- This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I’m looking for a basic soap recipe that will produce a white bar of soap every time, without titanium dioxide or zinc. Marie – I like your ingredients & ratios – what would you use?
Yes, kaolin clay but also clearer/whiter oils/fats vs more yellow or green oils definitely helps too.
I Agree. Avoid using lots of a dark oil, such as hemp seed. For someone who is not vegan, using some sort of lard or tallow would be good. (Not too much though). Grapeseed oil(not too much), Caster oil, (gives an amazing lather), and coconut oil, (also boosts lather).
Also the longer you cure it for. And what essential oils use. If you use orange or mandarin, they both leave your soap yellow.
Did you know that just using coconut oils in soap (not just coconut oil but with other oils such as olive), can be very drying. It must be paired with caster oil for a neutralising effect.
I suggest formulating your recipe on soap calc. Soap calculator . Then post it here and we can tell you what you can adjust to make a whiter bar of CP soap. They also tell you what the hardness, conditioning, lather rates are for each oil!
What oils are you planning on, or have used in the past? Were you not happy with the colour?
Hope this helps!
Hi @KMYoung! Kaolin Clay in high amounts won’t actually give you a white bar. It will give you a… creamy/ivory/beigy/tuapishy colour. To truly get a pristine white bar of soap, titanium dioxide. May I ask why you don’t want to use it?
If you are looking at getting a bar of soap mostly, probably all white, try this recipe:
80%coconut oil
20% shea butter OR lard (lard is beautiful in soap!)
Superfat at about 30%This recipe is a recipe I make frequently and is one of my more requested soaps, probably because it is smells like coconut lime.
Maddy is correct when she says that too much coconut oil in soap can be drying, but she left out the information on superfatting a recipe. If you superfat a bar of 80% coconut oil soap at 5% or even 8%, your skin is stripped clean of your natural oils resulting in your skin being dry. If you follow the literature on making 100% coconut soap (or even mostly coconut oil soap +60%) and play with the superfat, you will have a lovely and amazing bar of soap. 30% superfat is what my skin likes when I use 80% coconut oil, but some find 22% is good for them as well.
And now back to the white soap: I find using the recipe I mentioned above to provide a nice white bar of soap that lathers like a dream.
Sticking to oils that are lighter will give you a lighter looking bar. Tallow is another great ingredient to work with in soaping, but tallow will give you an off white kind of bar. I find too much cocoa butter or shea butter gives you a beige coloured soap as well. Olive oil, you possibly could get a white bar, but after dozens of different coloured olive oils, I still get a off white coloured bar. Just remember, what works for one person may or may not work for you. Play around with various oil combinations and see what you get. And play around with different additives to see what might work for you.
Hopefully this helps you out!
Grrr. Fourth time the charm???
Kaolin clay will not give you a white bar of soap. It will turn your soap beige/tan/ivory/taupey the more you use. It is an awesome ingredient and I use it often, but it will turn your bars of soap not white!
To get a pristine bar of white soap, you will need to use titanium dioxide. If you use just oils to achieve your white bar of soap, it will be white, but it won’t be a pristine white bar of soap. May I ask you why you don’t want to use titanium dioxide?
Maddy is leaving out some very important details when she talks about a soap made with all coconut oil or a soap made with mostly coconut oil. Sure, that soap is overly energetic in it’s cleaning, but high percentages of coconut oil soap one needs to adjust the superfat to compensate for the coconut oil in soap being to cleansing.
Let’s say you take a soap recipe like Marie’s standard bar of soap and run it through soapcalc. It will give you a superfat at 5%. That’s a great recipe! But if you suffer from dry skin, 5% will seem overly cleansing and drying too. So you up it to 8%. Coconut oil soap or high percentage of coconut oil soap is the same way. If you adjust the superfat in the recipe, your soap will be amazing and wonderful! But if you leave the superfat at the default (5%) you’re skin will be stripped of everything, leaving you with very dry and in pain skin.
My go to recipe for a high percentage of coconut oil soap:
80% coconut oil
20% shea butter or Lard (I love lard in my soap)
Water Discount: 35%
Liquid: coconut milk
Superfat: 30%
Fragrance: optionalBoth the shea and lard soap fly off the shelves as soon as it is ready.
Belinda is correct in saying lighter coloured soaps will result in lighter coloured soaps. And if you are planning on using fragrance oils, be very careful and pay attention to the vanilla content. The larger the vanilla content, the more discoloured you are going to go!
Grrr. Fifth time the charm??? I’m not seeing any of my replies be posted!
