What soap has surprised you the most?

[Quanta]

(slightly OT)

Sounds like a challenge!
My submission: 20% neem, 10% laurel, 40% MCT or fractionated coconut/PKO, 10% dairy butter, 20% salvaged HL sunflower oil (used just a bit too long for deep-frying sea fish). Scented with a ton of chili pepper and cinnamon EO.
I wonder who would love such a bar of soap? On the other hand, it would quite certainly “surprise” any unprepared user, so it's not entirely wrong in this thread.

I hate it already, and it's not even made yet. Good job!

 

[AAShillito]

I tried a batch of BB's rose clay and charcoal soap.( minus the charcoal) for one of my 1st batches and while the clay makes it trace fast and look terrible imo the bar is so nice on the skin after 6 weeks. Just creamy feeling.

 

[earlene]

A soap I made with Kombo butter often referred to as African Nutmeg, rich nutty aroma, maybe unpleasant to some discriminating olfactory(s) but it was hard to find a recipe for it as it's not listed in soapcalc so I just figured the properties and used about 15% in my recipe as I would PKO (palm) this CP batch went through all 3 stages in a matter of minutes!!! lol I have never experienced such a highly tracing butter

Kombo Butter was discussed here at this link for the soap calculator at SMF. In that thread, instructions how to add a custom oil to Soap Making Friend Recipe Builder Lye Calculator is shown. I have done so myself and it is quite easy. The Sap value for Kombo Butter is also listed in that thread along with the link to the resource for that information.

I have found that with a diligent online search, one can often find the sap value and other necessary information for the lesser used fats that one can enter into a the SMF calculator in this fashion.

 

[Becky1024]

A year or two after starting on this soaping journey I had lots of small quantities of at least 20 different oils and butters that I no longer used. Just stuff I experimented with and ended up not using in my base recipe. I hate throwing stuff out, and I tried putting it all into Soap Calc but ran out of lines! I found that Soapee worked, and came up with a recipe. The soap turned out pretty good!

 

[AliOop]

A year or two after starting on this soaping journey I had lots of small quantities of at least 20 different oils and butters that I no longer used. Just stuff I experimented with and ended up not using in my base recipe. I hate throwing stuff out, and I tried putting it all into Soap Calc but ran out of lines! I found that Soapee worked, and came up with a recipe. The soap turned out pretty good!

I've done that, too, and ended up with some of the best soap - which I will never make again because who wants to measure 10 drips of this and 10 dabs of that.

 

[RDak]

Following this recipe for ginger tea as part of the liquid (1 can of condensed coconut milk usually the balance of the liquid).

Gave a big boost to lather that she talked about in the attached link to her blog.

Link

Quote:

................Each variety of soap which somehow lathered easier, more abundantly, and felt more conditioning on my skin did, in fact, have one thing in common! Despite the recipe being identical from one batch to the other (With the exception of each variety being made with a different type of tea and/or additive), one common ingredient found in the different tea varieties was present within all the batches which somehow performed better. That ingredient was ginger!

This recipe has a little bit of pre-preparation, but the good news is that you can prepare a lot of it in advance so that it’s ready and waiting for you for future soap batches too! The very first step is to make a strong-brewed, sweet ginger tea in distilled water. You can use fresh ginger root if you’d like, or cut a few corners, like I do, and just use pre-bagged ginger tea. I really like the brand of tea pictured above since its only ingredient is organic ginger rhizome, but any tea where ginger root is one of the first/main ingredients will work great too! You’ll also want to have some sugar on-hand, and if it’s important to you that your soap recipes be vegan-friendly, you’ll want to use raw cane sugar. White sugar is made white due to the inclusion of bone char, and as the name implies, bone char is derived from animal bones. If you prefer to keep soap recipes vegan, you’ll want to stick with raw cane sugar instead.

