Favorite Moisturizing CP soaps?

[elitenaildesign]

I have officially made 3 CP batches in my long career of 1 month. The recipes I have used are pretty basic. I want a really moisturizing soap as my skin drys easily. I have seen a ton of recipes, but want a tried and true one.

Thanks so much!!

[MaryinCary]

I make a pure castile for my granddaughter (100% OO) because she has severe Eczema.

My dear old mother (shes 86) likes Mango or Shea in her OO soap so I do 90% OO, 7% Mango or Shea and 3% Castor.

OO soap is the most moisturizing and gentle soap you can use IMO.

[Meridith]

I do OO soaps too but I add 10% castor to mine. OO soaps are very moisturizing and are one of the most mild soaps out there.

[Crafty1_AJ]

Johanna's Super Creamy is a good one. It's olive, shea, and pko if memory serves. I think she might have the recipe on her website. (Soap Silly Wholesale Supplies is the name, I think.) The conditioning number on that one is astronomical -- something like 70 on soapcalc if memory serves.

[Sara]

I've made the super creamy one. It was nice. However, I've yet to find a soap that actually moisturizes the skin, at least not mine. It is kind of a misnomer, IMO. More often I find CP soaps that don't strip my skin of its moisture, leaving it healthy, not drying it out. If there's a soap out there that makes your skin feel moisturized like when you put on lotion - I wanna try it!!

[Meridith]

Sara, I think you are right - I don't think soap can be moisturizing or at least not moisturizing like how I define moistuirizing. I guess the word I should have used that would be more appropriate was conditioning. Soap can be nondrying and conditioning but not moisturizing IMO.

[MaryinCary]

Maybe conditioning is a better word. I don't believe there is a soap that truly moisturizes the skin either, but the CP's are far less drying.

[elitenaildesign]

One of my batches is:

16oz OO

8oz PKO

8oz SBO

8oz CO

5.7 Lye

15oz distilled water

The other is

12oz OO

12oz CO

19oz Crisco

6oz Lye

16oz water

Both of these recipes are atleast 4 weeks curing so I gave em a try at the sink and my skin got dry. I did not like that feeling. Maybe I will give that cream soap recipe a try. Could it possibly be these soaps are not cured long enough? Didnt know if that would have anything to do with it. I am trying to learn some of the properties of the different oils, but all this info is so overwhelming.

Thanks for the advice:)

[RobinInOR]

You could be sensitive to coconut oil. Your first recipe was 20%, the second was 28%. Back the recipes down to 10-15% coconut oil and substitute the remainder with either the PKO or palm or more of the crisco.

[Jeanie]

wow you ladies are a wealth of information!!!

I am in the same boat, trying to find a nice non-drying recipe, I am so very grateful for all of the responses here......as soon as I get moved I will be sure to try some of the suggestions here

[smokymountainraine]

In my opinion a soap isn't going to moisturize. It is for cleansing. Granted the more it cleans the more it strips your skin. I try to use a medium amount of the high cleansing oils in my recipes. Those are commonly coconut, pko and babassu. I keep the percentage no higher than 20% and I superfat at 5%.

To moisturize I use a lotion afterwards.

[Crafty1_AJ]

I would agree that soap's job is not to impart moisture; its job is to clean. I use scrubs, apres glow bars, or lotions after soaping up and rinsing to get my skin moisturized.

However, I know what you mean about wanting a recipe that is not too drying. I have dry skin and am the queen of NON-DRYING soap recipes. ROFL OK, just kidding. Not the queen, but I do tend to go high on conditioning factors in almost all my soap recipes.

You can't have it all -- super hard bar, super conditioning, super lathering, super cleansing ... you have to play a balancing game of give and take when you're developing a soap recipe. But I lean towards the side of having my soaps be as non-drying as possible. My Rice Flower and Shea Butter is the gentlest/mildest/least drying. Next in line is my "favorite scents" and "as natural as possible" line. The shaving soap is probably my least conditioning soap (although it is no stinker in that dept!) because it has to have higher lathering qualities to be a good shaving soap. My top seller, OMH, is actually somewhere in between the range of my soaps in conditioning numbers on soapcalc.com .

Hope that novel helps. Heh heh

[elitenaildesign]

Thats what I meant to say- Less drying;) My soap is really drying!

[Crafty1_AJ]

For less drying soap, you can do a number of things. First, limit your coconut, as some people appear to be sensitive to it. I'd go no higher than 25%; I can easily tolerate that and I have dry skin.

Secondly, go for oils high in oleic fatty acids. Olive is perfect. Expensive, but perfect. LOL Keep an eye on your conditioning number on soapcalc. I like mine at least around 60, and I have one soap that's about 70.

[Candle Man]

Maybe you need to add 1/4 moisturizer to your recipe. LOL Then you might have something better than a Dove bar.

[Mnhorsemom]

Candleman, there's nothing better than a Dove bar, specially if it's dark chocolate

[Candle Man]

Candleman, there's nothing better than a Dove bar, specially if it's dark chocolate

Yea, those are good to eat but not what I was talking about the Dove Cleansing Bar with 1/4 Moisturizer. LOL

[Janis]

I just caught this thread and have to respond. You can try all of the above mentioned strategies, but if you are truly sensitive to coconut oil, you'll want to stop using it altogether. I can tell if there is 5% of co in my soap, because my skin raises hell with me. I sub co with pko at around 20%. If I use more than 20% pko, it starts to feel like co. If you want more bubbles than you can get with 20% pko, then add 10% castor oil, which also helps with moisturizing. I always add at least 10% of an oil with linoleic acid such as sunflower oil, grapeseed oil, or rice bran oil. Actually, I've discovered that rice bran oil is a good sub for olive oil as a base oil in that it seems gentler on my extremely sensitive skin. Hope this helps.