Teach Soap

I found a new recipe I would like to try, but I noticed they don't indicate how much lye to use O_o

Recipe:
1 oz castor oil
1.6 oz cocoa butter
5.6 oz coconut oil
.32 jojoba oil
1.6 oz palm oil
5.88 olive oil
3 oz milk (I was planning on using frozen buttermilk I have)
3 oz distilled water
1/4 t cocoa powder
.16 peppermint eo

I would also like to add a little of BB's liquid silk-- any suggestions on how much?

What kind of lye amount would you recommend? Just running the oils thru the calculator (5% superfat) I got a lye amount of 2.272 oz.....

This is a very small batch. I would superfat at 7% to be on the side. I would use 4 to 6 fluid ounces of liquid and 2.25 ozs. of lye.
You might also convert this recipe into grams for better accuracy. I don't use liquid silk as it's pricey.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Here is the info from the BB site.

Liquid Silk - Our liquid silk is simply silk amino acids dissolved in water. It's easy to add just that special touch to your products with a usage rate of 1% (lotions) up to a full 5% (in soap). Since the liquid silk is already dissolved, there's no special dissolving procedures involved when using this product.

OOOOOhhhhh wow.....that didn't go well! I mixed everything exactly as SoapBuddy suggested with the same amount of oils I had listed in the original recipe. The only think I did different was mix a little TD with a little water. The buttermilk was frozen and the lye got too cold so I reheated it to about 110 on a double boiler.

I poured everything into the molds (tried to swirl a little ) and stuck it in the oven to gel as usual....

Now when I pulled it out, I had about a 1/4" space of sitting oil at the top over a chunky looking faux soap. I scooped it out of the molds and there was more oil in the bottom of each cavity.

I'm assuming maybe the lye didn't bond with the oils? Was my temp off? More importantly, HOW DO I SAVE THIS???

NEVER reheat you lye water in a double boiler! That could have dire consequences. If you need to warm it up, fill your sink with very warm water, put your pitcher in there and let the temp come up this way. It sounds like your milk soap overheated. Since milk has natural sugars (which can overheat in soap), most people just lightly cover the mold and take off the covering as soon as the soap is in gel. I would rebatch at this point.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

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~bytheSEAsoap~ Mella bythesea, bythesea, bythebeautiful sea

海の皂

LOL- I have to say Mella, that had to be the nicest way possible to say "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!?"

I do think I need to go back and do a little (or lot) more research particularly in the milk sections! I just happened to have some buttermilk on hand and the first recipe had turned out wonderful, so I probably jumped the gun a little with my false confidence

Thanks for the suggestion

P.S. I thought I had seen conflicting views on reheating the lye....or have I just not had enough sleep?

You can reheat lye, but only in a warm/hot water bath - never on the stove or in the microwave.

Milk can be hard to work with - that's the only time I don't do CPOP - mine turned out just like yours did. A total mess! When working with frozen milk, the lye doesn't have to be mixed with water first; it can be added directly to the milk as long as you add it slowly and make sure it's well blended. Another way to add milk is to use about half your liquid amount in water to dissolve the lye, and add the rest of the liquid as milk at trace.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!