Rapeseed Wax

[gloopygloop]

OK so I heard back from SK regarding the SAP number for their Rapeseed Stearic no palm wax and they gave me a KoH number of 0.206-0.214. Now if I wanted to use that would I go for say 0.210 to get the average and then to get the NaoH divide that by 1.403 ? which would give me a NaoH number of 0.149 well 0.149.67 to be precise.
The wax I ordered from another company which is pure Rapeseed wax made by Karax arrived but I have not heard back from the company about the SAP number, so I called Karax direct and they told me that it was pure Rapeseed without additives but they dont do a SAP value test on it so have no idea what it would be. It looks like I have reached a dead end on that one which now leaves no choice but to use the SK one I guess.

 

[MarnieSoapien]

I have contacted the company I bought my RS wax from and asked about the SAP values. I'll let you know when I get an answer.

 

[gloopygloop]

I have contacted the company I bought my RS wax from and asked about the SAP values. I'll let you know when I get an answer.

Thank you

 

[Fiona Robertson]

I'm really hoping that someone like DeeAnna comes along soon and shares some of her very fine words of wisdom

 

[gloopygloop]

 

[Fiona Robertson]

I have contacted the company I bought my RS wax from and asked about the SAP values. I'll let you know when I get an answer.

Ive used the sap values for rapeseed oil and made very nice soaps although they are still quite young. Looking at them again today I have the stearic spot issues unfortunately and as I'm definitely soaping hot I think my problem is not mixing the oils well before adding the lye and cutting too soon. So this is what I'll address next time

 

[Rune]

I'm interested in this thread too, because I got my rapeseed wax today. Or actually yesterday, but I opened the package today. I got soy wax too, but I got the wrong product, so it is a soy/vegetable oil blend. The vegetable oil is palm, I found out. Well, well.

I do think that the sap. value for rapeseed wax, if it is made of 100% hydrogenated rapeseed oil, that it have to be the same as rapeseed oil. But I'm not 100% sure.

I wonder one thing. When you, Fiona Robertson, used rapesseed wax at 8%, did it thicken the soap very rapidly or did it thicken it at all? I am a little afraid of rapid thickening/seizeing, since I have experenced that many times already with a vegetable lard product I used (and luckily can't use again since they changed the recipe). Since I'm used to always go for plan B because of rapid thickening, I can somewhat handle it, but it is not very fun and I hope to avoid it. But I want to use rapeseed and soy wax, and just hope it is not that difficult to work with.

I have not made soap in ages now, because I had not the oils I needed. I did get my waxes in the end, but not without struggle. I'm sure I only got it because I complained to PayPal and requested my money back. Then the company suddenly sent it to me. They did not respond to any emails or anything. But when PayPal contacted them, then they did respond. Otherwise they would lose their money.. It is a UK company that also is linked to in this thread. So I don't think I will recommend them. But maybe others have better experience with them than I have.

 

[gloopygloop]

Ive used the sap values for rapeseed oil and made very nice soaps although they are still quite young. Looking at them again today I have the stearic spot issues unfortunately and as I'm definitely soaping hot I think my problem is not mixing the oils well before adding the lye and cutting too soon. So this is what I'll address next time

The numbers seem to be all over the place, the oil listed on " Soapee for example gives Rapeseed which they also call Canola and which we are not using here as KoH 0.175 & NaoH 0.125 SK have given me a KoH between 0.206 to 0.214 and and you saw I came up with an NaoH number of 0.149 basing this on 0.210 average, so all very different. I dont know if this would affect that you are having stearic spots even after soaping hot? and I dont know if my calculations a completely flawed as maths is not one of my strongest points. I do HP so stearic spots are not usually an issue with me, but I do need to know what the blooming numbers are.

i have contacted Karax to tell them that they should do a sap valuation on their wax as many soapers are looking for alternatives to Soy, they said that they would pass it on upwards, so watch this space!!!!

 

[Fiona Robertson]

I'm interested in this thread too, because I got my rapeseed wax today. Or actually yesterday, but I opened the package today. I got soy wax too, but I got the wrong product, so it is a soy/vegetable oil blend. The vegetable oil is palm, I found out. Well, well.

