Castor Oil for Soap Making

Pretty much all soap makers who use castor oil for soap making swear by its effectiveness for adding an amazing lather and great moisturizing properties to the finished product.

Here are the fatty acid, iodine, and SAP values for those who are interested in trying this oil:

Incorporating castor oil into your soap making recipe will add the following characteristics to your finished product:

The lather it produces is what really makes castor oil such an appealing ingredient for soap making. You need to actually try using castor oil soap to truly appreciate how wonderful the lather is... I can guarantee you won't be disappointed!

In addition to the wonderful lather, the conditioning and moisturizing properties that it will add is a great bonus for using castor oil for soap making.

Keep in mind that you don't need to use a huge amount of castor oil in order to see the benefits in your soap. I recommend keeping it around 5% - 10% of the total oils used in your batch. If you incorporate too much, your soap may feel sticky. You definitely don't want that!

Castor oil also seems to speed up trace substantially. For this reason, it's a good idea to adjust your soaping routine accordingly. First of all, you can soap cooler to slow down trace. When using castor oil, I combine the lye and oils at around 90 degrees (which for me is a lower temperature then normal) to avoid an overly quick trace. Also, if you are the type of soap maker that uses a stick blender, you may want to cut down the amount of time that you use the device.

When using castor oil for soap making I stick blend initially for a few seconds just to make sure that all the elements are combined, but then I ditch the stick blender and stir manually until trace is reached.

When using a stick blender for too long when making castor oil soap, trace will sneak up on you and your soap may quickly become too thick to pour into a mold. When stirring manually, you'll be able to easily recognize when trace is occurring before it's too late. Keep in mind that even relatively small amounts of castor oil can affect how fast your soap traces.

Want to learn more about the skin care benefits of castor oil? Click here now to learn about using castor oil for acne prone complexions!

Return to the soap making resource home page.