We are going to prepare a recipe for a particularly mild and emollient soda soap so that we can use without reservation as a body and facial hygiene soap. For this reason, this soap is formulated with an overgreased formulation (10%) and made with vegetable butters and clays.
The concept of over-greasing and why it is important: overgreasing means that we add less amount of soda to the same kilo of oil, so that part of the oil is not saponified. With this we manage, on the one hand, to guarantee that there is no excess of soda in the soap and, on the other, a greater softness and emolliency of the soap.
This means that soaps low greased (0% -2%) will have a greater hardness and duration that can be interesting, surely, if we want to make a soap for cleaning the home. However, this same hardness and the low emollient capacity of a soap with a low greasy formulation will make it less suitable for personal use and skin care.
The overgreasing is calculated with an online saponification calculator (https://comohacerjabones.com/calculadora-de-saponificación/), but if it is too complicated for you, you can simply prepare it using the formula attached here.
Before starting: It is essential to remember that caustic soda is dangerous, so we must protect ourselves with gloves and glasses and also avoid breathing the gases that are released from the reaction of soda with water. It is therefore necessary that you prepare the bleach * (a mixture of soda and water) in a ventilated place.
And also always remember to pour the soda into the water, and never the other way around, otherwise you run the risk of a too extreme reaction.
It will be necessary for you to provide yourself with a few necessary utensils to be able to make cold processed soaps, which is the method that we will use preferably because the oils with which these soaps are made retain all their properties when we use the cold method.
We will need:
Heat resistant glass containers where you can dissolve the soda and trace the soap.
A precision balance to weigh oils and more (to the nearest gram)
A hand mixer and a whisk rod.
A spatula to pour the soap paste into the molds.
A thermometer graduated up to 100 ° Celsius.
Protective clothing, gloves, glasses, mask … to handle caustic soda safely.
Molds for soaps. The best ones are the silicone ones, but you can also use plastic molds (just insert them half an hour before unmolding them in the freezer to get the soap out.
Vinegar (vinegar neutralizes the corrosive effect of soda if soda or soap paste is splashed on us)
We will start by weighing all the ingredients. They seem like a lot of oils, but in the end, think that with these soaps we have to wash ourselves for at least a year. For about 4-5 soaps, depending on how thick you want to cut them, we will use:
Ingredients:
200 gr of coconut oil (50%)
100 gr of olive oil (25%)
100 gr of shea butter (25%)
150 ml of water
62 g of Soda for 2% overgreasing (to be recalculated as needed)
A tablespoon of clay (which we will add to the base oils)
At the time of the trace we will add:
16 gr of Honey / olive oil (4% overfatting)
16 g of shea butter (4% superfatting)
4 gr of True Lavender Essential Oil (2%)
4 gr of Rosemary Verbenone Essential Oil (2%)
Total overgreasing 10% (2% of «base» + 8% in the trace) The final result is a rather high overgreasing since the destination of this soap will be facial care.
We begin:
It is important to be precise when weighing ingredients because too much soda and too little fat will make the soap harsh and irritating to the skin.
In the other hand, too little soda and too much fat will produce a soap that is too soft or impossible to trace.
The “Additions” are all the ingredients that we will add to our soap paste after tracing it.
We will always melt the fats and butters that must be melted in a bain-marie as their properties will be better preserved.
Before mixing the soda with the oils, you must make sure that both components are at the same temperature. It is recommended that both, bleach and oils, are at a temperature between 40 °C and 50 ° C.
For this reason, it is sometimes necessary to wait a little for them to warm up.
The elaboration process:
Slowly pour the soda into the oils, never the other way around. Now it is interesting to use the hand mixer because we will be able to trace our soap faster.
The “trace” is characterized by a thickening of the soap paste. When the pasta leaves a trace and has the consistency of custard, then it is ready.
Time for the additions:
Certain final additions, particularly synthetic fragrances, speed up the trace and harden the soap very quickly. In this case, the honey and the butters speed up the process a lot and you will see that the trace thickens very fast, so you will have to act very quickly and stir well.
16 gr of Honey / olive oil also possible (4% overfatting)
16 g of shea butter (4% superfatting)
4 gr of True Lavender Essential Oil (2%)
4 gr of Rosemary Essential Oil with Verbenone (2%)
We mold:
We can now proceed to molding our soaps. We will keep them covered with a microfiber blanket so that the cold process runs its course.
Before unmolding and cutting them, we must wait for a minimum of 24 hours to harden depending on the soap.
Maturation process:
Once our soaps have been dried and cut, we will let them mature so that their pH drops and their emollient properties are accentuated. In this way, they will harden and lose water so that they will melt less quickly on contact with water and will also form more foam.
As you will see in the video, our soaps are greenish because we have added green clay. If you want them to be clear, you just have to put white clay on them.
A minimum of 40 days of maturation will be necessary, but if we leave them longer, it’s also alright. If the soaps are well made, the more they mature, the higher their quality.
