Teach Soap

Hi all,

Made a soap a couple of days ago with 7 oz coconut, 3 oz babbassu, 7 palm plus about 26 oz of other soft oils.

Soap is so hard that the corners are sharp and I don't think it would be a comfortable soap to use. Any suggestions for the right amount of babbassu to use in soap?

Lisa J

Wow, it made that much of a difference? I've wanted to sub out my castor oil with Babassu but the expense has kept me from doing it. It's a lot more expensive than castor. I like really hard bars. Mine are hard but I bet they'd be even harder without castor. Can't give up my bubbles, though. Babassu is bubble-icious, too. Sorry, I know that didn't answer your question. I'll be interested to hear the responses.

Babasu is a hard oil. It depends what the other 26 ozs. were. Olive oil is also a hard oil if you have any in there.

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

I think of Babassu as more similar to Coconut than Castor. I won't give up my Castor either. I often do equal parts Coconut, Babassu, and Olive along with some Palm, Castor and maybe one other soft conditioning oil. I find this gives me a nice balance of hardness, bubbles, and lather.

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- Mickey!

Now that I look at my recipe, I used 18 oz of olive in the soft oils (plus castor and almond or avocado) so it may have been the olive that tipped the scales? This loaf is HARD!

What do you think the right proportion of Bab is to others:

I used
18 olive
3 castor
3 almond or avocado
7 coconut
3 babb
7 palm

Please advise?

Thanks!

Lisa

Between the olive, the coconut, palm and babasu you have all hard oils right there. I bet that loaf is hard! Next time ease up on the coconut, palm or the olive.

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

I've been using babassu lately instead of palm, in addition to coconut, olive and shea butter. I'm happy with the "hardness" of my bars - not too hard, but not too soft, either. I've been sticking to 20- 30% coconut, 10- 15% babassu and 35% olive with the rest consisting of soft oils such as avocado, apricot, grapeseed or rice bran. Hope this helps!

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Kim

I also tried babassu oil at 10% and got the incredibly hard bar with sharp edges. I did use olive oil at 45% and coconut oil at 20% with other softer oils. If I use it again, I'll try less babassu and other softer choices. For a hard bar I think I'm having the best luck with sodium lactate. Both my babassu and beeswax trials didn't work well for me. However, I can see my oil choices and probably melting techniques with the beeswax weren't the best. Love this board 'cause eventually the answers show up.
Scents