using butters

[Jo Ann]

when using butters like shea or mowrah, does saponification ruin their attributes? or should they be added after saponification?

[jbren]

Saponification continues after the soap is in the mold...maybe you meant 'trace'?

Shea has a high unsaponifiable percentage. Just add it to your regular recipe with your normal superfat and the lye calc should take care of it for you.

[Jo Ann]

yeah, i did mean after trace, thanx. I was surpised to see that shea doesn't have as high a conditioning factor as say, canola oil or olive oil, so i am not sure what real use it has in soap if you want it to be conditioning. i did make a cream of it for my friend's feet who is diabetic. she loves it. she puts it on at bedtime with socks.

[topofmurrayhill]

If you're talking about the conditioning numbers in Soapcalc, those aren't very meaningful for what you want to know. Soapcalc just looks at the fatty acids in the oil and declares that some of them contribute to hardness and some of them contribute to mildness and nothing in between.

What give an oil its special properties for B&B purposes can include things that Soapcalc takes no account of at all. Whether those properties come through in CP soap is debatable. Probably a little bit, or it might depend on the oil. If you can do hot process or rebatch then you can get those oils in there unchanged.

[Jo Ann]

I

What give an oil its special properties for B&B purposes can include things that Soapcalc takes no account of at all. Whether those properties come through in CP soap is debatable. Probably a little bit, or it might depend on the oil. If you can do hot process or rebatch then you can get those oils in there unchanged.

yeah, i was going by soapcalc. I use HP, not cp. i found sites that say what properties oils should have, just wish i knew where to look to see what is actually left in the soap after curing

[eugenia]

Whether those properties come through in CP soap is debatable. Probably a little bit, or it might depend on the oil.

We could argue this until the cows come home, LOL. I add butters at 5-8% in every batch of soap and I swear that they enhance the soap. They are also great buzz words for sales. The major manufacturers have finally discovered butters and tout them, thus the general population is more aware.

e

[topofmurrayhill]

yeah, i was going by soapcalc. I use HP, not cp. i found sites that say what properties oils should have, just wish i knew where to look to see what is actually left in the soap after curing

Seems you have it made in the shade. I don't do HP, but if I'm not mistaken you can add a superfatting oil at the end of the process when saponification is done, so you'll have actual shea butter in your soap. Curing shouldn't hurt anything; that's just drying it out.

I've tried shea butter soap from L'Occitane and it does seem to have a special feel to it. I suppose they could be saponifying shea butter with the other oils and mentioning it for label appeal, but my bet would be it's milled soap superfatted with shea.

[Scented]

I'm waiting for the cows to come home. I'll side with E on this.

[Jo Ann]

i am thinking i will save my shea for cream and use mowrah for cream and soap....

[eugenia]

I'm waiting for the cows to come home. I'll side with E on this.

They are really far away; it will be a long, long time until they come home.

[topofmurrayhill]

I'm not firmly taking either side on that one. Please note I only said debatable -- not doubtful. It seems to me that something comes through but I'm waiting for my latest soaps to cure before I can decide how much. I've got some very similar recipes with and without butters.

But then Jo Ann is doing HP. Wouldn't it be more dramatic when you can add a butter to soap that's already fully saponified? That makes shea butter an actual ingredient separate from the soap. Thinking about that has got me wanting the try HP all of a sudden.

[Suzanne]

Superfatting Soap - This means that oils or fats have been left in the soap unconverted by the lye either because the amount of lye was decreased to allow some fat/oil to remain or oil/fat was added at the trace stage after the mix had saponified. (In lay terms saponification means that the lye/water and oils have been mixed and brought to a trace stage where at this point the lye has been mostly neutralized. Any oil added at this stage will basically remain unchanged in the final soap bar) The method of adding additional fat to the soap mixture after it has saponified had an advantage in that it allows the soap maker to better control what oil is left in the soap. Adding the extra oil at this time keeps it in its natural state, and ready to instantly moisturize your skin as you use the soap. When superfatting your soap at the trace stage make sure you use the 1% excess fat lye amount. Otherwise the soap will be too oily because it will not only contain the oil you add at the trace stage but will also have excess fat from a lack of lye.

Superfatting soap by decreasing the lye content eliminates the step of adding oil at trace but decreases the control that the soap maker has over what oil is left in the soap. For example, if 5% cocoa butter was added as part of the base oil (say 95% Olive Oil) and the lye amount was calculated for a 5% excess fat level the excess fat in the soap would be made up of a combination of Olive oil and cocoa butter with most of the excess fat being Olive oil. If the same batch was mixed using just Olive Oil at a 1% excess fat level and the cocoa butter was added at the trace stage you would know that the final soap bar contained 1% olive oil and 5% cocoa butter. The cocoa butter would have in this case been unaffected by the lye since it was added after the soap had traced. (NOTE - When adding oils at the trace stage (superfatting) be sure to use a lye calculatation that gives you about 1% excess fat. When using our Soap-Calc program or any other lye calculator do not include the oils that you will be adding at trace in the calculation)

I came across this that I think explains what you might be asking. But remember, unsaponified oils risk getting DOS because oils do go bad after time.

Here's the web site : http://www.colebrothers.com/soap/oils.html

[Jo Ann]

Thanx for that infor, that does help, but will print it out and read it again after I have had enough sleep and feeling a bit better later on.

