which recipe is better ?

[*Dee*]

15% crisco

15% coconut

15% pko flakes

5% butters

25% safflower/sunflower

25% olive oil

or

15% coconut oil

15% pko flakes

30% olive oil

30% lard or crisco

5% castor

5% butters

which one is better? and what would you change if anything ? thanks

[singleyellowrose]

Which one do you like?

Me personally, I do a :laugh2:KISS recipe!

[*Dee*]

well i havent tried either of them yet. but for some reason something about the 25% sunflower or safflower seems off to me. but i really am not 100% on making hp yet.

a kiss recipe ??? you have me lost.

[Scented]

Keep It Simple S_ _ _ _ _

Make 'em both and see what you think. Best way to help find what it is you want out of a soap.

[*Dee*]

ahh ok i get it now!

that much sunflower or safflower wont cause dos or ash will it ? i dont know why i am thinking over 10 or 15 % will. i might be mixed up on oils tho lol

[Scented]

Personally, the amount is too high that I wouldn't try it at that amount, but that is me. Others might. Plug the numbers and see what comes up. You can always alter them, take stuff out and add others.

And it takes more than just an oil to cause DOS. Humidity will help, the type of oils can contribute etc. Just because you add safflower into a recipe doesn't mean it will automatically cause DOS.

Edited March 18, 2010 by Scented

[*Dee*]

thanks scented ill run things through the soap calc. im still kinda stupid when it comes back with all the numbers. i know people say the closer to 50/50 the better, but the rest of the numbers i dont know what is good or bad. like i said still learning here lol

if anyone has any links or suggestions that will help me better understand on the numbers i would really appreciate them

[CareBear]

unless you have the high oleic version, the 25% safflower is too high for me.

[*Dee*]

i think i do, its from walmart but i read somewhere that if it has 2 ingredients on the label together it was the HO version and they both do.

[topofmurrayhill]

The second recipe is way better as long as you use lard rather than crisco. When you say lard or crisco it's like saying that you might use potatoes or onions in the stew. Big difference.

The first recipe is a potential disaster. It has almost no hard base oil, and if you were to use regular linoleic safflower or sunflower it will (at best) not make very good soap. The Crisco is about 75% soybean oil, so that would add up to over 35% linoleic oil. The 25% olive oil saponifies slowly and the 35% linoleic oil saponfies very slowly. You would be risking separation of the soap in the mold. Your bars would probably start off rather alkaline and take a long time to cure. Eventually you'd probably get DOS. Don't waste your time.

If you used high-oleic safflower or sunflower oil in the first recipe, I think it would end up being a somewhat castille-type soap, but lackluster compared to the second recipe.

[chuck_35550]

I've read several soapers who use a 16% linoleic parameter on their fatty acid profile for sensitive skin. The safflower I have has been mixed with vitamin E for longer shelf life. That being said, would it be sufficient to keep the bar stable? It seems that depending on what skin type you are shooting for changes the balance of hard and soft oils. I'm seeing more recipes with a 60/40 balance than 50/50, with the hard oils taking the 60% for most types of soaps. While milk soaps seem to be more 50/50 balanced. Sorry for all the questions.

Steve

[Scented]

No need to apologize, Steve. Wish I could answer your question, but I can't substantiate my answer of no with anything. I just think that the lye alters the vitamin e and that the only good it actually does is prolong rancidity. That being said, I also wish I could put my finger on information that changes soap into a cosmetic when putting Vitamin E into it. I know I picked that up but trying to remember exactly where.

Before that sparks argument or terror, I would imagine it still needs to be on the label if it's used at all, even to prevent rancidity. There other anti-oxidizing oils that don't have as much fame as Vitamin E has. I'll point you to someone who might be able to answer that question and maybe enlighten all of us about the use of Vitamin E and labeling and that would be Kelly at Southern Soapers or tildy on here.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Scented

[singleyellowrose]

Dee,

Have you tried making castille? 100% Olive Oil.

You MAY want to try that first to get a good feel of CP. Don't use full water though.. or have a hefty SB if you do!

Personally,

I would try something like this to start out with:

25% Lard

25% PKO OR Coconut

25% OO

25% Soft Oil of choice. i.e., safflower, sunflower, Apricot Kernel, etc.

Run through calc and see if you like what it gives you.

Make a small 2lb batch.

I have found that Safflower or Sunflower even if HO, at 25% just doesn't give me the "bar" I want. BUT that is me... what you want may be different.

I have also found that even 10% Coconut and my skin is itchy.. BUT that is me. What works for 1 person, may not neccessarily work for someone else.

It's all about trial & error... and trust me.. when you first start, there are ALOT of errors!:rolleyes2

[*Dee*]

well i have tried 2 recipes so far. both in hp and one in cpop.

the first one was

23 oz crisco

16 oz oo

13 oz coconut oil

12 oz lard

that one i made in cpop and it stunk bad and i ended up tossing it, i dont know what happened to it. i made it in hp and it turned out ok but the bars were really soft for awhile and i just dont really like the feel of it.

the second one i didnt like at all

30% lard

30% crisco

20% canola

20% coconut.

i have a few other recipes that i still need to try as well

45 % palm or coconut oil

25 % oo

25% crisco

5% castor

and

10% castor

20% coconut oil

35% lard

35% oo

and

20% safflower

20% oo

10% castor

25% crisco

25% coconut

i have some unrefined shea i would like to use up in the soaps too, and i also have some silk to add to the lye water. so hopefully one of these or the first 2 i posted on here i will like and then can tweak it to how i want it. how long did it take everyone else to find a recipe they liked ?

[Scented]

You're so high in the fats that I would expect them all to stink. Lard at 10% stinks when melted, but once the cure completes it's not noticeable. I didn't care for it at higher doses.

