Soap made with 6% superfat & its still drying facial skin

[Dean]

Water and friction is what gets you clean, soap's purpose is to make the dirt slippery to be washed off by the water. The "cleansing" number on a soap calculator is a misnomer. Cleansing numbers tend to represent how well a soap strips the oils from your skin. An example would be to check the numbers for 100% olive oil. Nearly all the numbers are considered "bad" but some how 100% olive oils have been popular for centuries.

In just about all of my soaps I aim for numbers to be less than the minimum suggested unless I'm making a salt bar or other specialty soap. This works for me and my skin, you may find you like something different. I also don't use soap on my face, again it's just what works for me. I just plain water and a toner (orange blossom hydrosol).

Tl;dr play with the calc numbers using the oils you have on hand. You don't "need" any cleansing number for a good soap but keep that number on the lower end for sensitive skin like your face

Replying to ur old msg. Ive been washing my face with orange blossom water only to prevent dryness for a few weeks now. Used my no myristic/lauric soap on my face last night to wash off sweat and sunblock. My face instantly got tight and turned red. Had to moisturize which I havent had to do since I switched to hysrosol.

 

[Anne121x]

When you say 6% superfat, do you mean you discount lye by 6% at the beginning or you are adding 6% extra oils after trace?
I always think adding oils after trace (which I always call superfatting) is better than discounting because the oils have not been altered by the lye and you know what oils/butters are adding moisturising properties to your soap.

 

[BattleGnome]

Replying to ur old msg. Ive been washing my face with orange blossom water only to prevent dryness for a few weeks now. Used my no myristic/lauric soap on my face last night to wash off sweat and sunblock. My face instantly got tight and turned red. Had to moisturize which I havent had to do since I switched to hysrosol.

I don’t remember the last time I used soap on my face. I use plain water with no issues unless it’s extra dry out

 

[earlene]

When you say 6% superfat, do you mean you discount lye by 6% at the beginning or you are adding 6% extra oils after trace?
I always think adding oils after trace (which I always call superfatting) is better than discounting because the oils have not been altered by the lye and you know what oils/butters are adding moisturising properties to your soap.

This isn't necessarily correct with CP soap. Trace is not finished saponification. Saponification continues even after the soap is in the mold and into gel phase and takes days if the soap is not gelled (example: soaps that are refrigerated to prevent gel). Lye is not selective and will interact with any oil that is nearby until the lye is used up. MAYBE less of the oils added after trace do saponify, but there is no guarantee that ONLY the first oils in the pot are going to saponify in this scenario.

 

[Richard Perrine]

Great thread! I actually ‘superfat’ my base soap recipes with glycerine guaranteeing that lye doesn’t saponify my superfatting and leaves the full effect of the glycerine in place. Everyone in my family, including my mother, whose skin is very sensitive, likes it. Immediately after washing, you can feel the glycerine on the skin doing it’s magic and w/o residual greasiness.

Great discussion on cleansing. I have been a little too dependent on the soap calc values regarding this and feel comfortable now to relent a lot more.

Is the only difference between a bar of body soap and shampoo bar the % superfatting?

 

[Iluminameluna]

Yes It was a tweak of Genny's shampoo bar recipe Yes, I kept everything the same except the olive oil, I used sunflower oil.

I just wanted to add my 2c's worth, even though I realize this is an "older" thread.

I made a soap bar with canola, sunflower, olive oil (light), coconut, and castor oils, in descending order of quantities. The bars have now cured for almost 4 months and they're VERY cleansing but not drying, even on my face, which is very finely pored and tends to dryness. I don't have to moisturize but I need to add that I'm living in a very humid area of the world.

The thing is, I've made other soaps without the sunflower oil and they feel like they treat my skin much more gently. I feel squeaky clean with the bar made with sunflower but not so much with my other bars. Makes me think that the difference in cleansing is the sunflower oil. So, even though other soapers may feel that sunflower oil is a good exchange for olive, that's not been my (limited) experience. High oleic canola oil (check the ingredients to see the relative amounts of monounsaturated fats it contains, the higher they are, the higher the oleic value) is a better alternative for olive, imho. Those soaps I've made without olive oil but with HO canola (all other oils being coconut and castor mainly) instead have turned out very nice!

Here's a site that explains what "high oleic" means: https://eating-made-easy.com/what-is-high-oleic-oil/

Having said all that (sorry about being so verbose!) I think a very basic soap I made with about 80% olive oil, 15% CO 76F, and 5% Castor oil and a heavy brine instead of the plain water, was EXCELLENT on my skin. And it only cured 6 months when it became very hard.

I hope this helps someone. I don't soap with a lot of the "luxury" oils because I just can't afford them so all my soaps are made with stuff I buy for cooking in my house. My only splurges are the castor and the coconut oils. I just like them too much to make do without them!

Happy soaping!

 

[Saponificarian]

I have also noticed that Sunflower oil can be quite cleansing too. It does increases bubbles somehow but so do Canola/Rapeseed. My choice for liquid oil in soap recipe would be Canola/Rapeseed ( I prefer Rapeseed if I have to pick), Apricot Kernel oil, Avocado, Rice Bran oil, Sweet Almond oil, Sunflower oil (Reducing my cleansing oil) in that order. Rice Bran oil with 5% Castor oil does make a nice soap all by itself though.