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Foaming agent
Hello,
I would like to have some advice with a soap bar formulation that I am developing. I need to increase the amount of foaming and I’ve tried with SDS and decyl glucoside but both are decreasing the viscosity of the final product. I need a surfactant that does not decrease the consistency of my soap bar.Thank you in advance!!Nuria -
10 Replies
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You will need to list all of your ingredients and ideally the percentages for anyone to be of much help.
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Do you mean a synthetic soap bar? Or a natural soap bar? Please explain further.
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Thanks for you help! Here are the details:
Ingredients: olive oil, phosphate salt, stearic acid, sodium stearate and bee wax. I do not have the percentages of the ingredients yet..Belassi, what do you mean by a natural soap bar? I guess in my case is synthetic, as all ingredients are synthetically produced except the olive oil and bee wax. -
That’s not going to work. It’s neither a natural soap nor contains surfactants. And including phosphate… anti environment, phosphates cause algal blooms in wastewater runoff. Take a look at swiftcraftymonkey’s blog for some ideas. If you’re interested in natural soap bars see http://www.teachsoap.com/
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A “natural” soap bar is made from vegetable oil(s) or fatty acids made from those oils, and caustic (lye). Among other things, ~90 - 95% of the soap bar has to be composed of these ingredients for the FDA to consider your product a soap, and not a cosmetic.
I don’t see any caustic in your formula, so unless you are using 90% or more of the sodium stearate, you’re not making a soap, you’re making a cosmetic that cleanses.Also, that is just about the strangest ingredient list for soap that I’ve ever seen. How did you come up with it? -
Thanks Belassi, the surfactant is the ingredient missing that I’m trying to fix with the formula. Do you have any recommendation? I’ve heard these information about phosphate.. I’ll be careful and used only if needed at the minimum concentrations allowed. Very appreciated for the links
.Bobzchemist thanks for the info. It is not the final list of ingredients mainly because the most important ingredient (surfactant) is missing… I hope to find the optimum one.
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It’s as Bob already said. The formula is … weird. It resembles a primitive hand cream found on some Etsy site. I don’t see it as a start point for a cleansing product.
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Do you want to make soap or bathing bar or typical cosmetic cleanser like face wash or body wash? please explain.
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There is an enormous amount of information on the web about making soap. You need to start reading some of it, and trying out formulations - or you need to hire a consultant.
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I don’t understand what you mean by “the viscosity of the final product” when you write that it’s a “soap bar”. Ordinarily one doesn’t refer to viscosity of solids.
It is indeed a strange looking ingredient list for a cake of soap. It looks like the ingredients list for a lipstick or deodorant stick. The only soap that’s already in there is sodium stearate, which itself produces very little foam. If the “phosphate salt” were trisodium phosphate, it might be alkaline enough to turn the stearic acid into sodium stearate, and if any is left over, to saponify the olive oil or the beeswax, but I have a feeling that’s not what’s involved here.
Are you maybe trying to make cold cream to pack into jars?
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