Anyone use Grapeseed oil?

[KJohnson]

wondering if anyone uses grapeseed oil in their CP??

Or is there problems with it?

Thanks

Kris

[CareBear]

I've used it and don't recall it contributing anything special. It is supposedly one of those oils that goes rancid easily so if you choose to use it keep the levels low and be sure to use fresh stuff

[topofmurrayhill]

IMO there's really no good reason to use grapeseed oil in soap. As I end up saying pretty often, linoleic oils aren't good soaping oils. If you did want to adjust your recipe to include more linoleic acid, there would be better and cheaper ways to do it than with grapeseed. A bottle of Crisco salad oil from the grocery would be fine.

I believe the thinking behind using grapeseed oil would be that exotic oils add special luxurious properties to soap, which just isn't so. There are two main things that hinder people from learning good recipe formulation and that idea is one of them. The other is believing the properties numbers in SoapCalc, especially the meaningless conditioning number.

There are various ways that SoapCalc will mislead you. One of them is that it will tell you an excess of linoleic oil (such as grapeseed) is making your recipe better when actually it is turning crummy.

[KJohnson]

Thank you so much for the info. I have a wholesale acct at a winery for candles...well they would like me to incorporate grape seed oil into my bath products....just because it has to do with GRAPES!

lol so I thought I would try it but maybe not

Thanks again

KRis

[MissMary]

IMO there's really no good reason to use grapeseed oil in soap. As I end up saying pretty often, linoleic oils aren't good soaping oils. If you did want to adjust your recipe to include more linoleic acid, there would be better and cheaper ways to do it than with grapeseed. A bottle of Crisco salad oil from the grocery would be fine.

I believe the thinking behind using grapeseed oil would be that exotic oils add special luxurious properties to soap, which just isn't so. There are two main things that hinder people from learning good recipe formulation and that idea is one of them. The other is believing the properties numbers in SoapCalc, especially the meaningless conditioning number.

There are various ways that SoapCalc will mislead you. One of them is that it will tell you an excess of linoleic oil (such as grapeseed) is making your recipe better when actually it is turning crummy.

If I could, could I press for just a bit more info, please!

I took your statement that you made awhile back on the lineolic acid and others and have done well with that thought, but the conditioning number, how is that meaningless?

Also, are the ranges they give in the other areas a good range to start? I've been plugging away in there, but with their numbers in mind, and haven't been doing too well. Lots of ash, and one batch with DOS.

[Kimberly]

I have a used grapeseed with great success. Paired with Avacado oil made one hell of a soap.

[CareBear]

the conditioning number doesn't reflect such things as superfat. it's a nonsense concept anyway since soap is not, by nature, "conditioning" or "moisturizing". by conditioning what is generally meant is how mild or NOT CLEANSING a soap is

[Luci]

I have used grapeseed in many, many batches of soap with no problems at all. Like Kimberly, I often pair it with avacado oil with absolutely wonderful results.

Because of what I had read about the relatively short shelf life, I was concerned about my use of it in other products such as whipped and emulsified body butters. Happy to say, though, that I've never had a problem with spoilage.

[Allicia]

by conditioning what is generally meant is how mild or NOT CLEANSING a soap is

Thats why I love to come here.

[Scented]

I use grapeseed oil in every batch. Left it out of a few and didn't really care for those bars when I was recipe searching. I use under 10% in my recipe.

[mystical_angel1219]

I never use Grapeseed in CP, in my experience~ it promotes DOS and is prone to rancidity. I do love refined Hemp in a soap, it adds a bit of silkiness to the lather.

Grapeseed along with Olive oil are key ingredients in some high end skin care lines. That whole "vinoplex" marketing niche.

[Meridith]

If I use too high of Hemp, I get DOS but when I've used GSO, I've not experienced DOS. GSO is a good oil to use in a massage oil.

[Scented]

I don't have DOS showing up with my soaps and I use GSO.

[Luci]

I was apprehensive about DOS after reading about the danger with GSO, but I've got bars from well over a year ago with no signs of DOS. Knock on wood--now I feel I've jinxed myself and am skeered to go look at some of those oldies I have kept just to see how they would age over a couple of years! :tiptoe:

[topofmurrayhill]

If I could, could I press for just a bit more info, please!

I took your statement that you made awhile back on the lineolic acid and others and have done well with that thought, but the conditioning number, how is that meaningless?

Also, are the ranges they give in the other areas a good range to start? I've been plugging away in there, but with their numbers in mind, and haven't been doing too well. Lots of ash, and one batch with DOS.

In SoapCalc, hardness means hardness and conditioning means softness. The conditioning number is the total percentage of soft fatty acids in your recipe.

