HP Milk Soap tweaking help needed

[JCFantasy23]

Hey all, was wondering if you had any advice and could answer some general questions. I do MHP with the full water amount and a base recipe with a percentage of 60% hard oils. My bars have always been fine in hardness, yet now I have been adding GM and Yogurt as a portion of my fluid.

I cook the soap with 1/2 the fluid being water, and then near the end of the cook add the GM and the yogurt. Works much better for me - and many with HP - then doing it at the beginning. Milk makes the bars softer though, with a longer curing time, but the general result is just a bit softer than I'd like. Can't let go of the wonderful milk and yogurt properties though!!

I use a 5% Lye Discount and further superfat with 1 Tbsp. oil/honey ppo at the end. This has never affected the hardness before the addition of the milk. The Iodine level of the recipe is 59 with the combined hardness being 40, conditioning 55, creamy lather 34, and Bubbly Lather 15.

My question is, since the GM, Yogurt, and superfat oils add more conditioning anyway, could I raise the hard oils in my recipe to the above average, recommended amount without compromising the general conditioning of the soap?? With milk bars figured it'd be better to have a hard base to start with, and because of it being added toward the end, could I raise the hardness to 70% and have it show a notable difference in texture and still be just as good a bar of soap?

[cindym]

You might try using a 6 or 6% lye discount or adding Sodium Lactate to the recipe. Or try not adding the extras at the end of the cook.

[JCFantasy23]

Cindy,

Thanks for the answer. I know the further discounted the lye is, the softer sometimes, so would discounting the lye at 6% only help with the conditioning, or am I not understanding right?

I know Sodium Lactate helps a lot with fluidity at the end of the cook, but does it help with hardness and getting the bar set up quicker despite the milk? I've opted to leave the Stearic acid out because the bar seems hard enough in #'s before the GM, and I've always just had bad experience with it. If someone thinks it would really help though, I may give it another shot.

I may try not adding the extras at the end, but it's hard as that's how I always blend the colorant in - sort of serves 2 purposes there.