[eugenia]

Suzanne,

Everything that I've read contradicts what you posted, which is a common misperception. The saponification process does not stop at trace. One cannot control which oils will make up the 5% of unsaponified oils left in the soap after cure if you chose a 5% superfat.

e

[Flicker]

Suzanne,

Everything that I've read contradicts what you posted, which is a common misperception. The saponification process does not stop at trace. One cannot control which oils will make up the 5% of unsaponified oils left in the soap after cure if you chose a 5% superfat.

e

I completely agree with Eugenia here. There is no way to say "gee, I want 5% shea only left over in my soap when it finishes it's process". You get what you get here. If I were to guess the oils that need the most lye to saponify would be last to do so. Of course I can't prove that either. I do however use shea or cocoa butter in every soap I make. Eugenia is right there too, I can "feel" a difference and people love to read those big ole words. It's all in how you market something really. The only way you could decide what percent of an excess butter you had in a soap would be to rebatch or hand mill it after it's done it's thing

[Suzanne]

Suzanne,

Everything that I've read contradicts what you posted, which is a common misperception. The saponification process does not stop at trace. One cannot control which oils will make up the 5% of unsaponified oils left in the soap after cure if you chose a 5% superfat.

e

e, I don't think it says it that it stops saponification at trace does it? I think you can control which oils make up the 5% or whatever percent. I'd have to differ with you on this e. It's not always black and white there's a lot of grey area in soaping, so to speak. We're talking chemistry here, alkalis and acids and neutralizing. Timing makes a big difference. I don't think the saponification process stops at trace nor do I think this website says that when you read it in full context. However if you are reading only excerpts of it, I can see how it might be understood that way.

[eugenia]

e, I don't think it says it that it stops saponification at trace does it?

"Adding the extra oil at this time keeps it in its natural state, and ready to instantly moisturize your skin as you use the soap. "

This quote surely does imply that. That's the reason hand millers do what they do; the saponification process is truly over, they are merely reforming the soap with added goodies. Rebatching is not one of my favorites, more power to the hand millers, LOL.

e

[Suzanne]

"Adding the extra oil at this time keeps it in its natural state, and ready to instantly moisturize your skin as you use the soap. "

This quote surely does imply that. That's the reason hand millers do what they do; the saponification process is truly over, they are merely reforming the soap with added goodies. Rebatching is not one of my favorites, more power to the hand millers, LOL.

e

e, we could go back and forth over this, but like I said, you have to consider the whole writing not take a fragment of it and form an opinion on what it is saying. It's chemistry and you can't take a fraction of what it is saying and consider it the whole meaning. I posted the whole writing as not to take pieces of it out of context.

As far as rebatching, I guess I missed where the original poster mentioned that. Actually, I've missed with whatever you are debating when you took a fragment of a written piece of research and changed the meaning of it or tried to perceive it as saying something it is not. You can pick away with what I posted from that site all you want. I was trying to help the original poster understand a little bit more about saponification. I think all you've done now, is confuse her more.

Back to the original person's post. Yes you can add butters and not break down many of their attributes if added after trace. Making soap is like an art with chemical charateristics. To get the most out of the different oils and butters you use, you would need to understand what happens at each stage of soap making. It's a learning process that obviously each person understands differently and at different levels.

[Jo Ann]

thanx for all the input yinz guys....guess i need to really explore the chemistry part of soap making. I have a friend who is a chemist, will see if she has a recommendation on reading. she is usually up on alot of old techniques as far as chemistry goes.

[topofmurrayhill]

The method of adding additional fat to the soap mixture after it has saponified has an advantage in that it allows the soap maker to better control what oil is left in the soap.

That's the key statement. E says that with cold process soapmaking there's no way to add additional fat after the soap mixture has saponified, because almost all the saponification takes place in the mold after you pour it. Therefore you can't decide what oil your soap will be superfatted with. It will be superfatted proportionally with all the oils you've added before pouring into the mold.

Most people around here seem to agree with E. However there's not much point arguing about it unless someone can present a credible reference. I've never seen one and my casual attempts to research it haven't been fruitful yet.

I've been going on the assumption that E is correct simply because there seems to be some concensus about it. However, this is an interesting and potentially important issue. If anyone has sources beyond having heard it from someone who heard it from someone, please tell me where I can learn more.

[Jo Ann]

see that is my concern, i do HP and i don't want to add shea or mowrah butter if it really doesn't do anything because its properties are destroyed with saponification. but i supposes if i leave it to the end...it will make it go from the crock to the mold easier anyway. also, it seems that everyone who has tried my soap, loves the old fashioness of it. plus i feel better cooking it and letting it sit for about two weeks, just for the heck of it. at least i feel safer knowing it should definitly be ready to use.

but top is right....we really need to research this kinda thing...i started tonight, and really didn't see much on it...but i am not the best googler and of course, i was watching the westminster dog show. i must judge all dogs...LOL

[jbren]

Bottom line is...soap is a wash off product. While butters may add to the conditioning and make a beautiful, dense, creamy lather and CERTAINLY add label appeal, they don't really do too much else in soap.

Don't get me wrong...I love cocoa butter, shea, painya and even kokum in soap, and include them in some of my recipes, but they really are more effective in lotions and body butters that remain on the skin.

[Jo Ann]

I think i may keep my butters for creams. especially since the one i make for my friend's feet works so well for her.

it certainly has been a good discussion. too bad we couldn't get a government grant to research what happens when one superfats LOL

[Nanasnecessities]

If you want to be sure the whole amount gets into your soap, rebatch it. Thats what I do.

[Jo Ann]

you are probably right. i have a batch i can't stand the smell of so i may try that and add a bit of eo to tone down the exotic smell