Using Oleic and Myristic acids straight up?

[hungryhawaiian]

Hey All! Remember my other post on being gifted a ton of soap stuff from an awesome woman who stopped soaping? Well there is a bottle of Oleic acid (looks and feels like oil) and a bag of Myristic acid (powder form) among the stuff she gave me. In addition, she also gave me a copy of her recipes. It appears there’s only 2 recipes and it seems really basic, but somewhat confusing to me.

Both recipes use either Oleic or Myristic acid. I have very little to go by as her recipe was hand written with the intention of her own personal use, therefore she doesn’t have additional info as to the details of additives or ingredients outside of the base oils. I can’t even find anything online that uses Oleic or Myristic acid straight up in a recipe.


I’m also a complete noob with lye ratios. I’ve been sticking to whatever the calc’s recommend. Her lye ratio goes by percentages which I’m not sure how to decipher.

I used a couple of her bars already and they feel amazing, so I’m determined with try and replicate them. Is anyone here able to help me reverse engineer this recipe? Ignore the white box in the recipe pic. That was me converting to grams for more precise measurements when I replicate it.

 

[BattleGnome]

You may have to wait for someone more sciencey but here’s what I’d do:

Convert the recipes to percentages and run them though your chosen calculator to get a 1-2 pound batch. Make a batch of each recipe with no fragrance/color/additives. Cure appropriately then compare them to the bars you’ve been gifted.

This may not be the most accurate way but feels the simplest to me. (I also have no idea what the lye chart could mean)

 

[shunt2011]

I ran it through a calculator as I was curious.

CO - 28%
Canola - 27%
Olive - 17%
Shea - 16%
Castor - 8%
Oleic & Myrstic - 2% each

Quality Range Recipe
Hardness 29 - 54 36
Cleansing 12 - 22 21
Conditioning 44 - 69 60
Bubbly 14 - 46 28
Creamy 16 - 48 22
Iodine 41 - 70 65
INS 136 - 165 138
Lauric 13
Myristic 7
Palmitic 7
Stearic 8
Ricinoleic 7
Oleic 40
Linoleic 10
Linolenic 3

I've never used either Oleic or Myrstic so not sure.

 

[lsg]

Wasn't there a thread a while back about the longevity of soap? I thought that the higher the % of oleic the shorter the life of the soap.

 

[hungryhawaiian]

Wasn't there a thread a while back about the longevity of soap? I thought that the higher the % of oleic the shorter the life of the soap.

Definitely curious on that one. She stopped soaping for quite some time and the bars she gave me are probably a year old or more, but they seem perfectly fine. No DOS or any indicators that it’s going bad. Quite frankly, I prefer using her soap to any I’ve tried or made! lol But being the kind of person I am, I really wanna know the technical aspect of this soap recipe.

 

[KiwiSoap]

Definitely curious on that one. She stopped soaping for quite some time and the bars she gave me are probably a year old or more, but they seem perfectly fine. No DOS or any indicators that it’s going bad. Quite frankly, I prefer using her soap to any I’ve tried or made! lol But being the kind of person I am, I really wanna know the technical aspect of this soap recipe.

Hallo HH! You're still a young soaper so none of your soaps will be as old as hers yet and, as we keep hearing, soaps get better over time so don't write off your own soaps yet!

That said, I'm keen to see how this recipe scrawled on paper by a kind benefactor pans out as well .. nothing like an unsolved mystery! Keep up the great soaping work, I enjoy seeing and hearing about it!!

 

[Dawni]

Hallo HH! You're still a young soaper so none of your soaps will be as old as hers yet and, as we keep hearing, soaps get better over time so don't write off your own soaps yet!

That said, I'm keen to see how this recipe scrawled on paper by a kind benefactor pans out as well .. nothing like an unsolved mystery! Keep up the great soaping work, I enjoy seeing and hearing about it!!

I also plugged it in, and other than the cleansing number being too high for me, since we don't know her superfat, it looks ok. Of course, if it was me I'd tweak it further. Maybe melt the powder with the hard oils and add the other oil with the rest of the liquid oils and see what I'll get. All in the name of experimentation lols

 

[penelopejane]

I also plugged it in, and other than the cleansing number being too high for me, since we don't know her superfat, it looks ok. Of course, if it was me I'd tweak it further. Maybe melt the powder with the hard oils and add the other oil with the rest of the liquid oils and see what I'll get. All in the name of experimentation lols

You know the lye amount so you can find the SF in soap calc.
If you swap the CO for also it’s similar the Lindys shampoo bar (not for hair but as body bar) which makes a great non stripping soap:

 

[DeeAnna]

Wasn't there a thread a while back about the longevity of soap? I thought that the higher the % of oleic the shorter the life of the soap.

You're right, lsg -- oleic soap is highly water soluble.

There's nothing wrong with using fatty acids directly to make soap -- that's an accepted way to make commercial soaps. Most handcraft soap makers don't use fatty acids because they're harder to source, but if you can find 'em and want to use them, go for it.

When using fatty acids, you'll probably need to do a HP recipe unless the fatty acid content is fairly low (as in this recipe.) If doing CP, the soap batter may trace faster than usual, even if the FAs are low, so keep any design plan pretty simple.

Given the recipe uses only 2% each of oleic and myristic, there's not a lot of benefit being gained by using the fatty acids, however. You could raise the olive and CO a bit to get more or less the same result.

The recipe might make a nice soap, but it's an odd recipe. The stearic + palmitic acids are very low -- about half of what works well for me. That indicates the soap is more water soluble than may be desirable. The linoleic + linolenic acids are pretty high, which indicates a tendency towards rancidity. The lauric + myristic acids are higher than my skin would like, but that's a personal choice.