To a large pot on your stovetop, add your distilled water. Be mindful to count how many 8oz cups of water you’ve added to your pot. For every 8oz cup of distilled water, we’ll incorporate ½ tablespoon of sugar and two tea bags. For example, in the picture below, I’ve added five 8oz cups of distilled water to my pot. To this, I’ve added 2 ½ tablespoons of sugar and 10 bags of tea. As your distilled water warms, add the sugar first so that it begins to dissolve. Once the water is hot, you can add the ginger tea. Be sure to remove any paper tabs attached to the tea bag’s string first, so that you don’t end up with bits of paper floating around in your tea. Remove the pot from the heat source and allow the tea to steep for at least 10 minutes.

Once your sweetened ginger tea has steeped for 10 minutes or more, you can remove the tea bags, squeezing the excess liquid from each bag as you do so. It’s not uncommon for a bag or two to bust open during this step, but that’s no problem, since the next step is to strain the tea as you transfer it to a container. The gallon container the water came in is a great place to store your finished tea! Once strained, the very last step is to chill the tea, since you’ll want it nice and cold for making your lye solution.

 

[Zing]

I was most surprised by one of my first batches. I'm going to be vulnerable here and admit it -- but remember I was a noob, okay? Don't judge me!! I made soap scented with cinnamon essential oil. Smelled divine and was very purtee to look at. I tested it in the shower and soon got bright red and was burning up from my neck down. (So now you have that visual.) I stayed under that shower for a looooong time rinsing. Yikes-kers. It killed me to throw the whole batch away!

My brother-in-law constantly surprises me. We're tight now but are world's apart on so many things. Except his wedding day when he wore a brand new pair of jeans, I've only seen him in a tank top, shorts and his threadbare baseball cap. I'm not judging him -- just pointing out he didn't seem like someone who would 'pamper' himself. After using my first lotion bar, he demanded a dozen more and said it is the only thing that "cured" his feet and he's tried everything. He also asked for soap with minimal superfat and more of my mechanic's soap. One of my biggest boosters!

 

[Carly B]

I made a batch of soap years ago and I was going for lots of lather. It was olive oil 35% coconut oil 20% palm kernel flakes 20% mango butter 20% and castor oil 5% (yes too cleansing but I was just messing around)

When I tried it at 6 weeks it would initially lather a little and then feel slimey so I thought okay no problem because of the high mango butter it will just take longer to cure.

6 months later I tried it again. Same thing! It never came around. It was always small lather then slimey.

That recipe surprised and stumped me.

I find that a lot of my soaps lather like crazy with a pouf or one of those mesh washcloths. It makes a huge difference.

 

[Rsapienza]

I had sent my bf to the store to get me lard and he came back with shortening, palm, I believe. After it sitting unopened for a couple of months, I thought "WTH" and made a batch while trying out a new design. I set in on the curing rack and pretty much forgot about it for months. When I finally brought a bar into the shower, I was pleasantly surprised. It was creamy, smooth, and silky. It is probably one of my favorites.

 

[Babyshoes]

(slightly OT)

Sounds like a challenge!
My submission: 20% neem, 10% laurel, 40% MCT or fractionated coconut/PKO, 10% dairy butter, 20% salvaged HL sunflower oil (used just a bit too long for deep-frying sea fish). Scented with a ton of chili pepper and cinnamon EO.
I wonder who would love such a bar of soap? On the other hand, it would quite certainly “surprise” any unprepared user, so it's not entirely wrong in this thread.

I almost feel like you need to make a tiny batch of that now, just to see if it is really as bad as we expect! You could even send a few samples to other forum folks in your area for confirmation!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Deal: PM me if you have neem, laurel oil, fish, cinnamon EO at hand (I won't buy them for myself in the foreseeable future). Once I have got the ingredients, I'll make that soap and send samples to those who have donated oils.
(I hope I won't regret that offer)

 

[AliOop]

Following this recipe for ginger tea as part of the liquid (1 can of condensed coconut milk usually the balance of the liquid).

Gave a big boost to lather that she talked about in the attached link to her blog.

Link

Quote:

................Each variety of soap which somehow lathered easier, more abundantly, and felt more conditioning on my skin did, in fact, have one thing in common! Despite the recipe being identical from one batch to the other (With the exception of each variety being made with a different type of tea and/or additive), one common ingredient found in the different tea varieties was present within all the batches which somehow performed better. That ingredient was ginger!

