Teach Soap

I need some advice:

Rice bran oil is readily available in the grocery store although a bit pricey at 95 plus baht per litre....around $2.80. It's mfd here.
I found a site today that also has rice bran wax. This site makes Rice bran soap, plus I've read that the japanese use rice bran soap and oil
a lot for their skin. My questions are: Does RBO make a soft soap? Will you get DOS? Can you use RBO as a large part of the recipe
or not? What about the wax, what would you use that for? Here's the local website.

I have just made some experimental batches of just palm oil soap. One 100% palm oil, with a bit of aloe vera gel, and some bentonite
clay because my "guinea pigs" also use it for shaving. Seems OK so far, still not fully cured. Also made one 1 lb. batch crock pot with 80% palm oil and 20% pk oil (by the way this is off the grocery store shelf Palm cooking oil) . some aloe vera and betonite clay. Now hubby came home with some coconut oil, NOT VIRGIN, decent price BUT it has a chemical smell so I'm hesitant to use it........so the search is still on.

Sabuu

by the way, the red palm oil here is crude palm oil.

Rice bran is comparable to olive, so yes, it will make a good soap. I would add other oils or butters to the mix though. I have rice bran wax, but haven't used it in soaps.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

My next question would be what percentage of RBO would you use. You'd think I'd have access to all kinds of
exotic waxes and oils here, but the ones that I do find are quite expensive.

On the RBO website here they say the RB wax is comparable to candellia wax.....

A friend's Thai wife asked for coconut oil in the open market and was given a price of the equivalent of 17 dollars U.S. per litre. I don't even know if
it was virgin coconut oil. He also found some mango butter, but he said it was quite expensive.

I can get virgin coconut oil direct from the distiller for 200 baht per litre which is almost six dollare, and still a bit pricey I think. My husband, bless his heart, tracked down a half litre of coconut oil yesterday in a local market. However, it has a chemical smell to it and I'm afraid to use it in my soaps......My brother-in-law got some of the old fashioned RBD coconut cooking oil before and it had no smell.......so I'm still searching. Soap without coconut oil just isn't as luxurious IMO.

There are people here that make and sell soap, but they aren't like the soapers in the U.S. they will not tell you where they get their supplies. It's like that about most things. My husband just wanted some wood for a small project and couldn't find out where because they are afraid of competition.

So if anyone has any ideas out there I'm listening. Sorry to kind of vent here, it just gets so frustrating.

Sabuu
P.S. How do you calculate the lye for RBO. I usually use a lye calculator, but I like to do my own calculations too.

I find using a lye calculator is easiest as I've been known to make mistakes if I calculate by hand. Here is one site that shows you SAP values. http://www.herbalbear.com/sapvalues.html

If your coconut oil has a chemical smell I wouldn't use it. The price of the coconut oil from the distiller doesn't sound too bad. If RB wax is comparable to candellia wax, I would try it at 1 to 2% to make a harder bar. You would need either coconut oil or castor oil to give you some nice bubbles. Is castor available where you are? I know I can find some here in small quantities if need be in a local pharmacy as castor oil is used for bowel problems.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Castor oil from the chemist comes in 10 ml bottles, too small to bother IMO plus it's flavored.

They do manufacture it here, but getting information is worse than pulling teeth.

Sabuu

That is frustrating. Got any friends in the US or Canada that would be willing to ship you a small amount?

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.