My handmade CP soap has been drying out my skin. I realized that I was using too much coconut oil (30%) so I reduced it to 20% but it is still drying out my skin. What oils should I add to address this problem? Should I reduce the coconut oil even more?
here is my current recipe:
30% Pomace Olive Oil
25% Palm
20% Coconut
10% Advocado
10% Shea butter:wink:
5% sunflower seed oil
Ok. So I'm new, green new, but I've studied a ton load for a couple months before diving in. I'll do my best to help. So from my experience, 20% co can be drying to some, and definitely can be drying to many at such a low superfat. Second, palm is a hard oil with NOT an awesome conditioning number. It's hard, low on cleansing at a 1 (@ 100% usage), BUT also 49 on conditioning factor (@ 100% usage). My overall conditioning I try to keep at a 58ish total conditioning at the lowest; if using tallow, and if palm/animal fat free appx a 60 plus on conditioning. You are currently at a 56/conditioning and 14 cleansing with avocado butter, and 58/conditioning with 14 cleansing if using avocado oil EDIT, you said avocado but I don't see if it was oil or butter.....end EDIT hehe.(if I did that correctly....my arm brace is on and I'm typing on a screen the size of a gnat :-/ makes it hard to maintain accuracy lol!). I'd raise the conditioning to appx 60 and keep cleansing where you're at now.
finally, I've read pomace olive traces faster than regular... and though the numbers look the same, I can only assume the qualities felt are different. I'd stick to regular ole olive.
So. I'll offer my "green experience" opinion...
Superfat it's above and beyond what you leave on your skin in way of
un saponified oils. You sap the oils and fat with lye, and excess gets left behind to moisturize. You're leaving 3%, and the basic recipes for beginners recommend 5%, and finally I've found between 7-9% rocks on silkiness. If using goat milk, try 7% superfat at the least if you're dry, and the goats milk will raise it to almost 8% because of the fats in milk being saponified. Just a suggestion
second, yes!!! You can't add anything at trace for superfatting because lye take what lye wants and it continues to do this for at least 24 hrs, and up to 72+ hrs. If you try to superfat at trace, it means nothing for the lye is still active. lick the batter at trace and see if you get zapped :-/ if you do, it's active and is taking what it wants when it wants...lol. (no don't really do that. It'll probably hurt. A lot. Bad.) So superfat by adding into the lye calc, but don't assume the Shea or the xyz butter is what superfatted your batch. It will wind up a combo of things.
Third, I'd offer advice as to lowering the palm some, leaving the co at 18- 20% and upping the superfat to 7-8%. I'd say keep conditioning to 58-62 and cleansing to 12-14 since you're dried out, and adjust within these ranges. I'd keep Shea, maybe try tallow in place of palm (up to 30-40% tallow, or palm to 15-20% tops), and consider adding rice bran oil or sweet almond. Both have a better shelf life than sunflower and are very conditioning. I think my fave oil, so far, is sweet almond. Love it!!
Rambled I fear, so apologies!! Good luck with it!
