What oil(s) should I add for more slip and silkiness?

[milky]

Wow, thanks you all! That was really helpful!
I'm pretty sure the water is hard where my dad lives in Florida. He most certainly has a water softener though.
Mine is probably the only homemade soap he's tried. Growing up he was always an Irish Spring guy.

Even if hard water wasn't the problem, reducing scum should still be a plus. Do you use sodium citrate and EDTA in the same soap? Do they prevent DOS better together? Actually... I vaguely remember reading a comparison of various ways to prevent DOS and that may or may not have been the winner..

I hit up a Piping Rock sale and bought avocado and sweet almond to try, as well as a big jug of castor and some coconut. Saw on the forum that their EO's are scary so I'm really hoping the oils are good quality. Looking forward to trying to feel the difference between them. Would it be worth it to use both in the same soap?? Might do that just to use them up at the same time.
One of these days I'll give RBO, high oleic sunflower or safflower a try, too.

I'm delighted that bentonite clay is okay to use! Should the superfat be higher if adding it or is it more of a problem with clay residue on the skin that can be drying (and if that's the case then maybe edta would help?)?
So many questions! Here's a bunny:
:bunny:

 

[fuzz-juzz]

Rice bran oil is great for shiny slippery bars.

And kaolin clay.... I use teaspoon per 1kg of oils and it makes bars amazingly smooth and they glide so nicely over skin.

Low SF also helps, I keep mine at 0% or 1-2%.

Tussah silk made my soaps sticky, didn't like it at all.

 

[Susie]

I am using all Piping Rock EOs now, and they are wonderful. Not one problem, whatsoever.

Your dad may not like as much superfat as you do. I would drop the superfat first before making a lot of changes.

My hubby likes a higher CO bar than I do. I would try that next. Just bump the CO to 20-25%.

Then, he may not like the softer bar that handmade soap gives. I would try using 1 tsp PPO of salt.

But do one change, then the other, then the other, so he can tell the difference before doing all of them in one batch.

 

[DeeAnna]

Use EDTA or sodium citrate, but not both.

https://classicbells.com/soap/citrate.html
https://classicbells.com/soap/EDTA.html

 

[Nao]

Maybe I missed the train here but I would vote for tallow. When I tried like 25 different bars of 2 month old soap a while ago the tallow one really stood out as slippery to the point it wasn't nice to use. The slipperiness being the reason tallow is popular for shaving soap. Though it seems the tallow needs 2 months to develope the slipperiness since trying it after one month it didn't stand out at all.

Second slipperiest was rapeseed, which you probably won't want to soap with so maybe something with similar make up of fatty acids but with less likelihood of going rancid.

I wouldn't recommend avocado oil since it only had a fraction of the slipperiness that the rapeseed had.

 

[milky]

Use EDTA or sodium citrate, but not both.

https://classicbells.com/soap/citrate.html
https://classicbells.com/soap/EDTA.html

Thanks for linking me to that info. I read it a long time ago and definitely needed the refresher. I think the DOS comparison I read was one that concluded EDTA + ROE to be the most successful, as you said there.


Susie, for your husband do you use both higher coconut and lower superfat? I'm scared! lol. Will give it a go though.

Nao, been wanting to try tallow but keep forgetting about it. It doesn't come up on my shopping radar very often, if ever. Adding it to the list of oils to try next. What do you think of it compared to lard?

 

[Susie]

Yes, my hubby likes both higher CO, and lower SF. He also adores menthol soaps. But, he has oily skin, and is from Alaska, so IDK what your dad would like. Like I said, try one change at the time.

 

[Nao]

Nao, been wanting to try tallow but keep forgetting about it. It doesn't come up on my shopping radar very often, if ever. Adding it to the list of oils to try next. What do you think of it compared to lard?

The only lard I've been soaping with is old rancid lard I found in my parents basement so I don't know if I'm qualified to answer that really. Lard seems impossible to buy in my country so I don't know if and when will get som fresh to try out.

Either way I didn't pick up on anything special with it and what I've heard from others lard's main contribution to lather is creamy and conditioning, not slippery. I'm sort of surprised that nobody else mentioned tallow.

"The memory is good, but short" as we say up here, I, myself have a bunch of bones from our own cattle in the freezer but keeps forgetting to render the marrow from them lol.