Slimy, sticky, greasy soap

[AshleyR]

Whenever I make CP soap, I usually do a ratio of about 50% hard oils and 50% soft. No matter how much I mix up the oils (sometimes I will use different soft oils, but the hard oils are always palm and coconut), my bars always have a somewhat waxy, sticky, greasy, slippery feel to them.

Now, I know it's soap and it should be slippery, but mine are a little too much. When I have tried soap from other soapmakers, a lot of them have been less greasy/slimy/sticky than mine and more.... how do I explain it? Dry and bubbly?

Mine are so slippery and slimy! I only ever use 25% olive oil MAX, and the other oils I tend to use are grapeseed, castor (never any more than 5%), safflower, and corn. I very rarely superfat because for awhile I thought that maybe that was the problem.

Do you think that 50% soft oils is maybe too much? Should I up my palm oil?

Thanks!

 

[AshleyR]

Anyone??

 

[Lindy]

Hi Ashley,

I don't know the answer to your question, but I can tell you that my soaps are usually 75% EVOO & 25% CO without being slimy at all. They turn into nice hard bars. Could it be your Lye discount? I use 8% Lye discount.

I don't use Palm Oil or Palm Kernal so I don't know anything about them.

I'm sure someone more knowledgable will come along to help. BTW can you post your recipe so we can see all of it? There might be something within that which will give us an idea.

Cheers
Lindy

 

[softandsmooth]

Ashley, have you used the soapcalc lye calculator for your recipes? If you punch in your recipe it tells you the soap qualities that will result, such as hardness and creaminess. I've been soaping for a year and found that the only time I had a problem with softness and greasiness is when I made a batch with a 15% discount and it had soft, gooey spots in it. I've gone back to a 10% discount and that seems to work fine for me. Paul.

 

[carebear]

why don't you give us one exact recipe you used - by weight, with water and lye amounts as well. it's easier to figure out if we have more concrete info.

 

[LomondSoap]

I use 40% olive and my only solid oil is coconut. I don't get slimey bars but I know how that feels. When I started soaping I used olive 48%, coconut 33% and palm 19%, those I found slippy and slimey, I was advised to add soya oil to cut back on that feeling.

 

[AshleyR]

softandsmooth, I do use soapcalc for every recipe, and just follow whatever they tell me to use as far as lye goes. I have never done a lye or water discount. I don't usually superfat either.

I don't have my exact recipe handy (it's downstairs and I'm too lazy, LOL) but here is basically what it's like:

25% palm
30% coconut
20% olive
10% grapeseed
10% corn
5% castor

I have used less oils before with the same sort of results:

25% palm
30% coconut
25% olive
15% grapeseed
5% castor

 

[topcat]

Are they feeling slimy, slippery after 4-6 weeks cure? Or just initally when taken out of your mould? My basic recipe is

300 gram CO
300 gram OO
200 gram RBO
100 gram SButter

These can feel sort of softish and a bit sticky after unmoulding and cutting, but they cure up really quite hard. I am now adding Palm so my hard oils are around 50% and finding the soap is firmer earlier.

My superfact using soap calc is 6% - the programme has a preset superfat of 5% so I just change that. Are you actually using NO superfat? So are you setting soap calc to '0%'? I have read on another post that 0 superfat can leave a soap feeling sticky and draggy on your skin. Or are you just using soap calcs preset lye discount/superfat? If you are using the preset figure then your soap is safe to use and it is not the lye causing your problems.

Running your oils and percentages through soap calc it all seems fine and within range...could it just be the particular combination of oils you are using? I haven't yet soaped with grapeseed or corn so I cannot comment on what they do in soap.

It is a soaping mystery. Perhaps try a 3 oil soap - just use your palm, coconut and olive and see how they perform...then do test batches adding each of the other oils you use to see how the end result changes?

Tanya

 

[softandsmooth]

Ashley, punching your numbers into soapcalc, the soap qualities look well within the limits set out. I noticed the hardness was way more than my recipes have been. I've kept the hard oils (palm and coconut) to 30-35% so that the soap is not so drying, with the rest being olive oil or a small addition of almond oil. They have been hard enough for me (and not too slimy). It's hard to understand what you mean by "slimy" and "slippery" without trying it out. Perhaps you should try a simpler recipe, rather than using so many oils. Good luck!

 

[carebear]

if you've reset the lye discount to 0% it's possible it's lye heavy and the sliminess is the lye saponifying the fat in your skin... ick.

you recipes look fine - maybe you want to cut down on the amount of water you use.

 

[Jaaret]

Soft to Hard Oils

I always use 65-75% hard oils.

30% coconut oil
30% palm oil
5-15% mixture of cocoa, sal, illipe or shea butters

I usually add 3-5% bees wax as it speeds up trace and results in a harder bar.

The remainder is a blend of soft oils.

Hope that helps!

 

[AshleyR]

Thanks everyone! All of your advice and suggestions have been very helpful!