Reading Fatty acids

[madison]

This is my next batch of high CO
Tallow Beef 30%, CO 70 %
From reading the fatty acids there should be heating, and harsh feeling due to the relatively high percentage of lauric and myristic acid( at what numbers these two fatty acids are considered high?) I should not expect having a very long shelf life due to the amounts of palmitic 15%, staeric 9% . Also, the bar shouldn't be as hard with stable lather due to the palmitic and stearic acid. According to soapee the sat: unsat is 73:27
From reading the fatty acids of 100% CO the heating is definite, very good lather due to high percentage of lauric and myristic acids. Short shelf life (comaping to other kinds of soap), the bar isn't as hard due to the low percentages of palmitic and stearic acid ( does this make sense or because I already know that coconut oil soap bar is very soluble in water?), also not conditioning due to low% of oleic acid. Now I understand why I didn't like the feeling of 100% CO soap bar that I made in the past, eventhough I had 20% SF it didn't feel good to my very sesnitive skin, I have been planning on adding some hard conditioning oil like tallow.
I compared both results I got to one of my 60% tallow recipes, 15 % CO with avocado oil and castor oil, I found low % of lauric and myristic acids , 32% oleic acid compared to 0 in the other one, palmitic and stearic were relatively close to their % in my planned tallow and CO recipe, when I plugged 70% CO with 30% Shea butter I got almost the same % of lauric and myristic acids comparing to 30% tallow, it means to expect, heating and a similar barin hardness.
I alternated shea with cocoa butter the numbers were very close in both recipes.
The conclusion is the higher % of hard oils or butters I use in my recipe will lower % of lauric and myristic acids, which means less heating in sb , more conditioning feeling to the skin, harder bar and more stable lather. The same applies to the recipes lower in CO, high in oleic acid oils like avocado oil, OO, almond sweet oil, apricot kernel oil, hazel nut oil, macademia nut oil, peach kernel oil....
I am now not very convinced with my planned recipe of 70% CO , 30% tallow, it looks to me better for my skin than 100% CO, I think I'll use coconut milk to see how it feels. what do you think ? and where do I dig for a deeper understanding of the fatty acids, please?
I don't understand the exact difference between stearic and palmitic acid, I know both are saturated, contribute to long shelf life, hard bar, and stable lather.
Thank you
Madi

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I would make only one change at a time. If you made a 100% co with milk, make this with milk. Making only one change at a time means that you can be sure which change made the improvement (or not!)

Edit - the fatty acids are not the whole story. Better than the soap calc numbers, but still not everything. There are unsaponifiables in oils which also have an input. If you made a soap using just ffa's and added in the list glycerine, it would be different than a soap made with oils with that same fatty acid make up.

 

[madison]

I would make only one change at a time. If you made a 100% co with milk, make this with milk. Making only one change at a time means that you can be sure which change made the improvement (or not!)

correct, I am doing that with the rest of my recipes, I'll do it with this batch.
For the fatty acids it's good to know what to expect from a plain formula without adding anything, how accurate you think this way is?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

As I said, if you get to the same acid profile using different oils then the soap could be different. A fair example is shea and lard at 50% - similar profile and yet works out very differently in practice.

 

[madison]

As I said, if you get to the same acid profile using different oils then the soap could be different. A fair example is shea and lard at 50% - similar profile and yet works out very differently in practice.

Thank you

 

[kchaystack]

This is my next batch of high CO
Tallow Beef 30%, CO 70 %
From reading the fatty acids there should be heating, and harsh feeling due to the relatively high percentage of lauric and myristic acid( at what numbers these two fatty acids are considered high?) I should not expect having a very long shelf life due to the amounts of palmitic 15%, staeric 9% . Also, the bar shouldn't be as hard with stable lather due to the palmitic and stearic acid. According to soapee the sat: unsat is 73:27

I think you are really overthinking this. A few things to point out - coconut oil soap is really hard. The hardness does not really determine the longevity of a bar - but how soluble the soap is. The lauric and myristic salts formed in CO soap are very soluble.

From reading the fatty acids of 100% CO the heating is definite, very good lather due to high percentage of lauric and myristic acids. Short shelf life (comaping to other kinds of soap), the bar isn't as hard due to the low percentages of palmitic and stearic acid ( does this make sense or because I already know that coconut oil soap bar is very soluble in water?), also not conditioning due to low% of oleic acid. Now I understand why I didn't like the feeling of 100% CO soap bar that I made in the past, eventhough I had 20% SF it didn't feel good to my very sesnitive skin, I have been planning on adding some hard conditioning oil like tallow.

