Myristic Acid in Soap.

[candlebug]

Reading information on myristic acid properties, does anyone use this as an ingredient in soap making?

TIA

[TallTayl]

When topics like this come up I always wonder what the problem is that people are trying to solve. 
 

myristic acid is found naturally in coconut oil and others.  
 

one thing to think about is how people will react to your ingredient label.  If adding to “fix or heal” something, the soap becomes classed as a drug and falls under the FDA classifications.  If just a soap, what will people think of An ingredient that sounds “strange”? 
 

I learned the soapers bell curve many moons ago and don’t think about additives in soap any more. 

 

[candlebug]

I wondered if it would increase the bubbles and hardness, was looking to replace babassu and steric acid in a recipe,  

[TallTayl]

Bubbles are enhanced by sticky ingredients, like proteins, sugars and helped along with small amounts of oils like castor. 
 

Your oils will determine if the bubbles are large and billowy or small and dense. I hosted a lather lovers swap when the old Dish Forum was still around. A simple formula of 50: olive, 25% palm and 25% coconut made giant bubbles with many simple additives.  Beer, sodium citrate, honey, milks, sugars all made predictably super bubbles with nothing special in terms of oils. I’ll dig up the you tube link with the 27 or so videos of me washing my hands with each sample. 
 

babassu is chemically very close to coconut with a higher price tag. I think you will love swapping it out for more affordable oils! 
 

stearic is not needed if you sub in oils and butters that are naturally high in stearic and help support bubbles, like small % of Shea or cocoa butter for instance. 

[TallTayl]

Here is a link to one that you can use to get to the other videos of sink tests.  Wow! That was a decade ago!