What does the cleansing number on SoapCalc really mean???

[mcleodnaturals]

Help!!

I know the range I want to aim for is between 14 and 22, but when I input a 100% olive oil soap or a 100% lard soap it has a cleansing # of 1 or 0. How can that soap get you clean?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[Barb]

Cleansing - This refers to the soap's ability to grab on to oils. A soap molecule is a chain of carbon atoms. One end of the chain attracts water, the other end attracts oil. When you wash your skin with soap and water, multiple chains will gather around a droplet of oil with their oil-hungry ends attached to the oil droplet. The water hungry ends are surrounded with water. To make this happen you need to mix up (scrub or rub) the soap and water on your skin. When you rinse, the oil droplets with the attached soap molecules are washed away. Some soap molecules can have a very hungry oil grabbing end. Soap made with too much Lauric and/or Myristic Acid can irritate the skin by washing away the protective layer of surface oils on the skin. Generally speaking, keeping the total of coconut and palm kernal in your recipe to no more than 30-35% can avoid this. A typical range for Cleansing would be 14 to 22. A soap recipe within this range, and made properly, will not irritate the skin.

i'm not really sure how to explain what you are asking, other then the fact that, that particular lye calculator ( in my opinion) doesn't take in to account the end product. we know that a soap made with 100% olive oil if given a good cure has lather and is as hard as a brick, yet it shows it to be a soft soap, it also doesn't give it good conditioning numbers and it is as mild as a soap can get. if you run a 100% olive oils soap thru the soapmaker calculator it will show that you get a bar with 5.4 hardness 3.2 fluffy (which is your bubbly) and 8.5 stable ( creamy) and 9.5 conditioning.

i don't take the numbers it gives me for any soap i make in stone, it is a good tool and i use it as a reference to give me some idea on how it should end up but it is the finished product that is the true example. that and my customers are what tell me if my soap is good. it all has to do with how the combo of oils work with one another. the soaps properties that i like ( for me i like a soap that has more lineolic acids, i have dry skin, while my hubby and dd prefer one higher in oleic acids) are certainly not the properties others may like in their finished product.


and that probably didn't answer your question at all. :?

 

[IrishLass]

Well, I can only tell you what I've experienced with my own 100% Olive Oil soap. I just used a bar of mine the other day in the shower and I was able to work up a beautiful bubbly/creamy lather with it using my washcloth. Just using my hands to lather with did not create enough bubblage for me, so I resorted to the washcloth and it made all the difference.

Even though the cleansing numbers on SoapCalc are very low for a 100% OO soap, I felt that mine got me plenty clean, and with the added benefit of not drying me out.



IrishLass

 

[Soapmaker Man]

I keep my cleaning numbers around 20, my conditioning at least 50, my Linoleic number about 20 and the Oleic number around 30. This is a happy medium that is OK for dry and oily skin. I like big bubbles too.

Paul :wink:

 

[Guest]

I use castile soap all of the time and I am very clean.

All of my other soaps are towards the low end of that suggested cleansing range.

 

[lsg]

Cleansing - This refers to the soap's ability to grab on to oils. A soap molecule is a chain of carbon atoms. One end of the chain attracts water, the other end attracts oil. When you wash your skin with soap and water, multiple chains will gather around a droplet of oil with their oil-hungry ends attached to the oil droplet. The water hungry ends are surrounded with water. To make this happen you need to mix up (scrub or rub) the soap and water on your skin. When you rinse, the oil droplets with the attached soap molecules are washed away. Some soap molecules can have a very hungry oil grabbing end. Soap made with too much Lauric and/or Myristic Acid can irritate the skin by washing away the protective layer of surface oils on the skin. Generally speaking, keeping the total of coconut and palm kernal in your recipe to no more than 30-35% can avoid this. A typical range for Cleansing would be 14 to 22. A soap recipe within this range, and made properly, will not irritate the skin.

What a great explanation! I never understood it either, now at least, I can get some grasp on the meaning. Thanks, Barb.

 

[mcleodnaturals]

Thanks Barb for such an informative explanation!!! I know that my castile bar gets me clean too, but I was stumped when I inputed the numbers and according to the calculator it was very UN-cleansing.

I guess I can't rely on the SoapCalc 100% of the time because it seems to have a few quirks!

Thanks for all your input and info!

mcleodnaturals