You'll get the same number whether it comes from linolenic, linoleic, or oleic acid. Linolenic acid doesn't even belong in soap because it's too fragile. More than a modest amount of linoleic acid will make soap crappy in any number of ways. Oleic acid is mostly what you want and a lot of it will basically produce a castille bar, which is a bit of a fad among handcrafters. Castille is OK but overrated IMO. You can make a very mild bar with better skin feel and far better overall qualities than castille, even though it will have a lower conditioning score.

I do believe that soap can leave skin conditioned. Maybe that's not "moisturizing" per se but it looks and feels very good. Part of it is lack of cleansing/stripping/drying like CareBear says, but there's more to it than that.

Basically every fatty acid leaves a certain look and feel to the skin when you make soap out of it. None of them feel good by themselves, but when you balance certain fatty acids in a certain way, it leaves your skin looking and feeling great. It's not about the soft fatty acids or any particular type of oil. It's about the right balance of the right oils. The conditioning number in SoapCalc can't help you find that. It's based on a false premise. When it seems to work, it's purely coincidence or even the power of suggestion. You can design countless awful recipes that have a high conditioning number and plenty of superb recipes with a middling number.

I suppose some of the other numbers can be a guideline, but you don't really need them and they can be misleading. For instance, cleasing and bubbly lather are almost totally based on how much CO, PKO or babassu you use. Some types of recipes can be very bubbly and rather drying with only 20%, whereas other recipes can be mild and feel awesome with 30%.

Hope that answers your question clearly enough.

[MissMary]

Oh thank you so much! That explains oodles to me! It's extremely helpful and thank you again for taking the time to type it out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought I was doing something wrong based on some of those numbers, but I might go back to my original first two recipes again and see how that adds up against the "perfect numbers" recipes I've been trying.

[Carriegsxr6]

Grapeseed is just too light and fragile of an oil to get any real soap benefits from. Its great in lotions, massage oils and body sprays though, abosorbs quick

[8-GRAN-ONES]

Top..I just love reading your coments..

What oils would you put together to get a good balanced soap?

With good hardness, and still not be drying? but have that feeling you speak of, conditioning too?

I use in most every recipe..olive..palm...coconut...cocoa butter...palm kernel...rice bran..sweet almond..avocado oil...

[Carriegsxr6]

Top..I just love reading your coments..

What oils would you put together to get a good balanced soap?

With good hardness, and still not be drying? but have that feeling you speak of, conditioning too?

I use in most every recipe..olive..palm...coconut...cocoa butter...palm kernel...rice bran..sweet almond..avocado oil...

The key to learning the benifits of each oil, is by first learning the acid properties of your oils. Then experiment and tweek your recipe by changing or adding one oil at a time but keep some set amounts. This will allow you to learn how each oil can really change a recipe, and once you start feeling the qualities you like, then you can start to increase or decrease the percentages and really balance out your recipe.

Hardness doesnt always mean drying, you can get a hard bar but be low on the cleansing. You could also make a bar with lots of large clear bubbles, yet be low in cleansing and high in conditioning as well.

The secret is to not always follow the standard rules of which oils are for moisture and which oils are for bubbles. Learn to find the hidden qualities in other ingrediants such as mango or shea butter, as well as castor oil and a bit of silk. These special ingrediants can dramatically change what properties you get from other basic oils and totally boost the conditioning, creaminess and hardness numbers by only adding as little as 6%. Its always good to find your "secret" ingrediant that makes your recipe feel so different from the rest.

Its great to get involved in some of these soap swaps here on this board. :highfive:

[topofmurrayhill]

Top..I just love reading your coments..

What oils would you put together to get a good balanced soap?

With good hardness, and still not be drying? but have that feeling you speak of, conditioning too?

I use in most every recipe..olive..palm...coconut...cocoa butter...palm kernel...rice bran..sweet almond..avocado oil...

Think of it this way. When you mix the oils together to make your soap, the original oils no longer exist. You've created a new oil. The composition of your unique 8-gran-ones oil is (approximately) described at the bottom left in SoapCalc. Those fatty acid percentages determine the properties of the soap your unique oil will turn into. What oils you combine to get those numbers doesn't matter.

You can use whatever oils let you most conveniently control those numbers. Choosing from your list - olive, palm, coconut and/or pko, cocoa butter and rice bran would give you very good control over all the fatty acids that might be of interest to you. By experimenting with balancing the fatty acid numbers in different ways, your dream soap could be created with just those oils.

You don't really need the avocado and almond oils because they're redundant. They cost extra without giving you any additional control over the fatty acid composition of your 8-gran-ones oil.

Some people would suggest that, in addition to their fatty acid contribution, they add some unique and mysterious "avocado oiliness" and "almond oiliness" to a soap recipe. That's the argument I'm rejecting. There are people using a simple combination of base oils to make soap that blows away lots of people's exotic recipes. The vast majority of oils have nothing in them that will affect the outcome nearly as much as the fatty acid balance will. That is 99% of the game.