| I have been loving learning about all of the different properties oils contribute to a bar of soap. I decided that I wanted to try Avocado next. I must admit, I did get a bit of a surprise after is was in the mold! Come join me as we learn about Avocado Oil Soap!
Needed Materials
Recipe
Weigh the Avocado Oil into a microwave safe container. Heat until warm. This took about 2 1/2 minutes for me. Add the lye to the water to for a lye solution. Mix the oils and lye solution and blend until trace is achieved. Pour into a mold and allow to sit for 24 hours. Enjoy!
Notes: I didn’t have any accelerated trace or any other problems when mixing the soap. However, after 24 hours when I went to cut it, it was like sliding a knife through room temperature butter! I must say, it did startle me. I have never worked with a soap that has done that! When I washed with a small sample of this soap, it felt really creamy but I didn’t get any lather. While I was using it though I did think it would make a nice scrub. I may have to try that. Would you make a scrub with Avocado Soap?
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 Soap in jar  Avocado Oil  Mixing Lye Solution  Adding Lye Solution  Mixing Soap  Mixing Soap  Soap in mold  Attempting to cut the Avocado Oil Soap  Piping Soap into jars |
I’m assuming this did not foam when washing. Perhaps it could be used for a scrub of some sort? What was the texture like?
Sorry. I stopped reading because I got a little excited about the scrub idea. I see that you mentioned it already. So, I guess, yes, I would try a scrub with it.
Could it be dilluted for a liquid soap?
Avocado oil is known for it’s moisturizing and conditioning properties. You can use it straight on dry spots such as cuticles and cracked heels. When designing a soap recipe, you don’t need much to bring these beneficial qualities to the formula because, like olive oil, it contains unsaponifiables — good for dry or sensitive skin.
soapcalc.net provides a way to predict how your soap will turn out. Here are the numbers for 100% Avocado Oil. Note that it has 0 cleansing ability & 0 bubbles for that nice lather we all want, but is over the top in conditioning. The low (22) number for hardness and the low INS (99) suggests that this would result in a very soft soap.
100% AVOCADO OIL
Hardness 22
Cleansing 0
Conditioning 70
Bubbly 0
Creamy 22
Iodine 86
INS 99
RANGE (RECOMMENDED)
Hardness 29 – 54
Cleansing 12 – 22
Condition 44 – 69
Bubbly 14 – 46
Creamy 16 – 48
Iodine 41 – 70
INS 136 – 165 (INS of 160 is considered “ideal”)
I’m enjoying your series. Various books have suggested doing this type of testing on oils for educational reasons and I much prefer you doing it for me! Keep it up!
Have you tested the pH? Would you wait for it to cure for a month before turning it into a scrub?
I’m loving this series. I getting ready to make my first batch of soap this summer. I’m trying to learn as much as I can before I start. Maybe I just need to jump in!
Very interesting results!! Taylor, I’m hoping that you can let us know what the avocado oil soap is like after 48 hours and also after a week; is it still soft or did it harden up? I agree with the others, this type of testing is invaluable. While I respect the soap quality/INS information on soapcalc.com, I have discovered that in reality the values need to be taken with a grain of salt and indicate more what a given bar will “kind of” be like. Castile soap made with 100% olive oil has an INS value of 105 but makes a highly respected bar of soap.
By the way, I’m hoping that there is a soft butter like avocado in the line up 🙂
Interesting finding! A couple of years ago I made a single oil avocado soap. It was for a forum project and we all made single oil soaps to share with each other. I had the same results with avocado as with olive. It was hard fast and brittle to cut and it lathered like a fresh castile as well. About a year later I checked on a piece I had saved and it was rancid. It is so weird that your soap was so soft.
While I agree with Debbie C, that soapcalc results should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s still a purdy good guide for designing a soap recipe that works. INS values are based on info found in Dr. Bob McDaniel’s book “Essentially Soap”. I had the good fortune to read that book early in my soap making career, and I think it helped me to understand how/why soapcalc works as well as it does. And yeah, 100% olive oil soap is definitely the exception.
Hi, I hope its okay to post here in this old topic. I was searching for a real cream soap made with both Potassium and Sodium Hydroxide (sp?). I’ve seen a few discussions and recipes on the web, but I was hoping that maybe MMS team had already done a post on this. Your posts are so informative. 🙂
We haven’t published anything about cream soaps yet. We are still working on this project!
I make soap just for fun, one day by accident pour avocado oil instead of olive oil, ( want to make a castille soap) so I make a soap exactly as you did it. The result was as happens to you, I wait for a week and even with that have to put it in the freezer to finally be able to remove the soaps from the mold (milky way mold). I was so afraid of the DOS spots that I make a rebatch of this soap with a regular new recipe, at the end that work great!
Sounds like quite the adventure!
I don’t think you used enough lye. I am going to try it using traditional methods and my lye calulations and get back to you on results.
Vicki,
Sounds like a great idea.
Tina