See my comment above and out hardness of the bar. High CO soap is very hard. Also soap is not conditioning. All it does is clean your skin. If you did not like a 20%SF all CO soap, you probably won't like it at 70%. You really should try a much more balanced recipe. Also how long did you cure your CO soap? I know my salt bars that are 70% CO and 30% avocado oil at 20%SF need 6 months cure minimum.

I compared both results I got to one of my 60% tallow recipes, 15 % CO with avocado oil and castor oil, I found low % of lauric and myristic acids , 32% oleic acid compared to 0 in the other one, palmitic and stearic were relatively close to their % in my planned tallow and CO recipe, when I plugged 70% CO with 30% Shea butter I got almost the same % of lauric and myristic acids comparing to 30% tallow, it means to expect, heating and a similar barin hardness.
I alternated shea with cocoa butter the numbers were very close in both recipes.
The conclusion is the higher % of hard oils or butters I use in my recipe will lower % of lauric and myristic acids, which means less heating in sb , more conditioning feeling to the skin, harder bar and more stable lather. The same applies to the recipes lower in CO, high in oleic acid oils like avocado oil, OO, almond sweet oil, apricot kernel oil, hazel nut oil, macademia nut oil, peach kernel oil....
I am now not very convinced with my planned recipe of 70% CO , 30% tallow, it looks to me better for my skin than 100% CO, I think I'll use coconut milk to see how it feels. what do you think ? and where do I dig for a deeper understanding of the fatty acids, please?
I don't understand the exact difference between stearic and palmitic acid, I know both are saturated, contribute to long shelf life, hard bar, and stable lather.
Thank you
Madi

The fatty acids listed in the soap calcs are not all of the triglycerides in the oils. Also various oils have different levels of unsaponifiable components. Avocado and Olive oils have similar FA profiles on soapee, but most people will tell you they have different effects on your soap.

 

[madison]

I think you are really overthinking this. A few things to point out - coconut oil soap is really hard. The hardness does not really determine the longevity of a bar - but how soluble the soap is. The lauric and myristic salts formed in CO soap are very soluble.



See my comment above and out hardness of the bar. High CO soap is very hard. Also soap is not conditioning. All it does is clean your skin. If you did not like a 20%SF all CO soap, you probably won't like it at 70%. You really should try a much more balanced recipe. Also how long did you cure your CO soap? I know my salt bars that are 70% CO and 30% avocado oil at 20%SF need 6 months cure minimum.




The fatty acids listed in the soap calcs are not all of the triglycerides in the oils. Also various oils have different levels of unsaponifiable components. Avocado and Olive oils have similar FA profiles on soapee, but most people will tell you they have different effects on your soap.

Thank you kchaystack, for your reply, I appreciate your time and help, here is the story.
I wasn't interested in making,100% coconut oil soap at all, or even doing more reading about it after I made a batch a couple of years ago, cured it for 3-4 weeks and it didn't work for me at all, until recently I bought one bar of handmade salt bar from a local store and I fell in love with it, so I decided to rethink about it at the time that I came across one of the posts on the forum talking about 100% CO oil soap. I asked a question about adding some hard oils to lessen the overheating, as I was thinking of my next planned batch. DeeAnna replied and asked me to read the fatty acids profile in my more balanced recipes and compare it with the fatty acids of a 100% CO soap recipe to figure out if there is any pattern emerging. Also, she wanted me to think about recipes that includes fats lower in myristic and lauric acids to figure out if there is any correlation between using oils with oleic and linoleic fatty acids to achieve the same goal. DeeAnna was talking about overheating and the effect of "high % of short chain fatty acids( the % of lauric and myristic acids in the fatty acid profile) in 100% CO oil soap recipe. She wanted to help me thinking for myself and give it a go. I was reading the fatty acids profile of different recipes( either ones I have made already , or ones I am just thinking about them) and comparing them with fatty acid profile of 100% CO oil. I ended up with the following conclusion,
The higher % of hard oils/butters I use in my recipe will lower the % of lauric and myristic acids, which means less heating in soap batter, more conditioning feeling to the skin, a harder bar and more stable lather. Also, I found out that the same applies to the recipes lower in CO, high in oleic acid.
What do you think about this?

