Sunday, December 6, 2015

Titanic Soap or Vanolia soap and Recipe


I have researched Titanic soap.  This soap was advertised to be a cold cream soap named Vanolia.  It was a  nice sized oval bar wrapped and placed into a decorated box of purple and gold.  Vanolia was also advertised at the soap for the first-class cabins on the Titanic.  It was made originally in England.  Even though the soap is still made since 1912, it has gone through a few changes.  One  change is the fragrance which is more of a spice fragrance now where it originally was a rose fragrance.  Many soap makers of today are adding rose and lemon  together trying to duplicate this soap fragrance.  I found the original (or close to original) ingredient labels which shows the following ingredients.  I broke the ingredients down for easier reading and understanding.  (Keep in mind that I am bot a chemist.):
1.sodium tallowate--tallow or rendered cow fat
2.sodium cocolate--coconut oil--it is one of the few oils that will suds in salt water
3.aqua--water
4.glycerol--glycerin--automatically made during the manufacture of true soap.  Glycerin attracts moisture through the air.
5.perfume--a fragrance, rose otto--1/8 of an ounce is $29.99 on Amazon. Most of us can not afford this essential oil.

6.sodium chloride--salt
7.mineral oil--a byproduct of petroleum and commonly used to remove make up
8.tetra-sodium EDTA--it is a cleating agent that neutralizes the metal ions in hard water and makes  water softer
9.edidrontic acid--also a cleating agent which enhances the cleaning power
10. boric acid--a mild antiseptic/anti-fungal/antibiotic  "Borax, also known as borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid,"  Wikipedia
Much of my information came from Encyclopedia Titicaca. http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/forums/personal-hygiene/4975-soap.html

To duplicate this soap, I would start with tallow, coconut oil, water, lye (sodium hydroxide), and rose fragrance.  If the soap could turn dark due to the fragrance I use, I would then use a little titanium dioxide to help keep the soap white.  Many of the soap makers of today are placing a rose bud on the top of each bar of soap, making each bar truly upper class..

My version of this soap is:



Titanic soap
30 ounces tallow
20 ounces coconut oil
19 ounces water
7.3 ounces lye
3 ounces veg glycerin
1.5 ounces Save on Scents eternal roses fragrance oil  
2 tablespoons titanium dioxide
Optional:  18 decorations for the top such as dried rose buds or tiny pink rose erasers like mine.
Follow normal soap making rules to make this soap using the above recipe.

Yield:  Makes 18 bars of soap.  I used Crafter's Choice oval molds.  Oval which was the shape of the original Titanic soap.
Notes:   *I refrigerated this soap for one day.  It did not gel and it came out of the molds perfectly.
*This soap is snow white!  The titanium dioxide was probably not needed with this fragrance oil.



Vanolia/Titanic Soap  I used little erasers for the center rose.  Not as nostalgic as a dried rose bud.
A friend told me that it would erase the wrinkles away.  LOL






I hope you found this an interesting read.  Have a great week!  Dawnie


Please view my web store at:


And visit my Etsy shop at:

3 comments:

Soap Gourmet said...

Very interesting but your type font is so hard to read.

I'll Pour said...

Thank you for your comment. Would it help if the type was darker or larger? Is it the font that is a problem? I would like to make it easy for others to read.

Sam Choi said...

It is "Vinolia" not vanolia :) Thank you for your interesting article