Kaolin clay will not give you a white bar of soap. It will turn your soap beige/tan/ivory/taupey the more you use. It is an awesome ingredient and I use it often, but it will turn your bars of soap not white!
To get a pristine bar of white soap, you will need to use titanium dioxide. If you use just oils to achieve your white bar of soap, it will be white, but it won’t be a pristine white bar of soap. May I ask you why you don’t want to use titanium dioxide?
Maddy is leaving out some very important details when she talks about a soap made with all coconut oil or a soap made with mostly coconut oil. Sure, that soap is overly energetic in it’s cleaning, but high percentages of coconut oil soap one needs to adjust the superfat to compensate for the coconut oil in soap being to cleansing.
Let’s say you take a soap recipe like Marie’s standard bar of soap and run it through soapcalc. It will give you a superfat at 5%. That’s a great recipe! But if you suffer from dry skin, 5% will seem overly cleansing and drying too. So you up it to 8%. Coconut oil soap or high percentage of coconut oil soap is the same way. If you adjust the superfat in the recipe, your soap will be amazing and wonderful! But if you leave the superfat at the default (5%) you’re skin will be stripped of everything, leaving you with very dry and in pain skin.
My go to recipe for a high percentage of coconut oil soap:
80% coconut oil
20% shea butter or Lard (I love lard in my soap)
Water Discount: 35%
Liquid: coconut milk
Superfat: 30%
Fragrance: optionalBoth the shea and lard soap fly off the shelves as soon as it is ready.
Belinda is correct in saying lighter coloured soaps will result in lighter coloured soaps. And if you are planning on using fragrance oils, be very careful and pay attention to the vanilla content. The larger the vanilla content, the more discoloured you are going to go!
Grrr. Fifth time the charm??? I’ve been having issues posting.
Kaolin clay will not give you a white bar of soap. It will turn your soap beige/tan/ivory/taupey the more you use. It is an awesome ingredient and I use it often, but it will turn your bars of soap not white!
To get a pristine bar of white soap, you will need to use titanium dioxide. If you use just oils to achieve your white bar of soap, it will be white, but it won’t be a pristine white bar of soap. May I ask you why you don’t want to use titanium dioxide?
Maddy is leaving out some very important details when she talks about a soap made with all coconut oil or a soap made with mostly coconut oil. Sure, high percentage of coconut oil soap is overly energetic in its cleaning, but in high percentages of coconut oil soap, one needs to adjust the superfat to compensate for the coconut oil in soap being to cleansing. Otherwise, it is very stripping. Great for getting out eating noodles with chopsticks stains, but not so great for the skin.
Let’s say you take a soap recipe like Marie’s standard bar of soap and run it through soapcalc. It will give you a superfat at 5% which is soapcalc’s default setting. That’s a great recipe! But if you suffer from dry skin, 5% will seem overly cleansing and drying too. So you up it to 8%. Coconut oil soap or high percentage of coconut oil soap is the same way. If you adjust the superfat in the recipe, your soap will be amazing and wonderful! But if you leave the superfat at the default (5%) you’re skin will be stripped of everything, leaving you with very dry and in pain skin.
My go to recipe for a high percentage of coconut oil soap:
80% coconut oil
20% shea butter or Lard (I love lard in my soap)
Water Discount: 35%
Liquid: coconut milk
Superfat: 30%
Fragrance: optionalBoth the shea and lard in coconut oil soap fly off the shelves as soon as it is ready.
Belinda is correct in saying lighter coloured soaps will result in lighter coloured soaps. And if you are planning on using fragrance oils, be very careful and pay attention to the vanilla content. The larger the vanilla content, the more discoloured you are going to go!
Let’s hope that picture link worked. The picture with the four soaps:
1) flower: titanium dioxide into lard, tallow, shea, olive, coconut, rice bran, wheat germ soap LOTS of kaolin clay
2) Middle- no titanium dioxide, coconut oil 80%, shea butter 20%
3) Bottom: 100% castile soap (made with a slightly green pomace olive oil)
4) random leg shooting out of the Middle soap: the same recipe as in the flower soap au natural. The tallow and clay contribute more to the tan colour than the other darker oils I’ve found.Hi! I know this is an older thread, but I just found it and wondered if I might chime in? I have used powdered zinc, rather than TD to make my bars white…and it really is a beautiful white! Does anyone have issues with using zinc in their soap? I think I only used about 1 tsp per pound of oils, but I’m not sure what the suggested usage rate is. I’m just wondering if anyone has had any problems with using it in their soaps? It’s a good sunscreen, but I’ve read you don’t want to use too much. It’s used in diaper rash cream, and works very well on baby’s delicate skin!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
