oleic oils: http://classicbells.com/soap/highOleic.html