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Can you use lanolin in soap? I’m curious as lanolin is a beautiful product, no offense to vegans. Plus it’s more like thick honey.
Apparently you can. I saw a couple of recipes posted on Aussie Soap Supplies and Soap Deli News. Also saw a link for a YouTuber making a soap with lanolin.
Yes, you can. But, that lovely soaping balance. Too much, it will make your soap waxy and kind of gross. Too little, it may as well not be there. I used to add in 1tsp (level) per kilo of soap and found that an ok amount. After a time, I just for no reason stopped adding lanolin to my soaps, and I never really noticed a difference.
If someone where to ask if I’d suggest putting lanolin in a soap, I’d tell them don’t bother. Especially if you are making a lard or tallow soap. Lard and tallow are highly moisturizing already, and the lanolin would contribute much.
Then I’d also say, do everything at least once especially in soaping. Make a lanolin soap! Make 100% shea butter soap! Do it all once. Then, you’ll really be able to tell yourself yes or no.
I don’t want icky soap! But I love how lanolin can make a beautiful balm for some things. I was hoping in some amounts, it might make an emollient soap. Hmm….more things to try.
I know adding clays are awesome. Clay in soap is a beautiful thing. I know there are other exfoliates that work well in scrubs, what works well in soaps? The caveat is, they can’t go icky like lavender buds, etc.
I know of poppy seeds, crushed pumice, but I can’t think of anything else. My mind blanks out.
My favourite is ground coffee. I have a buyer who always orders 1kg of exfoliating soap each summer. He doesn’t care what oils or such I use, as long as it has LOTS of coffee grinds.
I take made coffee, dry out the grinds for a few days, toss the grinds back into the grinder and grind them as small as possible. Unfortunately, from experience, regular sized grinds from the container, can and will cut your skin. And blood rivers are not a fun thing. Grinding them down will help prevent this.
Using unused coffee grinds will help to colour your soap a dark brownish coffee colour. Used, a very lovely pale brown. I found that once they were dry, ground down some more, then put through the coffee machine a couple times (change the filter) about six times resulted in coffee ground speckled soap that didn’t discolour the soap.
Usually, people suggest 2tbsp for 1kg of soup. And add at trace. Once I’ve ground down my coffee, I like 5-6tbsp per kilo.
Another one I love is salt. I love salt bar soap! My favourite is Himalayan salt from 25-100% the weight of the oils. I so want to make soap now!
There are tons more that I forgot to mention:
-Crushed strawberry seeds
-I take dried sea buckthorn fruit and grind it to a powder and use that and it’s lovely! I also do this to other fruits too
-calendula petals
-some people wrap their soap in wool not tried this yet, but it looks like it is a long process and I’m kind of lazyBasically though, unless I know 100% it’s going to sell, I don’t really make it anymore. I just don’t have the space! My go to body exfoilators are my sugar and salt scrub. They are heaven in a tub!
Activated charcoal:
I saw a recipe on Soap Queen for an activated charcoal soap for oily skin with tanamu oil that really piqued my soaping gene. I’ve changed the recipe oils around to suit my needs, but I’ve some grrr factor of using activated charcoal. In the past, whenever I’ve used it, my finished product seems to get such horrible lye ash or the soap never turns black, just grey. So I’ve not really used charcoal that much as I’ve not had good results. Anyone have any tried, tested and true suggestions for charcoal in soap?
Ooh salt soap sounds neat. I have family members who would love Coffee soap. I am not one. Lol.
Meat how you can add pureed fruit and veggies. I like that. Can you tea infuse the pills for natural colours and properties?
Coffee grounds in anything makes me itch and burn. My skin doesn’t like coffee grounds at all! I’ve never thought to use your method of twice used coffee grounds dried and ground finer. Hmmmmmm, that I might try! See if there’s a difference! Maybe the weaker, finer grounds would be irritating.
I’ve never tried or made a salt bar. They sound neat but in my mind I’m thinking “itchyyyyyyy” ala sea water. I have no idea if that’s true or not. That’s just what comes to mind. I do know my in-laws use a salt compound to soften the water in their home and that is very irritating to my skin.
I think Soap Queen steams her bars to remove the ash, then wipes them with a tiny bit of water or something to make them all shiny looking. But those black soaps she just posted look amazing! I’m just thinking “poor white washcloths”!!!!
Bwhahahahahaha! That video? I just got back from a soap walk, and I think I’m going to do some charcoal swirls, or a partial black soap but not the whole bar. I want to try to encourage that tamanu green to pop!
I think black, green, and white swirled soap would be pretty! Just an idea😊
Speaking of black in soaps, have you seen the post of the soap where the soaper did black and white layers, let it cure 24 hours, cut it diagonally, put each piece in a new mold, then created another soap design in the other half of the mold? Wow! Stunning soap! I’ll try and find a picture of it.
Here it is. Stunning!!
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