White pigeon beauty bar

So, I'm gonna make an admission. I am a sucker for Dove soap. I mean Dove "not-soap." I mean "part soap, part not-soap." If I'm confusing you, let me explain. The Dove brand likes to make a big deal of being not soap, and gentler than soap, and so on. The thing is, it contains soap. It also contains synthetic detergents. It is what is known as a semi-syndet bar, as in semi-synthetic (and therefore also semi-traditional) detergent bar. The main synthetic detergent in Dove, and the one that gives it its characteristic properties - like being a solid bar, having that soft lather, and leaving a conditioned feel on the skin - is sodium lauroyl isethionate.

We DIYers can get pretty much the same ingredient (from loads of different suppliers) under the INCI name of sodium cocoyl isethionate, also often called Baby Foam due to its gentleness. The "cocoyl" part indicates it is derived from coconuts. Lauric acid makes up something like 50% of coconut fatty acids (by far the largest proportion)... and this purified version is what is used to make the sodium lauroyl isethionate listed on the Dove bar ingredients.

The "one quarter moisturizing cream" claim, what about that one? So, it's not actually moisturizing lotion. Obviously right? It's a cleanser bar, not a lotion. However there is some truth to the claim. There is an ingredient called stearic acid in Dove, which is a really good moisturizer that is an ingredient in plenty of moisturizing creams, and just happens to work really well with sodium cocoyl/lauroyl isethionate! It adds moisturizing without ruining the lather, which is what most moisturizing ingredients would do. And what percentage do you think they use it at? I'd be willing to bet it's 25%.

As a soap-maker, the people who know I also love and use Dove think it's pretty ironic... and maybe even deceitful... that I'm such a two-timer with my bar cleansers. Frankly, each has its benefits. I don't find that Dove removes deodorant really well, but soap does. Soap can be made way prettier than a syndet bar any day. And since I make soap, I can make it smell like whatever I want. I love the smell of original Dove, and some of their new fragrances are pretty great too. I love the feel of the lather and the gentleness of Dove. And I love the fact that they offer a fragrance free sensitive skin option that is affordable and readily available to all of us with dainty hides (and "fragrance sensitivites," though I have my doubts that many of the people who claim this affliction would use Dove, made by eeeevil Unilever, after all...).

So how am I to reconcile my conflict of interest? Make a syndet bar, of course! 

I've had some sodium cocoyl isethionate for quite a while (an 85% active variety... it comes in a wide range of concentrations and formats, with or without pre-added stearic acid, so you have to pay attention with this ingredient), but all of my previous experiments were dramatic failures due to the fact that I thought it was supposed to melt into a clear liquid... it's not. If it is being put in something with a large percentage of other liquid surfactants, it will fully melt into the liquid. If you are making a bar product or cream cleanser with less liquids in it, it will melt into a white paste. Don't try to get it clear and liquidy with ever-increasing stirring and heat... it will burn, it will stink, and there will be burnt orange bits in the thing that you make. Ask me how I know this.

So I analyzed the ingredient lists of Dove's sensitive skin bar and their pear-and-aloe scented GoFresh variety (which are a little different, but have the same key ingredients, and when there are different ingredients, you can match them based on the function they fulfill in the bar). I used this information to come up with my own recipe, with the sodium cocoyl isethionate and stearic acid making up over 75% of the ingredients. A few bits of liquid surfactant, water, dipropylene glycol, sodium chloride (i.e. non-iodized table salt), tetrasodium EDTA, colour, and fragrance oil finish it off.

It turned out quite nice. I have only used the residue so far to wash out the beakers and measuring cups used to make it, and washed my hands once, but I think I like it! So am I breaking up with Dove? I dunno, probably not. It's so damn cheap, it's probably way more expensive to make it myself. But we'll see how it goes. :)

My first genuinely aggravating cosmetic chemistry experience - creamy face wash

I've been eyeing Susan's cream cleanser recipes for a while now; particularly the second one on this page, the cream cleanser for normal to oily skin - for people who aren't big on oils, because I have oily skin. In the past, I have been really attracted to cream cleansers; my skin is sensitive and prone to tightness and itching after cleansing, cream cleansers help mitigate those reactions. Plus I just really like the way they feel on my skin.

I was also excited to try using sodium cocoyl isethionate (SCI), a solid surfactant, and the key ingredient in Dove bars, which have been my go-to body cleanser (and occasional face cleanser) for the last 15 years or so. I know I like the feel of this surfactant.

So yesterday I got out my alchemy notebook, where I had modified Susan's formula to make it a bit simpler (I'm not as fond of extracts, hydrolyzed proteins, and film-formers as she is... particularly not in a rinse-off product), and got cooking. I believe Susan usually uses SCI in prill form containing 35% actives. Mine is in flake form with 85% actives. I didn't change the percentage being used, although possibly I should have. I put the flakes (which are actually more like small chunks) in a beaker with the cocamidopropyl betaine called for, which acts as a solvent for the SCI, into a double boiler and heated it up. And stirred. And heated. And stirred. And heated. Ad nauseum.

It took for. ever. In fact it might have literally taken forever, but after 90 minutes or 2 hours, I got sick of waiting. I dumped the paste into a frying pan and put it directly on the heat. It gelatinized a tiny bit. I poured in the second beaker of heated ingredients (including decyl glucoside, another substance that helps to dissolve SCI), and mixed it up hoping to thin it out a bit and maybe melt some more of the SCI chunks. The vapours of sizzling decyl glucoside were too much. I took it off the heat and pressed the whole horrible mess through a strainer, scraping the waxy chunks of SCI out of the mesh periodically. I ended up with about a third of the volume I expected. I put in my preservative, honeyquat, hydrolyzed protein, and Crothix and mixed it up. I included 1% salicylic acid in it, as I have acne, but when I tested the pH it was 6, probably due to the high pH of the decyl glucoside. I didn't adjust it since I was doubtful that it was going to be a nice thing to put on my face anyway.

Now that it has cooled, it is beyond thick. Thicker than Plasticine in winter. I gouged out a chunk and kneaded it into a thinner paste with some tap water and rubbed it around on my face. It kind of burned. The pH was almost neutral, so it shouldn't be caused by that; I'm wondering if my skin doesn't like decyl glucoside, as my micellar water test that included it was also exceptionally burn-y.

So, this was a frustrating process with an unsatisfying outcome. Maybe I will try to invent my own recipe for a cream cleanser now that I have put a bunch of my SCI through the blender to powderize it....