Trouble with choosing ingredients

[EmBlakey]

I want to make a soap with tallow...it is absolutely divine for the skin! I will make it with olive oil but all my coconut oil has run out and I can't get any more for a while. I'm looking at alternatives and nothing else I can find on soap calc has any cleansing properties except for really bizarre ingredients. I use pure lard soap for cleaning cloth diapers as it does an amazing job...doesn't that mean it has great cleansing abilities and not '1' as assigned by soap calc? Any other recommendations for 'normal' oils that I can add please?
What I have at home:
Canola
sunflower
avo butter
avo oil
castor
cocoa butter
lard
tallow
olive oil

Also...I often make a coconut/olive/castor soap but it only lasts a few washes before it disappears...that's with 5-10%sf and curing for months at a time. Any idea how I can get soaps to last longer? Thanks all

 

[Susie]

You can clean just fine with a cleansing number of 1 or even 0. That is one place where soapcalc does not do a good job of describing something. You go right ahead and make your tallow soap.

Your bars need 4-6 weeks minimum cure, unless it is Castile. If it is Castile, it needs 6-12 months minimum. I would not use any superfat in any sort of laundry soap.

 

[EmBlakey]

Ok great, thanks! Glad to know I can ignore that part about cleansing

 

[DeeAnna]

I wish they'd change that name. It's so totally wrong. roblem: What the "cleansing" number means is the % of lauric and myristic acids in the soap recipe -- these fatty acids come from coconut, palm kernel, babassu. They make soaps that are highly soluble in water and they can clean well in cold or salty water. These soaps can be irritating to the skin because they are such effective cleaners -- they bind with and remove natural fats and proteins from the skin surface, leaving it dry and tight. For skin use, the % of these fatty acids is based on personal preference, but I'd say many people seem to like the "cleansing" number to be from 0% to 20% in a typical bath soap.