Once strained, the very last step is to chill the tea, since you’ll want it nice and cold for making your lye solution.

My guess is it’s the sugar in the ginger tea that’s making a difference, or maybe the combo of sugar + ginger.

Also, if I were planning to save the tea over an extended period of time, I’d freeze the tea into ice cube trays and then put the cubes in a baggie in the freezer. Keeping the tea in the fridge long term can lead to spoilage.

That being said, I’m going to give this a try with the coconut milk - sounds like a great recipe. Thanks, @RDak.

 

[cmzaha]

One of my most recent soaps really surprised me. For years now, I've made a high-lard-colloidal-oat-neem bar for my husband. This time I upped the neem to 20% and used DB at 6% in hopes that it would cover the neem smell. I ended up with a soap that looks and smells like caramel!

At first I thought, "This must be my imagination."

So I asked a friend to smell the bar and guess the scent. Her reply: "Caramel."

I never in my wildest dreams thought that neem + DB = caramel. If I can replicate this in the next soap, it's going to be a regular for sure.

LOL, I could have told you that if you just asked!! I regularly made neem bars at 20% and used DB is some, which is always 6% usage. I am not one of the people that hate neem after it cures out and becomes earthy smelling so it does mix well with DB and also Lemongrass or better yet Litsea

My very favorite soap is my 100% Salt bars then next in line is my PKO/CO Tallow/Lard combo soaps and so did my customers. I also love my 59% Shea butter bar, my vegan high Palm soap follows up. I will note all my bars are made with PKO/CO split at a rate of 10-17% total. All my soaps have a rich creamy lather that kicks up well due to using dual lye. I simply Love all my soaps. I will note, I HATE OO in any soap, and Zany's no slime does not work for me at all.

 

[AliOop]

LOL, I could have told you that if you just asked!! I regularly made neem bars at 20% and used DB is some, which is always 6% usage. I am not one of the people that hate neem after it cures out and becomes earthy smelling so it does mix well with DB and also Lemongrass or better yet Litsea

Of course I should have known that you would have an answer to this.

 

[cmzaha]

Of course I should have known that you would have an answer to this.

I had to learn something in 10+ yrs of soaping. There really is not much I have not tried.

 

[GemstonePony]

(slightly OT)

Sounds like a challenge!
My submission: 20% neem, 10% laurel, 40% MCT or fractionated coconut/PKO, 10% dairy butter, 20% salvaged HL sunflower oil (used just a bit too long for deep-frying sea fish). Scented with a ton of chili pepper and cinnamon EO.
I wonder who would love such a bar of soap? On the other hand, it would quite certainly “surprise” any unprepared user, so it's not entirely wrong in this thread.

Have some compassion and put a content warning on it next time! Some of us have vivid imaginations, and, well, I'll have to eat lunch later.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

@RDak
This sounds interesting' I've gotta try it.

 

[Quanta]

@RDak
This sounds interesting' I've gotta try it.

At first I thought this was referencing @ResolvableOwl's universally hated soap, and I was thinking "What is WRONG with you?!"

 

[RDak]

@RDak
This sounds interesting' I've gotta try it.

I'm telling you...I WAS surprised at the lather benefit.

 

[RDak]

My guess is it’s the sugar in the ginger tea that’s making a difference, or maybe the combo of sugar + ginger.

Also, if I were planning to save the tea over an extended period of time, I’d freeze the tea into ice cube trays and then put the cubes in a baggie in the freezer. Keeping the tea in the fridge long term can lead to spoilage.

That being said, I’m going to give this a try with the coconut milk - sounds like a great recipe. Thanks, @RDak.

It is the sugar + ginger that gives it the extra boost beyond sugar IMHO. I have no idea why but the blog author was correct; for some reason the ginger tea increases lather beyond just the sugar.

I've used sugar a buzillion times and it doesn't boost lather like that mysterious combo. LOL!!