I do think that the sap. value for rapeseed wax, if it is made of 100% hydrogenated rapeseed oil, that it have to be the same as rapeseed oil. But I'm not 100% sure.

I wonder one thing. When you, Fiona Robertson, used rapesseed wax at 8%, did it thicken the soap very rapidly or did it thicken it at all? I am a little afraid of rapid thickening/seizeing, since I have experenced that many times already with a vegetable lard product I used (and luckily can't use again since they changed the recipe). Since I'm used to always go for plan B because of rapid thickening, I can somewhat handle it, but it is not very fun and I hope to avoid it. But I want to use rapeseed and soy wax, and just hope it is not that difficult to work with.

I have not made soap in ages now, because I had not the oils I needed. I did get my waxes in the end, but not without struggle. I'm sure I only got it because I complained to PayPal and requested my money back. Then the company suddenly sent it to me. They did not respond to any emails or anything. But when PayPal contacted them, then they did respond. Otherwise they would lose their money.. It is a UK company that also is linked to in this thread. So I don't think I will recommend them. But maybe others have better experience with them than I have.

Hi Rune, No i found the soap batter behaved really well and at both 5% and 8% the mixing took 15 to 20 mins to reach trace but i was very light with the stick blender. I kept it warm though and put it back on the stove if the temp fell below 120f. Although my soapy experiments are still very young and wont reach 4 weeks for another week, I am already thinking that 8% isn't necessary and to stick with 5% or even less. 3% will be my next try. I got my rapeseed wax from Livemoor who have confirmed that it is foodgrade so suitable for cosmetics.

 

[gloopygloop]

Fiona I suspect that the wax you purchases is the Kerax 1175 pure rapeseed wax and the very one I have been discussing as i notice that Livemoor waxes appear to be mostly Kerax.

 

[MarnieSoapien]

I am a little afraid of rapid thickening/seizeing, since I have experenced that many times already with a vegetable lard product I used (and luckily can't use again since they changed the recipe). Since I'm used to always go for plan B because of rapid thickening, I can somewhat handle it, but it is not very fun and I hope to avoid it. But I want to use rapeseed and soy wax, and just hope it is not that difficult to work with.

I made 7 or 8 batches using the RS wax with 10-20% usage and struggled with it quite a bit, experiencing thickening and seizing and a lot of ash on my finished products. I would recommend starting below 10% and be prepared to work hot. The RS wax I have has a melting point of 62 C and when I added my cooled lye water it would start to solidify. All of my plans for pretty swirls went out the window as I plopped it into the mold.

I also noticed that the cured soap felt very gritty and was overly drying. I was super frustrated and took a break from my RS wax experiments. The wax I have leftover is cosmetic grade, so I might make a few test batches (at a much lower rate) for lip balms. Best of luck to you all and I hope you have better results than I did!!

 

[earlene]

I do think that the sap. value for rapeseed wax, if it is made of 100% hydrogenated rapeseed oil, that it have to be the same as rapeseed oil. But I'm not 100% sure.

IF the rapeseed wax is merely hydrogenated rapeseed oil without additional FAs, however the company gave here a different SAP value AND also said that the fatty acid Stearic is >90% (derived from rapeseed). (Fiona's post.)

If we look up the SAP value of Stearic Acid, that explains the difference of the SAP value. Stearic Acid alone has a much higher SAP value. Because rapeseed wax has such a high stearic acid content, it also is going to have a higher SAP value, as well as carry with it all the aspects of stearic acid in the soap.

Fiona, your numbers look good to me. Without even doing the math myself, looking at this list on Soap Calc, I can see that oils with a similar SAP value for KOH have corresponding SAP value within the range of the number you came up with for NaOH.

 

[Fiona Robertson]

IF the rapeseed wax is merely hydrogenated rapeseed oil without additional FAs, however the company gave here a different SAP value AND also said that the fatty acid Stearic is >90% (derived from rapeseed). (Fiona's post.)

