Teach Soap

Hi,

I'm new here and new to soap making. I plan on making my first batch of soap/shampoo bars soon, after I do a little more research. Any who, I'm having trouble figuring something out. I want to make about 6-8 bars. I figure a 1-2lb batch of soap could give me that. So, how do I adjust my oils, lye, water, etc, to give me exactly 1-2lbs? I've seen many recipes that call for 16oz of this oil and 32oz of that oil, 8oz of butter and so on. But, these recipes usually produce about a 4lb batch of soap and, that's just to much for me as a newbie.

I hope my question makes sense.

How big is your mold? If you multiply length x width x height, then multiply that by 0.4, that should tell you how much the mold will hold. That final figure includes oils & water. For example: if you use 16 ozs. of oils and 8 ozs. of water, you will need a mold that holds 24 ounces.

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

if you go to www.soapcalc.net and use that lye calculator you can plug in the original amounts of oils in a recipe and then recalculate for a smaller batch that will fit your mold.

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

Yep. I have a mold that is 8 inches long, 3.5 inches wide and 2.5 inches deep. This is a silicone loaf and to pour even to the top, I would multiply 8 x 3.5 x 2.5 = 70. 70 x 0.4 = 28 ounces of oil for my 8 inch long 40-44 ounce capacity mold, with the full water amount. Since I'm new to soaping (5 batches so far), I only used a water discount (40% lye concentration) when I made my castile since they take a long time to reach trace with the full water lye concentration.

I think the 0.4 multiplication is to find out the amount of oils, not the total volume. My wood log mold is 10 inches long, and that's what I used for my castile. Comes out to (10 x 3.5 x 2.5 / .4) 35 oz of oil then the 40% lye solution and it filled it almost to the top with no overflow.

So length x width x height of pour space (the interior of the mold, not the outside of it). Multiply by 0.4 to get the amount of oils for your mold. Take the amount of oils for your mold, plug into your lye calculator (I am a SoapCalc person), and view your recipe to get your water & lye amounts.

A good way to figure out how to resize your batch is once you see a recipe you like, put the recipe in your lye calculator using the amounts, and then look at the percentages the calculator gives you. Adjust your percentages to what you like. Then when you're ready, you can set the amount of oils required for YOUR mold, then just put in percentages and the calc will give you the actual amount of oils you need for that size.

I'm not sure I just made sense

Thanks everyone!!

My mold is 9 x 3.5 x 2.5 = 78.75 x .4 = 31.5 so roughly 2lb mold. but if I use soapcalc and input 31.5 oz of oil (just used 100% OO for example) it wants 11.97 oz water and 4.011 lye that makes a total of 47.481 oz... Which wouldn't fit in my mold?

How do I figure out the amount of oil plus lye/water to equal 32 oz total to fit the mold?

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

Okay. I just didn't understand the concept of "oil weight" input but then adding more on top of it which would be too much to fit in the mold. I figured there would be a "total capacity" option and then it would say __ oz oil + ___ oz lye/water = 2lb, etc.

1/3 Blonde moment 1/3 Brainfart 1/3 Migraine lol

I use a 2# mold most of the time so I use 2# of oils. I like having the extra soap batter that I can pour into a small container and use for my family since most of my soap is for sale.

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

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Genny

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

That's a really good idea!

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~*~ Jennifer ~*~