Unsaponifiables vs foaming dispensers?

[huvek]

I like foamy soap a lot, so far I've made Elly's recipe from this youtube video and a 100% coconut oil soap (with 10g sugar and 10g citric acid, and an extra 8.42g of lye to account for the citric acid), and I dilute them to about 5% soap, 95% water, and put them in foaming dispensers (I actually found that ~7% was closer to ideal for Ellys recipe, I haven't dialed in the coconut oil one).

Elly's recipe is pretty high in olive oil and the foam isn't as good as I'd like.

I made the coconut oil soap to try as laundry detergent and dishwashing soap, see how it is in foaming dispensers, and to see for myself how drying it is. It has an incredible foam, both from a dispenser and even just lathering it up when washing dishes or really dirty hands, but it is a bit drying, especially my face feels a little tight after being washed with it.

According to https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/what-to-expect-from-various-oils-in-ls.62864/, you can get away with a pretty high coconut oil percentage with liquid soap which matches my experience trying the pure CO soap, it's not as bad as I've seen people say CO soap is (it may be my skin too, to be fair). I'd like to try a high (60-80%) coconut oil soap, with the rest being made up of some oils like castor oil, jojoba oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, or maybe pine tar. I couldn't care less about how clear the soap is (in fact I'm kind of frustrated by how hard it is to find info specific to liquid soap for oils that don't get clear), my main concern is whether the unsaponifiables in all of those except castor oil will cause problems for my foaming dispensers. Does anyone have any experience with liquid soap in foaming dispensers, have you used any of those oils to make a foaming soap? How has it gone? Is there anything else I might be missing, or might not even know to ask before I try a recipe like this? Or is there a better approach to making a really foamy soap?

No animal product recommendations please, thanks

 

[AliOop]

Have you tried combining some soap made with Elly's recipe, with your high CO recipe? By mixing them together in different percentages, you may find something you like.

I make LS using my regular bar soap recipe with KOH and 0% SF. It's not clear, but it foams beautifully, and is non-drying. However, I do use lard and tallow, so that particular recipe isn't going to work for you. No worries, attached is a vegan recipe that my family really, really likes in foamer bottles.

One thing that helps to offset the higher cleansing number in high-CO LS recipes is to replace some of the initial water with glycerin, as indicated in this recipe. Using a lye concentration of 25%, I first dissolve one part KOH into one part distilled water. Then I mix in two parts glycerin before adding the still-hot solution to my warm oils. Not only does the glycerin make the soap less drying; it also speeds up trace, which for LS is always a blessing. Diluting this recipe at 5:1 works perfectly for the foamer bottles that I have; YMMV.

 

[huvek]

Thanks!

That's what I'm playing with now, so far I found that 70% CO is still too drying.

Can I add glycerin at dilution for the same hydrating effect? With the coconut oil soap, I also used 2% oil weight citric acid (with extra lye to offset as per https://classicbells.com/soap/citricAcid.asp) and 2% oil weight sugar, and for my next batch I was hoping to use lime juice instead of water for the lye solution.

And then do you think the unsapponifiables in cocoa butter and jojoba oil will have a chance of clogging my foaming dispensers, or are they small and dispersed enough to avoid issues?

 

[AliOop]

My happy place for CO in LS is 60% or less, but that is with using glycerin in the initial saponification stage.

I haven't tried using glycerin in the dilution phase instead, but I suppose you could. Just don't use too much, or you will dampen the lather and end up with a sticky residue.

I've not used jojoba but have used shea and cocoa butter in LS. The soap didn't clog my foamer bottles at all.

 

[huvek]

Thanks for all the info! I'll try the following recipe, dissolving the sugar and citric acid into the glycerin before adding the glycerin solution to the lye water. Once I dial in the oils I'll experiment with replacing the sugar and citric acid and water with lime juice

• oils
  • 100g castor oil
  • 300g coco oil
  • 50g cocoa butter
  • 50g jojoba oil
• 15g citric acid (3% oils)
• 15g sugar (3% oils)
• 353.89g "water" (per lyecalc):
  • 117.96g water
  • 235.93g glycerin
• 130.59g total lye
  • 117.96g lye for oils
  • 12.63g lye for citric acid