Trying to Simplify My Recipe

[Michdj]

I've been using the same CP recipe for years, and it's a little complicated so I wanted to "downsize."  It's as follows:

20% palm
20% safflower
15% pko
15% shea
15% rice bran
10% coconut
5% castor

 

I was wanting to lose an oil or two, just so I'm not ordering and tracking so many oils.

 

I tried the following, but it moved a pretty quick on a fragrance that usually reverses trace, and my top selling fragrance actually accelerates (ugh):

30% palm

30% HO safflower

25% pko

10% shea

5% castor

 

Any suggestions on how to lose an oil or two and still be okay?  I'd love to lose the coconut oil since it's a pain to try and melt the 50lb pails to masterbatch, but I'm thinking that maybe all that pko was what caused a quick trace.  I don't mind the HO safflower to be the only liquid oil (with castor).  AGH!  I'm going crazy messing with Soapcalc.  Any thoughts?

[Sarah S]

That's a ton of stearin with the palm and the pko. I'd say that's your quick trace problem there.

 

I don't know that I can offer much advice about your recipe, I honestly don't like soaping with any of the oils you're using, lol. Except coconut, I love that oil so much! ❤️❤️

 

If I were to take a stab at balancing out that recipe, I'd try:

20% palm

20% coconut

20% safflower

10% shea

5% pko 

5% castor

with a 5-8% super fat 

 

or

 

30% palm

20% coconut

30% safflower

15% shea 

5% castor

with a 5-6% super fat

[CandleRush]

I agree with Sarah. I would use palm or pko  but not both, those can be drying to the skin.

 

Im a fan of olive oil vrs. sunflower oil.

 

Also love what coconut oil does in soap.

 

Castor for sure.

 

I go between Shea butter and mango butter, what ever I have on hand.

 

You can make small batches and try some combos.

[TallTayl]

HO sunflower oil is a mover in my experience. If safflower is similar in fatty acid profile  That may be a big part your problem right there.

 

Shea can move too, depending on your soaping temps.

[NightLight]

I like super simple sunflower coconut or palm kernel and castor, that’s it. People love my soap. 

I like sunflower over olive oil because I hate the cast of color from olive. And since I hate dealing with titanium dioxide it’s a no brained for m e.

[NightLight]

You have a number of hard to Harding oils there that will trace quickly. Remember this is a rinse off product so you don’t have to crazy with the number of ingredients, you can formulate very simply and get nice results. Save some of the fancier butters etc for stay on products like lotion. Lotions bars, cream etc. Your costs will go down too.

[Michdj]

My original recipe (listed first) moves nice and slow.  It was the new (bottom) recipe that moved.  Shea at 15% has never been a problem, so I'm not worried about that.  I don't have a problem with HO safflower moving, and it's nearly identical to olive, which is why I switched.  For cleansing I'd been using a pko/coco combo, but it would be nice to lose one of those and just use the other.  I just really wanted to take my original recipe and remove maybe the rbo and coconut or pko.  I'm just not sure what to do.  The problem is that I'm running out of masterbatched oils and need to order more in the next day or two.  I should've thought to make this change sooner.  I usually masterbatch 438lbs at a time.  Rats!

[NightLight]

Pro makes a nice hard bar but if you removed it would be palm free. To me you could lose the RBO as it has a short shelf life

[NightLight]

Hmmm safflower shows on Brambleberry one year shelf life, but Rice bran Oil showing two years.

[TallTayl]

For a good all around, simple and flexible soap that behaves well I’ve loved:

olive 50%

palm or lard 25%

coconut or PKo 25% 

 

depending on the olive it can be slightly ivory but that never bothers anyone.  Many FO discolor, so 🤷🏻‍♀️. I dislike adding TiO2 to a soap base, so ivory, like wet spots on candles, is beautifully embraced. 

[franu61]

On 6/4/2019 at 4:29 PM, TallTayl said:

For a good all around, simple and flexible soap that behaves well I’ve loved:

olive 50%

palm or lard 25%

coconut or PKo 25% 

 

depending on the olive it can be slightly ivory but that never bothers anyone.  Many FO discolor, so 🤷🏻‍♀️. I dislike adding TiO2 to a soap base, so ivory, like wet spots on candles, is beautifully embraced. 

If I was to use olive, lard and coconut, but want to add some castor oil (maybe 5%) which oil would you recommend I reduce?  

[TallTayl]

37 minutes ago, franu61 said:

If I was to use olive, lard and coconut, but want to add some castor oil (maybe 5%) which oil would you recommend I reduce?  

Usually olive IMO.

 

i lowered castor to 3% in my products formula and love it more than 5%. 

[franu61]

40 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

Usually olive IMO.

 

i lowered castor to 3% in my products formula and love it more than 5%. 

Thanks!  I still haven't tried CP but I am gettinmg closer  

[TallTayl]

9 hours ago, franu61 said:

Thanks!  I still haven't tried CP but I am gettinmg closer  

This one is a nice easy multi oil recipe, so give it a go when you get a chance.  Once you make the first, the rest is easy. 

 

To learn about soap oils, I found making small single oil batches shortened the learning curve tremendously. 1 lb batches of olive only, coconut only, palm only, etc, gives practice with the process, sap calculators, etc. without complicating steps. 1 lb will fit neatly into a commonly available plastic food storage tub with a lid, so no special molds to buy. 

 

When single oil soap is ready to test you can grate a bit of each and smoosh them into a small bar to test the oils together. This makes it possible to pre-test different recipes! 

[NightLight]

To the olive lard coconut castor oil question. I would lose the lard. Many people do not want animal products in their soap.

You can make a nice soap with olive coconut castor oil. You can make a nice soap with just coconut oil too if you do a high superfat.

[Barbara AL]

60% olive

25% coconut

10% Shea

 5% castor

 

[Candybee]

I know what you are going through as I downsized my oils a couple of years ago. Had to revamp all my recipes to accommodate the loss of the extra oils I was using. My goal was to make my recipes easier while saving money by not having more oils than was really necessary. I simply wanted recipes with 4-5 oils for my basic bath soap which was my main recipe.

 

Barbs recipe just above my post is a great one.

 

I used to use PKO with CO and Castor for a triple creamy bubbly lather combo. I kept the CO and castor and lost the PKO.

 

For my extra conditioning soaps like facial bars I lost the grapeseed and continue to use avocado and sunflower. Still gives me a lovely skin softening bar that has the fatty acid profile I wanted and retained the same soap properties too.

 

My point is if you are using several oils for a soap property that may be served by one or two instead of three then drop the what you don't need. It will save you time and money.