Soap bar compositions comprising alpha sulfonated fatty acid alkyl esters and polyhydridic alcohols and process for producing same

Disclosed are improved cleaning compositions comprising soap&com ma; fatty acid, synthetic detersive surfactant, salt and a polyhydridic alcohol, which are suitable for formation into precursor cleansing/laundry bar "soap noodles," personal cleansing bars and laundry detergent bars. The compositions comprise: (a) from about 58% to about 93% by weight of an approximately 70% aqueous soap slurry; (b) from about 1% to about 15% by weight of a fatty acid; (c) from about 2% to about 30% by weight of an approximately 55% aqueous mixture of anionic surfactants comprising i) an alpha sulfonated alkyl ester, and ii) a sulfonated fatty acid or salts thereof, wherein the ratio of i) to ii) is from about 10:1 to about 1:10; (d) from about 0.5% to about 2% by weight of a salt; (e) from about 0.5% to about 5% by weight of a 25 polyhydridic alcohol; and (f) from 0 to about 10% by weight of an alkanolamide of the formula O CH3(CH2)nCNH(CH2)yOH wherein n=6-16, and y is 2-4; The invention additionally relates to an improved process for producing both precursor cleansing/laundry bar "soap noodles" and personal cleansing/laundry detergent bars 35 comprising combining (a)-(e) to form a liquid mixture at a temperature of about 65° C. to about 105° C., removing from about 50% to about 90% by weight of the water from the liquid mixture, by heating up to 150° C. under vacuum conditions or 105° C. at normal conditions to form a thickened mixture, extruding the thickened mixture to form flaked solid or semi-solid pellets or noodles, and optionally, plodding the flaked solid or semi-solid pellets or noodles to form plodded pellets or noodles,f extruding the plodded pellets or noodles to form a billet, cutting the billet, and stamping the cut billet to yield a personal cleansing/laundry detergent bar.