Teach Soap

Hi everyone,

My cousin has particularly sensitive skin and I thought maybe I could make a soap for him for christmas. I was planning on doing a 10% superfat recipe that's comprised of mostly olive oil and coconut oil. Do you think it would be a good idea to divide my liquids between water, coconut milk and buttermilk to make it particularly moisturising? Or would the lye monster just eat it? I was planning on adding a bit of water to the lye and then adding the coconut milk and buttermilk at trace. I'd also have quite a bit of shea butter in there as well.

Has anyone else ever made a sensitive skin soap? I tried making castille soap once but that was a bit of a flop so I'd prefer to stay away from anything along those lines... would a combination of OO and CO be okay instead?

Any advice would be lovely

High coconut oil % can be drying to the skin. Do you have avocado oil? That is good for sensitive skin. Sweet almond oil is good for itchy skin. You can do a bastille soap which contains about 75% olive oil and the rest 25% out of any other oil or butter of your choice if you don't want to do a castille. And you can definitely use water + coconut milk+ buttermilk. I love milk soap. No, lye is not going to eat it all.

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Shieh Design Studio
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http://soapandrestless.blogspot.com

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

Thanks for the tips everyone I don't have any avocado oil, it's quite expensive in my local store. I do have a bunch of sweet almond oil lying around though, so maybe that would work okay? Maybe I'll try olive oil, sweet almond and shea butter with a bunch of milk thrown in at trace. I'm pretty practised at that adding things at trace now so hopefully I'll be okay

I'll let you all know how it goes, and if it's feeling photogenic I'll take a couple of snaps for you!

Thanks again!

Don't add too much almond oil. It can make your soap soft. Don't forget to recalculate your recipe anytime you change or switch an oil. There is no need to add any oil or butter at trace. The lye is still very active at this point and it will take whatever it wants. There is no guarantee that any particular oil or butter will end up as your superfat. The exception to this would be if you add it after the cook. If you would like to use milk, calculate it as part of your water (or liquid) amount. Don't forget to weigh everything.

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

Thanks I did all of that so now that you've gone through it, I know I did everything correctly

Here is a picture of it, it turned out great! I think I got the recipe just right.

oh, that image is massive. I thought I re-sized it! Sorry!

Laragreen that looks good. How did you get your soap to be so white? And all you used was Olive Oil and Almond.


donna

Congrats! Looks good!

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

Thanks! I'm so pleased with it.

I think it went quite white because of the coconut milk. Before I added the milks it was looking quite green, but the bowl I mix in is quite dark so I'm not sure how green it actually was. As soon as I added the coconut milk and the buttermilk it went that lovely white/magnolia colour

That soap looks so lovely and pure. Are you going to name it?

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

I'm so terrible with names! My cousin's name is Alex so I was going to call it Alex Soap, but that does sound a bit strange haha. Bah, I don't know, do you have any suggestions? I'm all ears if you do!

Beautiful! Congratulations!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Well, you may not want to get me started: how about white angel, white knight, balanced almonds, snow nut, absolutely nutty, purely almonds, white light, white and gental, almonds for Alex, sweet nuts, the milky white way, milk wash soap, gental milk. If I think of some more I will let you know... sometimes they need to grow in my brain.

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

Haha! Those are great! I think I like White Knight best ... it's meant to rescue your skin after all! Wow, next time I need help thinking up a name I'm coming straight to you