More Soap Stuff

My sister brought me some wonderful handmade soap from Tanzania. It had so many properties that I want in my own soap, creamy, creamy lather, and a conditioning feel, but it didn't come with any ingredients list so I'm not sure what it has in it. I imagine it is probably heavy on the Shea butter, coconut and probably palm. Not sure if it would have olive oil, but  it would probably have some.

It made me realize I'm not really sure what properties each oil brings to the soap beyond what I've read, so I've set about to experiment with oils to see what I can find out on my own.

I conducted this first test by making small individual 1 lb batches using my four main oils. 

This isn't really very scientific because I made the lye discount different for each oil in an attempt to make them as usable as possible after I'm done. I'm mainly trying to find out how soap from each oil feels, bubbles, etc. 

I've been told Shea has a creamy lather and is very conditioning, olive is bubbly but slimy feeling and not very cleansing - gentle, is how it's described. Palm, hard and bubbly, and coconut very bubbly and creamy but too cleansing (harsh).

For each batch I used 300 gm of oil and the coinciding amount of lye. Each batch had a 30% lye solution strength.

I heated each oil to liquid, and the olive oil was warmed. Both the oils and lye were in the 110 to 115 degree range - within 10 degrees of each other.

Here are the four batches after one day:

Below is a pH test with Phenolphthalein on some of the flakes that came off when I unmolded. Pink indicates high pH. 

Because the batches were so small I don't think they went through any kind of gel stage which would have pushed the saponification up a notch. They will still fully saponify over time, but without gel it takes a bit longer and they come out more opaque. Again, this isn't as scientific as some would make it.  I'm not controlling every aspect.

Center is the shea butter, bottom is palm, top is olive, and the right side is coconut. It's clear that coconut saponifies quickly as there is no pink even after waiting an hour and more. The others will take longer. It looks like olive takes the longest to saponify; it turned bright pink immediately. I'll test again after a couple of days. 

Obviously you wouldn't want to use these soaps right away.

Below is a glimpse into my evolving work space. First is a close up of some of my soaps ready for sale.

Here is a shelf of curing soaps.

A new shelf to hold my herbs, clays and other additives.

The "room"

My first attempt at a calendula salve. I got the recipe from Stacy at A Delightful Home. It smells amazing.