Whipped Soap - not much lather

retropants · Mar 28, 2008

Hi there!
I am very new to all this, been doing tons of research, and finally made my first mini-batch of soap last week. It was whipped soap (see www.nizzymoulds.com) I used palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil and shea butter, and added lavender and sweet orange oil at the right time.
I unmoulded after 12 hours and cut it, it was a bit flaky. It has small white blobs in it, and after a week, it is not lathering very well at all. It smells delish, and does make the skin feel clean (hands only on a test bit so far)
Does it sound like I need to rebatch or could the white blobs be unsaponified oils/butter? Which could expalin the lack of lather....I am a bit lost really.
thankyou

Guest · Mar 28, 2008

Hi!

Without looking at your recipe it is hard to determine why you aren't getting much lather. Can you post the percentages of your ingredients?

retropants · Mar 31, 2008

sure, I'll dig them out and post them up soon, thankyou!

retropants · Apr 9, 2008

finally, I found the recipe I used:

palm oil 55%
coconut oil 12%
shea butter 9%
olive oil 24%

I can see already, that there is too much palm, not enough coconut, would that be why do you think? :?

Guest · Apr 9, 2008

Yeah - coconut is your only lathering oil. I would replace 5% of your Palm with coconut and replace another 5% of your Palm with Castor. I think overall that is a lot of palm for a whipped recipe. If you have problems with the soap hardening after the whip - replace a little more of the palm with olive until you get what you want.

retropants · Apr 9, 2008

Thanks! that make sense, having researched more on the web since I made it. Luckily I only made a small amount and it smells great. I'll take it to work once it has cured, and the guys can use it there, waste not, want not!! :lol: