Substituting CO with PO & and butters question

[Sonya-m]

I'm nearly out of CO and know PO brings pretty much the same qualities to the party but how does PO affect trace?

Also I've recently purchased some cocoa and shea butters just in small quantities to try them

In my goto recipe how much butter should I add and also should I be prepared for acceleration?

Recipe is usually:

75% lard
20% CO
5% castor

I'm sorry for all the questions recently - I still have a lot to learn!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Do you mean pKo or po? Palm oil and coconut are nothing like similar. Lard and palm, are. Coconut and palm KERNAL oil are similar.

I don't use butters in a soap, except as superfat in HP, so I don't know about how it affects the process. But most people keep the total butters lower than 30% as it can lower your lather and feel waxy. Some people use more, however.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

In my soaps, I typically will use 10% of the butters in my palm-free veg recipes to add a bit of hardness. Though my first purchase of shea butter was unrefined and very strong smelling, and the first batch of soap I made with it (with a 7% lye discount) was unscented and some of the natural shea scent managed to survive saponification. Not sure how that happened, other than maybe my lye discount was large enough to leave enough of the shea scent alone. Lovely surprise for me.

In fact... *runs off to soap storage, then runs back* Yup. Over a year old, and some of the shea smell is STILL there. I don't have much left... Just one full-size bar and two tiny pieces (from leftovers poured into a silicone ice cube tray), plus the remnants of another tiny piece in my kitchen's soap dish. lol

 

[Sonya-m]

Do you mean pKo or po? Palm oil and coconut are nothing like similar. Lard and palm, are. Coconut and palm KERNAL oil are similar.

See, told you I still have a lot to learn!! It's PO I have but no point using instead of CO in my lard soap if it's just similar to lard!!

 

[Sonya-m]

In my soaps, I typically will use 10% of the butters in my palm-free veg recipes to add a bit of hardness. Though my first purchase of shea butter was unrefined and very strong smelling, and the first batch of soap I made with it (with a 7% lye discount) was unscented and some of the natural shea scent managed to survive saponification. Not sure how that happened, other than maybe my lye discount was large enough to leave enough of the shea scent alone. Lovely surprise for me.

In fact... *runs off to soap storage, then runs back* Yup. Over a year old, and some of the shea smell is STILL there. I don't have much left... Just one full-size bar and two tiny pieces (from leftovers poured into a silicone ice cube tray), plus the remnants of another tiny piece in my kitchen's soap dish. lol

So do you only use to add hardness? Are there no moisturising benefits to be had from adding a butter? Just my lard recipe is already pretty hard so I could just be adding an more costly ingredient with no extra benefits?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

The numbers on soapcalc for the butters are similar to things like lard and tallow - but that is just numbers. I haven't done a side-by-side test, but some people have and the results are mixed. Some people felt a difference when using butters, some didn't.

 

[Sonya-m]

Ok thanks TEG, I guess I will just try it and see what I think

 

[shunt2011]

I too use shea and cocoa butters between 7-10% of my recipes. Cocoa makes it a bit harder. I think they both add a bit of conditioning to the soap but that's just me. And since I sell it's good label appeal for a lot of people.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

Yeah, I haven't done a side-by-side test yet either (at least, not with the same recipes). Hardness and label appeal are the only things I can say for sure.

 

[snappyllama]

For my last few batches, I've been on a Shea @ 5% kick after using it as the SF in my HP batch. The bar leaves my skin feeling so soft. I can really tell the difference.

IMHO, shea in CP at 5% isn't quite as apparent when I'm using the bar. However, my skin is noticeably more refreshed-feeling when it dries.