Spa type recipe?

[maggiemarieoc]

I'm looking for a really luxurious CP recipe that is super moisturizing and has lots of lather makes my skin feel fantastic when I'm done using it. Any ideas?

 

[lsg]

A salt bar is a spa type soap. Sugar or salt scrubs can leave the skin feeling great.

 

[DeeAnna]

Soap cleans -- it can't moisturize. But a soap can be a strong cleanser or one that's milder, and it can be paired with a matching lotion or splash to add conditioning and moisturization.

IMO, any well made, mild recipe can be used to create a spa type soap by using the right type of fragrance and designing the appearance to suit the theme. For example, a recipe of 80% lard, 15% coconut oil, and 5% castor makes a beautiful, hard, translucent white bar. Very elegant and clean looking all on its own with a nice bubbly lather and mild cleansing suitable for most skin types. Is it fancy with all kinds of expensive butters and unusual oils? No. But a soap doesn't have to have exotic ingredients to be wonderful on the skin.

Add decorative elements and fragrance to the soap to create a look that means "spa" to you -- aqua blue-green swirls and an ocean/water scent for a watery theme, bits of vanilla bean or oatmeal with a cedar/fir/spice scent for a woodsy warm theme, etc. Finish the soap with careful beveling of the edges and perhaps a classy stamp and put it into an elegant package to finish the look.

 

[Seawolfe]

when one says spa bar, I think of this red and black bar from Soap Queen
http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/melt-and-pour-soap/charcoal-rose-clay-spa-bar/
I made mine with a Shea CP soap.

 

[dixiedragon]

What do you mean by "spa type"? Not sure what makes a bar of soap a "spa" bar or not?

Here's my recipe that does all those things - but it uses lard, and IIRC, you want to be all veggie.

5% sunflower
5% castor
20% coconut
40% lard
30% olive (or olive/ rice bran split)

 

[maggiemarieoc]

I guess spa bar is the wrong way of putting it. I'm just looking for a recipe that makes skin feel really nice and soft and clean with a nice lather. Sometimes bar soaps have a dry type feeling that I'm not to fond of. I know that soap is for cleansing but I'm looking for a recipe that is kind of a multi tasker. A customer made a request for a spa type soap bar. I'm thinking she's saying like high end and luxurious feeling on the skin. What about using something like Argen oil? Will that make much of a difference on the skin? And I actually have made that spa bar from the soap queen and then I took the recipe and changed it, adding in some local ingredients and some that were better suited for my clientele. I liked it.

 

[MsHarryWinston]

I don't think I would use expensive Argan in soap but goats milk makes things wonderfully creamy.

 

[Arimara]

I don't think I would use expensive Argan in soap but goats milk makes things wonderfully creamy.

Argan in soap? THAT'S a waste of an expensive and coveted oil. You would want to use that in at least a cream to really get some good use out of it (Ms Winston, That was not directed towards you; I'm only agreeing). Goat's milk and coconut milk are relatively cheap (compared to more luxurious oils) and and add a certain quality to soaps that make them feel like a million bucks, even if the soap was just 50%Lard, 30% Olive oil, 15% coconut oil and 5% castor.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Not wanting to be the big nasty again, but -

You made your first batch on 22nd January. You should not have any soap customers. At the moment; you don't know anything about your soap to even consider giving it to people, let alone charging them for it.

You say bar soaps usually feel drying, but your soap is not even close to being cured for you to know if it is also drying or might be utterly lovely.

The general rule of thumb is that someone should make soap for a year before selling - it allows them to really get to know what they are doing, be able to formulate recipes rather than following tutorials, tweak these recipes and then know how the bars hold up after being stored for a while (like 3 months minimum).

At the moment, that isn't the case. So please wait and actually become a soaper, someone who knows what soaping is, before even thinking about considering looking at the possibility of selling.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=58262

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=58261

Here are two of your posts where you point out that you just made your first soap. Both were on 22 Jan.

 

[pinksmartapple]

I agree with TEG. Don't rush it. Take your time and soon you will be able to formulate your own recipes instead of having to ask others for them.
I am also a beginner soaper and I'm really enjoying this time of experimenting with different ingredients on the way to the perfect recipe.

 

[Obsidian]

I'm just looking for a recipe that makes skin feel really nice and soft and clean with a nice lather.

So is everybody else. A gentle soap with good lather isn't the easiest to formulate and anyone who has spent years perfecting a recipe most likely won't share it.

 

[paillo]

Totally agree with TEG, you should not even be thinking about selling soap except way down the road. By clientele I hope you mean clientele for your bath and body products, or anything else for which you have experience and know your products are safe. I would suggest you tell your clientele that you are branching out into making soap but are in the beginning, learning and experimenting stage and nowhere near ready to sell. I would suggest that 'testers' are good -- friends, family, co-workers. But right now you don't even know if your soap is SAFE! Please, please, we hate to see people who give quality homemade soapmakers a bad name. Hold off for a while and become a good safe soaper with quality products.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...I'm just looking for a recipe that makes skin feel really nice and soft and clean with a nice lather. Sometimes bar soaps have a dry type feeling that I'm not to fond of...."

What type of recipe(s) are you using to make your soap? There's no reason for handcrafted soap to be drying to the skin once you know what you're doing. If your current recipe happens to be a stronger cleanser than you want (I gather you're new to soap making?), post the recipe in the recipe feedback forum and get some suggestions for improving it. There is absolutely no need for a drop of argan or other high-priced oil or any other fancy ingredient to solve this problem -- add them if you like after you gain experience with the basics, but understand that most exotic ingredients add label appeal more than anything.

ETA: If the reason for your opinion about the "dry type feeling" is based on your reactions to other people's handcrafted soap, you can't form a plan of improvement based on your reaction to someone else's recipes -- you can only improve your own. Figure out what YOUR soap is like -- what you like about it or don't like -- and then you can go on from there.

 

[Susie]

I agree with all of the above.

Also, if you are trying the soap you made 3 days ago, it is not going to be good enough to use for a MINIMUM of 4-8 weeks. All soap needs to cure, whether HP or CP. If you have clients that want soap NOW, go buy MP (melt and pour), make them pretty and smell good, then sell them that. You are no where close to selling your own CP soap. Had you done a bare minimum of research on here, you would already know this.

 

[HoneyLady]

I like a lard and lanolin bar for "moisturizing" properties, but it is not a lathery bar, even with some castor oil.

WAIT and see how your soaps age. You may not need to change your recipe once it's properly cured.

The waiting kills all of us as newbies, but once you DO wait, you find out WHY you should wait, and that makes it much easier to endure.

~HoneyLady~