Teach Soap

I've been trying to find a balance with Olive, castor, canola,and coconut. I just can't seem to find a way to get the bar hard enough. I increase the coco and the cleansing goes too high. You know how it goes. Using tallow helps but in this case I need it to be vegan. The only real reason I don't want to use palm oil is because I want to make this with what I can get local and the renewable resource issue plays a part too. I'm using soapcalc to make the recipe.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know you can't always get what you want, thank you Mick, but I'm trying to get what I need...again, thanks Mick.

I may just go ahead and order some PO from my friends!

cocoa butter will help with the hardening..if you are able to get that locally

Are you just going by what soap calc says or are you actually making the recipes and then trying them? On soap calc olive oil is not considered a hard oil, when in reality after a good cure, it's rock hard.

If you post the percentages of what you've been trying so far, maybe we can help you a bit.

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Genny

I've been trying them out... now just trying to get it perfect... You are right about olive oil and that will probably be the cure. I didn't think about doubting soapcalc. That is really not like me.

Search the CP site and look for my thread labeled 'all veggie soap' as I am doing the same thing. I also just read that I need to cut my soybean oil back a little. Will trying adding a percent to the coco butter and some to the castor. Even though my batch moved extrememly fast - it hardened enough so that I could unmold in 12 hours. And the tiny bit I sampled today felt very smooth and gave excellent bubbles. I did add salt to my lye water: 1 tsp PPO, so that may have helped to harden it as well.

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

If you increase your superfat, that will counteract the drying effect of using a higher % of coconut oil.

I also agree, cocoa butter is great for producing a harder bar. You could also try using small % of beeswax or sodium lactate.

Bar "hardness" by the way, has to do with density - how quickly the bar dissolves - not whether or not you can dent it with your finger. So while aged Castille can get firm enough to pound nails, it won't last very long in your shower.

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Genny