That's also a lot of palm (first recipe) and I would be inclined to use way more coconut than palm. Where are you coming up with your recipes? Are you just trying them because these oils are readily available to you?

It took me about 50 batches to come up with three recipes that I like. I alternate with two of them and the third would only be used in some case of emergency I dream up lol. Actually it's the one I ought to be using to run out of PKO, but I just don't feel like tinkering with it.

I had a recipe that was given to me that I tried and it is a good one, but it didn't give me the type of bubbles I wanted so my mission to get what I wanted took me through a lot of different experiences, a lot of waste (because I didn't have a salad shooter then that made shredding easy peasy) and the result is I have a lot of oils I don't use and some I can't have enough of. It's a tiresome ordeal, so I hope you're not making large batches.

The flip side is you do get to see how oils react and what the result will be etc. by using this + this. Hope you find what you're looking for.

[*Dee*]

i got all the recipes from searching on here and other soap forums, millers soap website and the world wide web lol. just to give me base recipes to start out with .

i have

palm oil

coconut oil

canola oil

sunflower oil

safflower oil

glycerin

castor

olive oil

pko flakes

lard

wm shortening

shea butter deodorized

mango butter

cocoa butter

kokum butter

shea butter unrefined

and shealoe butter coming

kanolin clay

silk

i think thats it. i am making 2-3 pound batches.

any suggestions with what i have ? i can order other oils as well if need be. i just thought with all these i should be able to get a good recipe out of them.

[CareBear]

WM shortening is like the old Crisco, and I use it in soaps.

In the recipes section you will find Quiet Girl's soap recipe. I believe you have all you need for it. It's one of the best soaps ever!

OK here it is: http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36294

(I don't soap it with milk)

Let me know how you like it.

Edited March 19, 2010 by CareBear

[*Dee*]

thanks CB ill go look for it.

[*Dee*]

lol so i found it and its the first one i posted in my first post. the one with 25% safflower.. hmmmm

[CareBear]

Oh yea. I use high oleic safflower now, so forgot. But I used to use regular and didn't get DOS - whether it was just luck or not I couldn't say, but I made probably 50 batches with that and no problem.

[*Dee*]

well the one i have i believe it the HO, i got it at walmart but when i was reading about the HO one it said that if there was 2 ingredients together on the label it was the HO version ( cant remember the 2 ingredients ) and the one i have has them both listed together. so i am assuming i have the HO.

ill be trying this recipe tomorrow. i didnt try it first cuz i didnt have the pko flakes then. but this recipe has such awesome reviews it should be one kick ass soap! i hope i like it! i will be adding the silk to the lye water, and sugar as well cuz im doing hp.

expect pics sometime this weekend

[topofmurrayhill]

I've read several soapers who use a 16% linoleic parameter on their fatty acid profile for sensitive skin. The safflower I have has been mixed with vitamin E for longer shelf life. That being said, would it be sufficient to keep the bar stable? It seems that depending on what skin type you are shooting for changes the balance of hard and soft oils. I'm seeing more recipes with a 60/40 balance than 50/50, with the hard oils taking the 60% for most types of soaps. While milk soaps seem to be more 50/50 balanced. Sorry for all the questions.

Steve

The vitamin E probably won't have any impact on the stability of the soap. The whole premise that unsaturated oils produce gentler soap is a myth anyway. In the case of polyunsatured oils, the opposite may well be true.

Avoiding linoleic is very helpful to keeping your soap stable. You could reasonably ask what effect a small amount might have on the qualities of a recipe, which you can test and decide for yourself. But you don't really need any to make a great bar of soap and you certainly don't want a lot.

Even when it comes to oleic oils, a 50/50 soap isn't necessarily gentler than a 60/40 soap. You should devise a way to accurately make small test batches and decide on the proportions for a base recipe for yourself. Once you have a good one, you shouldn't need any special variations for sensitive skin.

From what I've seen, taking a poll of soapers is an unlikely way to get useful information when it comes to recipe formulation. That's the exact thing that handcrafted soapmaking is wandering around in the dark about right now.

[CareBear]

That's the exact thing that handcrafted soapmaking is wandering around in the dark about right now.

care to be a bit more clear about this?

[topofmurrayhill]

care to be a bit more clear about this?

I was saying that the foggiest question in the handcrafting community right now is what principles are useful in deciding how to formulate soap recipes to get the best all-around qualities, or to obtain certain desired qualities. The approaches you'll get from soapers are so varied as to be essentially random, so a lot of the principles have to be wrong or misleading.

You could narrow it down to the advice you find most credible, but ultimately it's best to keep an open mind and try to figure things out for yourself. To ground that in my own experience: When I got into soaping, I had a great time initially formulating all kinds of recipes based on the approaches I picked up from others. The best qualities of those soaps were scattered among different recipes and mixed up with less good (or sometimes bad) qualities. When I decided to try and come up with a sellable product, I spent most of my work time for a year just soaping figure out what worked and what didn't (and why), what was true and what was false. I ended up unlearning most of what I'd learned and made far better soap.

Not everyone has the time to do this, but it's possible for the handcrafting community to advance so that people can learn more valid principles and approaches right from the start. And let's be realistic about quality--there are some really good handcrafted soaps out there, but there's certainly room for improvement. Just handing down the same ideas from person to person doesn't advance the art.

Edited March 21, 2010 by topofmurrayhill

[Meridith]

Top, you seem to want to always discredit people and the experience they bring to this board with all your scientific reports. Do you sell soap for a living? How many batches have you made? I'm just curious to know because I've seen you dispense advice on palm candles only to find out you never made a palm candle. Now you seem to be an expert just based on the tests you are flooding the natural section with.

What's up with you TOp? Are you trying for a MOD position?