Recipe help?

[lisahuntseniff]

Hi there! Does anyone mind helping me figure out a good recipe (approximate percentages are fine) for what I have on hand? I'd love to not have to go out and buy more oil, but I'm not opposed to picking up 16 oz of something from New Seasons if it will dramatically help my recipe. I have a soap making date with a friend on Wednesday

Here's what I have:
Olive Oil Pomace (1 gal)
Palm Oil (1 gal)
Coconut Oil (1 gal)
Canola Oil (24 oz)
Grapeseed Oil (20 oz)

I ran all kinds of mixes through soapcalc and it seems I am going to end up with a somewhat drying bar. I'm new to this, so I imagine someone here can see through all of the recipe confusion.

I have all kinds of additives (oatmeal, honey, EOs, bentonite and kaolin clay, etc) but I'm wondering what percentages I should be using oil-wise to make a nice moisturizing soap.

Qualities I appreciate, in order of importance:
Moisturizing
Lather
Hardness
(and of course, it should probably clean acceptably)

Thank you so much for your help!!

 

[rodeogal]

I have never used canola oil and I don't know how much soap you have made. However, if you could grab a tub of lard or tallow, you could start with a simple recipe:

40% olive
30% coconut
30% lard or tallow

Run it through Soapcalc and play with the numbers. Sub some canola for the lard or tallow. Sub in some palm. Try the above with canola instead of lard or tallow and use the palm. I'm sure you tried all this, so forgive me for flapping my lips! Perhaps someone else will have other ideas.

 

[lsg]

You can make a great soap with coconut, palm and olive oil.
Coconut Oil 20%
Olive 65%
Palm 15%

 

[dianne70]

You can make a great soap with coconut, palm and olive oil.
Coconut Oil 20%
Olive 65%
Palm 15%

I second that

 

[Yooper]

I have never used canola oil and I don't know how much soap you have made. However, if you could grab a tub of lard or tallow, you could start with a simple recipe:

40% olive
30% coconut
30% lard or tallow

Run it through Soapcalc and play with the numbers. Sub some canola for the lard or tallow. Sub in some palm. Try the above with canola instead of lard or tallow and use the palm. I'm sure you tried all this, so forgive me for flapping my lips! Perhaps someone else will have other ideas.

Or, just use something like that and use palm oil for the lard/tallow. Superfat at 8% or so if you want it to be conditioning (no such thing as a "moisturizing" soap but conditioning is good!).

I like castor oil for bubbly lather (the kind in the Drugstore), so you could try adding some if you don't mind picking some up!

I have a note on this recipe, stating "nice lathering basic gentle soap!", so you might like this one:

52% olive oil pomace
25% coconut oil
15% palm oil
8% castor oil

This was superfatted at 7%, but I wish I would have done it at 9% or so now that it's winter. It's only 35% relative humidity in my house right now, and my skin loves a richer soap. My husband, though, still loves this one!

 

[melstan775]

I am new too, so by no means an expert. Here are two screenprints from what I ran through soapcalc. The first one is using what you have onhand, with a standard 5% superfat and two pounds of oils.

For more conditioning and lather, you can get some castor oil at walmart in the pharmacy, which will help a touch. I also upped the superfatting to 7% for more moisturizing. As far as lather goes, in commercial bars that's due to the addition of synthetic detergents that are made to bubble. Lather and bubbles doesn't mean "clean." What it does do is facilitate the removal of dirt and oil away from the body, and you can do that as long as you have some lather. Surfacants aren't a problem, but you won't get mountains of bubbles and super moisturizing without the help of an additional surfacant.

 

[lisahuntseniff]

Perfect! I think I'll use this one from above:
Coconut Oil 20%
Olive 65%
Palm 15%

And I totally just found some leftover Castor oil!! I have about 2 ounces, so I'll probably throw that one in too Thank you for all you help!

 

[melstan775]

Good luck. Let us know how it turns out and post us pics!

 

[lisahuntseniff]

Thanks for the help everyone! I ended up using
Coconut Oil 20%
Olive 65%
Palm 15%

And I did throw in 1.5 oz Castor oil to superfat my 2lb batch. It turned out really well! The bars are all cut up and curing nicely, albeit a bit mangled from cutting the first few bars top down through the Himalayan Sea Salt. The photo is a really terrible cell phone picture I took at like 11pm, so there's that.

Activated charcoal with some gender-neutral EOs that I don't remember at the moment for fragrance. They are lovely!

 

[melstan775]

Well they came out quite lovely! Congrats and thanks for sharing!