 

[DeeAnna]

"...I am now not very convinced with my planned recipe of 70% CO , 30% tallow, it looks to me better for my skin than 100% CO, I think I'll use coconut milk to see how it feels. ..."

Well, as with most of soaping, which recipe is better is really up to you -- it's a subjective issue.

The tallow adds some palmitic-stearic to the recipe, so you'll see this soap last a little longer than a 100% coconut oil soap. But with 70% coconut oil, the recipe may still need a higher superfat to tame down the harshness of the soap. By adding coconut milk with its extra coconut oil, for example, you are adding extra superfat to the recipe assuming you don't include the fat from the coconut milk when calculating the NaOH (lye) requirement -- that seems to be a common way of thinking about coconut milk.

But honestly, personal experience is the best teacher -- you'll just have to try both recipes and see which you like better. I see people agonizing and obsessing over creating soap recipes, but the answers really are learned by experiencing the soap. Only then can you figure out what you like and don't like.

***

One aspect of evaluating soap recipes is the fatty acid profile. I think the fatty acid profile is worth looking at, but not obsessing over.

You can create a recipe with a balanced blend of fats -- a low to medium amount of coconut oil or other lauric-myristic fat; a medium amount of palm, lard, tallow, butters, or other palmitic-stearic fat, a medium amount of olive, high oleic sunflower, avocado, or other high-oleic fat; and maybe a dab of a high linoleic oil. At a lower superfat, a balanced blend of fats will usually produce a mild soap that has a good lather and a decently long life.

I got into a discussion about why this is the case in my thread "Cure time...." http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=35831 . But I want to point out that superfat and additives have a large influence on the qualities of a soap bar -- more superfat will gradually reduce the lather and add softness, sugars can increase lather and can add softness to the bar, unsaponifiable chemicals such as those in avocado or the nut butters can alter the amount of lather and affect the skin feel, etc.

The other aspect of evaluating recipes is the rest of the ingredients -- the superfat, other additives, etc. -- and how they modify the influence of the fatty acid profile.

***

So what about a recipe with a non-balanced blend of fats, such as 100% CO or 70% CO + 30% tallow?

If such a recipe is skewed toward the lauric-myristic fats, this type of soap will be a fairly strong cleanser -- possibly irritating to people with sensitive skin -- physically hard, highly water soluble, not especially long lasting, but with lots of bubbles. To tame down the cleansing without adding other fats, you'd want to increase the superfat higher than what you would use for a balanced fat blend. The downside of higher superfat is the lather will be somewhat reduced, although in a soap with a lot of coconut oil, lack of lather is not usually much of a problem.

If a recipe is skewed toward the high palmitic-stearic fats, the soap will be hard and relatively insoluble. It will be a gentle cleanser with a low amount of lather. The superfat should be moderate to low for a recipe like this -- you don't need to "tame" the cleansing and you want as much lather as possible. You could encourage more lather by adding sugars.

If a recipe is skewed toward the high oleic fats, the soap will be softer and highly water soluble. It will be a gentle cleanser with a low amount of lather. Like a high palmitic-stearic recipe, you'd want the superfat to be moderate to low and you could encourage more lather without other fats by adding sugars. High linoleic recipes (hemp, grapeseed, canola, soy, corn, etc.) have similar issues of softness and low lather and also have a higher chance of becoming rancid (DOS) with time.

***

You don't need to bother too much about distinguishing between palmitic acid and stearic acid. They do have some differences, but they are found together in most fats and their overall effect is essentially the same when evaluating a soap recipe. Even if you buy "stearic acid" as a separate ingredient, the regular commercial "stearic acid" is actually about half palmitic and half stearic.

 

[Susie]

You know, I think most of us have been where you are-obsessing over the numbers in the little box on the soap calculator page, trying to create the "perfect" recipe. I just had to stop looking at it at all. Instead, I made soap. I made loads and loads of soap. I made soap with every 5% difference of every oil. THEN, after each batch cured, I looked at the numbers. I washed my hands, and looked at the numbers. I took showers with it, and looked at the numbers. I evaluated how long it lasted, and looked at the numbers. Eventually, the numbers start to make sense.