The Making of a Soap Recipe

Step 4 of making a new soap recipe

I adjusted both recipes 1 and 2 to take out the stearic acid.  I am hoping that will mean no lumps in the soap.  When soaped at room temperature.  Although I'm thinking if the soaping temperature was raised to perhaps 125*  there would be no lumps.   Also I'm hoping that the adjustments will increase the lather in the vegan bar.  As for the lard bar it was prefect except for the lumps.  So I'm hoping to try these out real soon once I get some new coconut oil. It's in the mail as we ...write.  :)

Experimental Recipe 1A 

25% Coconut oil                                                    Hardness - 40
30% Palm oil                                                          Cleansing - 17
10% Castor oil                                                       Conditioning - 56
35% Corn oil                                                          Bubbly - 26
                                                                                Creamy - 32
                                                                                 Iodine - 68
                                                                                 INS - 142

Experimental Recipe 2A

20% Coconut oil                                                    Hardness - 38

8% Castor oil                                                         Cleansing - 14
28% Corn oil                                                          Conditioning - 56
44% Lard                                                               Bubbly - 21
                                                                               Creamy - 32
                                                                               Iodine - 67
                                                                               INS - 140


I also read somewhere a question that someone asked if they could use Crisco, mixed with sunflower oil and other oils to make soap.  So I decided to try and make a soap recipe using Crisco shortening as well since it is local and not very expensive it fit into the category I wanted for this experiment.  So let's call it Experimental Recipe 3.  So the thing is with using Crisco.  It has a higher Iodine value than the other less expensive solid oils that we can use in it's place like Lard, Palm and Tallow.  It has a significantly higher Iodine value than the more expensive butters that we could use in it's place.  So in order to use it and keep within the boundaries of our given numbers.  I had to use a small amount of it and I had to use Olive oil as my soft oil, which is more expensive.  Lest to say this will not be an inexpensive bar because of those factors.  The first of these two recipes is the best one.  I would soap it at a higher temperature to avoid the lumps that I believe stearic acid  was the cause of  in my two other experimental recipes. Also you can have even better numbers for hardness, bubbly, creamy and Iodine if you add 5% more to the coconut oil amount and take 5% away from the Crisco amounts.  I didn't do that here because if the cleansing number gets above 17 for me my skin gets itchy and dry.

While experimenting I've also noticed that if you want to use soft oils like Sunflower, Canola, Safflower, Corn oils and similar oils.  You need to use a high number of low iodine solid oil to counteract that number so that your bar of soap will not expire too soon. Like Coconut oil, Palm oil, Tallow and Lard. for the purposes of this experiment.   This bar of soap is not really as inexpensive as I'd hoped it would be.  I'm not sure if I'm going to try it out. The other two recipes are much less expensive with and work really well already.  I just thought I'd put them out there for anyone that may have been wanting to try Crisco for a recipe. Let me know what you think.  If you want me to try it out and see what it's like or if there are any other oils that you'd like me to try and make a recipes with or without just comment below.  I'll  answer all comments.

Experimental Recipe 3

25% Coconut oil                                                   Hardness - 34
10% Castor Oil                                                     Cleansing - 17
15% Crisco new w/palm                                        Conditioning - 63
48% Olive Oil                                                       Bubbly - 26
2% Stearic Acid                                                    Creamy - 26
                                                                               Iodine - 69
                                                                               INS - 141

Experimental Recipe 3A

25% Coconut Oil                                                  Hardness - 32
10% Castor Oil                                                     Cleansing - 17
15% Crisco new w/Palm                                       Conditioning - 64
50% Olive Oil                                                       Bubbly - 26 
                                                                              Creamy - 24
                                                                              Iodine - 70
                                                                              INS - 139

Remember to run these threw a lye calculator.  I use an 8% Supper fat.