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Hardening Olive/Coconut oil soap bar
Hi,
My soap bars 50/50 olive oil and coconut oil seem to melt a bit fast and not last long, they are about 100 grs. I tried to add a bit of beeswax, it became slightly better but would like something better, any idea of what to add?
Those among you that may have a hint or a pointer are humbly thanked.
Ameen
Retired French language teacher -
4 Replies
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You could try increasing the proportion of longer chain fatty acids in your soap - this will also tend to make it more gentle on the skin.
No drastic changes needed just change from 50/50 olive/coconut to 90/10 and any proportions in between (do some experiments).
You will, of course, need to recalculate your lye:fat ratios. This may help
https://www.thesage.com/calcs/LyeCalc.html
Note: I have not used the calculator so I have no idea if it is reliable/accurate.
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I don’t know what you have access to, but if you can afford to heat your oil mix a bit, you could try adding 5-10% of Stearic Acid.
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Cold process soap will never last as long as syndet bars. However I think your recipe needs to be improved. Soapcalc gives 48 out of range 28-54 so your soap is already pretty hard supposedly. However olive oil takes forever to cure to that hardness so …
If you want a harder soap then use solid fats rather than oils. Shea butter makes a very hard soap, I once made a soap of 100% shea and after two months or so you could bang nails in with it. Try 10% of that and 10% beeswax, and replace part of the coconut and part of the olive with palm. You don’t really want more than 30% coconut and 30% olive. -
We have been down this path and experimented with reducing the amount of olive oil by adding rice bran oil and coconut oil. Also added some lactic acid. The result is a vast improvement, and produced a very acceptable, longer lasting soap with a good lather.
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