Thank you both for the answers! It has been a while using forums so I am not sure what is considered good form, but I will try to reply to you both in one post.
The oils that I have available is shea, sesame, castor, jojoba, hemp, black seed, primrose, argan, macadamia, avocado, grapeseed, walnut, seal, duck. I work in an organic food store, but some of them are quite expensive even with my discount so to begin with I would like to find a base recipe from lesser expensive oils. Since rape seed oil is one of the few plant oils produced here in Norway I would like to use it, but I have no idea of its properties.
My friend is strict about using plant based fats only, but I am not. So any tips in regards to animal fats are welcome as I might do my own, non vegan, experiments. I stay away from pork, but beef, chicken and lamb could be interesting. Reminds me of the customer I had the other day, she asked for badger oil, she was an arceologist trying to recreate a medival ointment. We had none, but she had half a badger in her fridge so she would be able to make it herself, she was just hoping for a simpler solution than to boil it on her own
The equal parts palm, coco, olive makes sense from all the soaps I have read the back of. Are those three oils together sort of the full spectrum of basic properties? So an adjustment amongst those would produce anything in regards to the basic desired variants? Palm oil is kind of frowned upon in Norway, due to plantations being heavy monocultures that is harsh on the environment. It is not that available, but I have seen it in asian shops. Also the red kind.
As for the oil melting away fast, I think the ones I am using now (cured for 5 weeks) keeps just as good as any natural basic bar soap I have tried, but I have not had it in the shower yet, thus it used fast and put to dry quickly. What would be the ingredients to use for longevity?
What oils do you have available to you and what oils do you prefer to avoid? For example, do you or your friend have an aversion to animal fats or any other particular soaping oil commonly used in soap? And if an oil we might suggest is impossible to find in Norway, it's good to know that before making a recommendation.
Regarding your recipe, and my limited knowledge about the weather conditions in Norway, I'll respond only as it relates to me & my skin: 57% coconut oil in soap is extremely drying, especially with the default superfat at 5%. I like Olive oil, but some people also find it drying to their skin. If you see the 'cleansing' number on the soapcalc printout, notice that it gives the number of 38, which should be translated to say 'excessively cleansing' or 'it will strip the natural oils from your skin, leaving your skin dry and itchy.'
Those recommended ranges of numbers in the Fatty Acid section of the print-out are there to help guide you to a more balanced soap formula that will do the things you want without harming your skin over time.
Some folks like to keep the cleansing number lower than the lowest on the range (which you may notice is 12 to 22); I prefer soap that has a cleansing number in a lower range simply because that's what my skin likes. So I tend to keep my percentage of Coconut Oil at 15% or less in my soap formulas. Sometimes I go higher, but then don't like how my skin dries out and end up giving it to my husband or someone else whose skin doesn't get as dry as mine.
By changing the oil in your formula, your Fatty Acid profile will also change. That's how you get the more 'conditioning' numbers and more lather and so on.
Here's a good explanation of what those numbers mean and how they translate into the results you can expect when in soap:
LINK
Olive oil will give a high conditioning number. You can change that with the recipe you already have simply by changing the percentages of the oils. For example, if you just change the Olive Oil to 60% and the Coconut Oil to 20%, you would already have a soap where most of the Fatty Acids fit into the suggested range on soapcalc.
By the way, the soap you made won't last long in use in spite of being quite hard; it melts away fast in the presence of water. The same would be true of the 60/40 change I mention above. Plus the higher Olive Oil content would require a longer cure before it would be at its best.
So anyway, let us know which oils you have access to and which ones you don't want to or won't use.
Thank you both for the answers! It has been a while using forums so I am not sure what is considered good form, but I will try to reply to you both in one post.
The oils that I have available is shea, sesame, castor, jojoba, hemp, black seed, primrose, argan, macadamia, avocado, grapeseed, walnut, seal, duck. I work in an organic food store, but some of them are quite expensive even with my discount so to begin with I would like to find a base recipe from lesser expensive oils. Since rape seed oil is one of the few plant oils produced here in Norway I would like to use it, but I have no idea of its properties.
My friend is strict about using plant based fats only, but I am not. So any tips in regards to animal fats are welcome as I might do my own, non vegan, experiments. I stay away from pork, but beef, chicken and lamb could be interesting. Reminds me of the customer I had the other day, she asked for badger oil, she was an arceologist trying to recreate a medival ointment. We had none, but she had half a badger in her fridge so she would be able to make it herself, she was just hoping for a simpler solution than to boil it on her own
The equal parts palm, coco, olive makes sense from all the soaps I have read the back of. Are those three oils together sort of the full spectrum of basic properties? So an adjustment amongst those would produce anything in regards to the basic desired variants? Palm oil is kind of frowned upon in Norway, due to plantations being heavy monocultures that is harsh on the environment. It is not that available, but I have seen it in asian shops. Also the red kind.
As for the oil melting away fast, I think the ones I am using now (cured for 5 weeks) keeps just as good as any natural basic bar soap I have tried, but I have not had it in the shower yet, thus it used fast and put to dry quickly. What would be the ingredients to use for longevity?
