Zany's no slime castile

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Here’s a pic of the lather from the soap I made on July 2, so not quite a month old.
6D38D2E7-3ECD-48ED-B046-2D1E16997A40.jpeg
 
I’m glad it worked out for you. How old was your soap? Mine is about 2 months now, I have it stashed away. I’ll probably give it a try at the 3 month mark.
 
I’m glad it worked out for you. How old was your soap? Mine is about 2 months now, I have it stashed away. I’ll probably give it a try at the 3 month mark.
Hi linne. FYI: No need to wait any longer. This is not like your normal castile. If you follow the exact recipe, with no variation, you can almost use it right away. I started washing my face with it at 2 weeks with my last batch because I'd been completely out for while! LOL See Post #1:
CURE Ready to ship in 2 weeks. 6 weeks is best. The longer the cure the better the soap.
 
Hi linne. FYI: No need to wait any longer. This is not like your normal castile. If you follow the exact recipe, with no variation, you can almost use it right away. I started washing my face with it at 2 weeks with my last batch because I'd been completely out for while! LOL See Post #1:
It doesn't seem as hard as my other soaps at the same amount of time. It's not soft per se, just not as hard, if that makes sense, lol. So I parked the soaps (I only made 1 pound=4 soaps) on a cloth on an aerated table in the corner of my bedroom and I figured I would try one out in about a month or so. I made them sometime in June.
 
Thank you, Sara! I'm happy it worked for you. And, yes, isn't it remarkable to get down to that last little sliver of soap and it still keeps its shape?!

Zero SF is the way to go if you want to reduce slime. ;)
Adding 10% coconut & 5% castor will give you the same nice, long lasting castile you first experienced, but with more dense lather. Dissolving a tablespoon of table sugar in the water to make the NaOH solution also helps lather. :thumbs:
I've been reading about this for quite some time; I am not understanding how this is not a harsh bar of soap with 0% SF? Hoping someone can give some insight...
 
I think it's because the OP said that olive oil is high in unsaponifiables.
I've been reading about this for quite some time; I am not understanding how this is not a harsh bar of soap with 0% SF? Hoping someone can give some insight...
I think it's because the OP said that olive oil is high in unsaponifiables.

I think it's because the OP said that olive oil is high in unsaponifiables.

I think it's because the OP said that olive oil is high in unsaponifiables.
When I checked on Google - it stated that 2% of olive oil is unsaponifiable.
 
Per industry standard, regular olive oil should be no more than 1.5% to 2% unsaponifiables. That's not any higher than most oils and fats to be honest -- the numbers I have range up to 2% for most of the fats/oils commonly used in soap making. Pomace olive is different -- it can be as high as 3% per industry standards. Fats that do have high unsaponifiable content include avocado (as much as 9%) and shea butter.

"...I am not understanding how this is not a harsh bar of soap with 0% SF?..."

It can be easy to confuse excess alkalinity (excess lye) with the cleansing strength of a soap, but the two are completely different things. Excess alkalinity is due to a soap that contains less fat than needed to fully react with the alkali. Even if you design a recipe with 0% superfat, there's relatively low risk that this will actually happen, given how most soap recipes are calculated.

The way most online soap recipe calculators are designed, they do not make any correction for the impurities normally found in NaOH. In other words, they assume the NaOH is 100% pure, but that's not really correct. If you set up a recipe with a 0% superfat, the soap you make with that recipe will actually have a small to moderate superfat. The actual % superfat will be equal to the difference between the assumed 100% purity and the actual NaOH purity. That's often somewhere in the 2% to 5% range.

As long as there is sufficient fat to entirely react with the alkali or a bit more fat than that, it is entirely reasonable to make soap with a low superfat and still have a nicely gentle bar, as long as you adjust the fatty acid profile with an eye toward creating a mild soap for your particular skin type.

If you make a soap that has a high "cleansing" number -- typically one high in coconut oil -- then you may need to increase the superfat high enough to reduce the cleansing ability on the skin. The soap becomes milder because you're forcing it to emulsify its own superfat, not strip the fats off your skin.
 
Last edited:
Per industry standard, regular olive oil should be no more than 1.5% to 2% unsaponifiables. That's not any higher than most oils and fats to be honest -- the numbers I have range up to 2% for most of the fats/oils commonly used in soap making. Pomace olive is different -- it can be as high as 3% per industry standards. Fats that do have high unsaponifiable content include avocado (as much as 9%) and shea butter.

"...I am not understanding how this is not a harsh bar of soap with 0% SF?..."

It can be easy to confuse excess alkalinity (excess lye) with the cleansing strength of a soap, but the two are completely different things. Excess alkalinity is due to a soap that contains less fat than needed to fully react with the alkali. Even if you design a recipe with 0% superfat, there's relatively low risk that this will actually happen, given how most soap recipes are calculated.

The way most online soap recipe calculators are designed, they do not make any correction for the impurities normally found in NaOH. In other words, they assume the NaOH is 100% pure, but that's not really correct. If you set up a recipe with a 0% superfat, the soap you make with that recipe will actually have a small to moderate superfat. The actual % superfat will be equal to the difference between the assumed 100% purity and the actual NaOH purity. That's often somewhere in the 2% to 5% range.

As long as there is sufficient fat to entirely react with the alkali or a bit more fat than that, it is entirely reasonable to make soap with a low superfat and still have a nicely gentle bar, as long as you adjust the fatty acid profile with an eye toward creating a mild soap for your particular skin type.

If you make a soap that has a high "cleansing" number -- typically one high in coconut oil -- then you may need to increase the superfat high enough to reduce the cleansing ability on the skin. The soap becomes milder because you're forcing it to emulsify its own superfat, not strip the fats off your skin.
Thank you for that explanation. I have found that my skin likes a relatively high super fat. In general I SF between 7-8. I have tried 1% all the way to 30% (coconut oil soap). When I made Zany’s recipe I super fatted at 5% even though the recipe said to use 0%. I just couldn’t do it, lol.
 
Thank you Deeanna. When I entered this into soapmaker after running through soapcalc, their NaOH numbers were different. This in turn made me unsure of which was best, & a little uneasy given the lack of wiggle room in 0% SF. I was not aware that there was such a significant cushion in those calculators.
 
Thank you Deeanna. When I entered this into soapmaker after running through soapcalc, their NaOH numbers were different. This in turn made me unsure of which was best, & a little uneasy given the lack of wiggle room in 0% SF. I was not aware that there was such a significant cushion in those calculators.
Yeah the numbers never tell it all. It's more so in the case of salt bars n brine soaps with high coconut, Castile and bastille soaps with high olive... A high butter soap has wonky numbers too I recall. I'm sure there's others.

You'll have to rely on your knowledge of each fat you use, the knowledge of others here, and trial n error.
 
When I made Zany’s recipe I super fatted at 5% even though the recipe said to use 0%. I just couldn’t do it, lol.
LOL Oh that's funny, linne! At least it explains your comment here, which had me scratching my head, BTW. o_O :
It doesn't seem as hard as my other soaps at the same amount of time. It's not soft per se, just not as hard, if that makes sense, lol.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top