If we look up the SAP value of Stearic Acid, that explains the difference of the SAP value. Stearic Acid alone has a much higher SAP value. Because rapeseed wax has such a high stearic acid content, it also is going to have a higher SAP value, as well as carry with it all the aspects of stearic acid in the soap.

Fiona, your numbers look good to me. Without even doing the math myself, looking at this list on Soap Calc, I can see that oils with a similar SAP value for KOH have corresponding SAP value within the range of the number you came up with for NaOH.

 

[Fiona Robertson]

Fiona I suspect that the wax you purchases is the Kerax 1175 pure rapeseed wax and the very one I have been discussing as i notice that Livemoor waxes appear to be mostly Kerax.

Yes it is, they just sent me the COA and SDS certificates!!

 

[Rune]

Thank you Fiona, Marnie and Earlene. Now I know much more.

I think I will try rapeseed wax at 10-15% and soap hot, and see how it goes. I need it to be somewhat high, because I have no other hard oils available to me except from coconut oil (which they say is brittle an not hard). I have soy/palm wax (NatureWax C1), but I want to make separate batches to see how each wax performs before I try to mix the soy/palm with rapeseed.

 

[Fiona Robertson]

Thank you Fiona, Marnie and Earlene. Now I know much more.

I think I will try rapeseed wax at 10-15% and soap hot, and see how it goes. I need it to be somewhat high, because I have no other hard oils available to me except from coconut oil (which they say is brittle an not hard). I have soy/palm wax (NatureWax C1), but I want to make separate batches to see how each wax performs before I try to mix the soy/palm with rapeseed.

The only hard oil I had in my recipes was between 18 and 20% coconut oil. The rest were soft oils (avacado or apricot kernal) with between 50 to 60% olive oil. All recipes had 5 or 8% wax and then I was experimenting with adding sugar, brine and sodium lactate. Because i had so much olive oil I set superfat at 3% with a 2:1 water to lye ratio. I'm going with less wax the next time so I would be interested to see how you get on with 10 - 15%. Its the waiting that's so hard!!

I would also like to add that I am too inexperienced to know whether i have stearic spots or if its the wire cutter. Cutting with the wire leaves bumps but cutting again with a smooth knife leaves the surface smooth but i can still see tiny white dots in the soap. There's definitely no zap.

 

[gloopygloop]

The only hard oil I had in my recipes was between 18 and 20% coconut oil. The rest were soft oils (avacado or apricot kernal) with between 50 to 60% olive oil. All recipes had 5 or 8% wax and then I was experimenting with adding sugar, brine and sodium lactate. Because i had so much olive oil I set superfat at 3% with a 2:1 water to lye ratio. I'm going with less wax the next time so I would be interested to see how you get on with 10 - 15%. Its the waiting that's so hard!!

I would also like to add that I am too inexperienced to know whether i have stearic spots or if its the wire cutter. Cutting with the wire leaves bumps but cutting again with a smooth knife leaves the surface smooth but i can still see tiny white dots in the soap. There's definitely no zap.

Sounds like you have air bubbles Fiona, this problem was covered somewhere and I cannot remember where, sorry but it was noted and pictures shown also that wire cutting showed the bubbles as bumps but knife cutting not nearly so noticeable and not bumpy. That person also thought it was stearic spots too but found it to be air bubbles. I will post if I find where I saw that.

 

[gloopygloop]

Aha I found it this is a soapers blog and it covers lots of trouble shooting, you need to scroll down to cutting problems to find the white spots in my soap problem.
https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/troubleshooting-cold-process-soap-problems/

 

[Fiona Robertson]

Aha I found it this is a soapers blog and it covers lots of trouble shooting, you need to scroll down to cutting problems to find the white spots in my soap problem.
https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/troubleshooting-cold-process-soap-problems/

Aha!! Thanks for that! My soap looks exactly like the second picture and here's me thinking that I was being really good at not using the stick blender too much

 

[Fiona Robertson]

Ive just written a nice email to Kerawax too so maybe if they think there is a demand they'll do the test for the information