Teach Soap

maybe you should look up a "baby" recipe on here? I can't remember where I found it (my notes are not here) but it was somewhere on this forum. If you search baby soap or sensitive soap, you should find it. Try that and see if that makes a difference. If everything goes well, you can tinker with that (make sure you run everything through a lye calc!) to make it your own. I've never made soap with canola or lard..usually olive, Shea, castor, and coconut. I also tried using shortening just to see what it would be like. I would look into the properties of each oil and try to find the most suitable for sensitive skin. And as Soapbuddy suggested, I now soap at 7% SF. I can feel a difference for sure. I used to go between 3-5%.

Just tinker in 1 pound batches and in no time, you'll have an awesome bar of soap! (and don't forget to make your friends try out your stuff too. lol)

Thanks for the suggestion Beanie! I have looked up some oil properties and stuff, but I'm also trying to stay within a budget x__x Lol, oh well, I will definitely look up some baby recipes though!

I know that the baby recipe I found was just olive oil, coconut and castor. I get my Olive oil from Sam's ($14 for one gallon = .11/oz), coconut from Wholesale Supplies Plus ($24 for one gallon plus free shipping if you spend $30 or more=.19/oz), Castor from BB ($4 for 16 oz= .25/oz) and lye from The Lye Guy (buy 5 get one free...about 252 oz for $30=.12/oz). Distilled water is $1 for one gallon at Wal-Mart (about .01 per oz).

The recipe I found on here a million years go was 60% Olive, 35% coconut and 5% castor. However, I brought the coconut to 20% and upped the Olive to 75%. Let's say you want a one pound batch (one pound of oils that is) and it is superfatted 7%:


Castor Oil 0.80oz $.20
Coconut Oil (92 Degrees) 3.20oz $.61
Olive Oil 12.00oz $1.32
7% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount 2.126oz $.26
Ounces of liquid recommended 5.28oz $.06
Yields 23.41oz

That's a total cost of $2.45 for that one pound loaf. Of course, that's unscented and uncolored. Now, if you cut each bar to be 4.5 oz each, that's 5 bars you get. So, each bar would cost you $.49. That's one heck of a cheap Xmas gift right there! Once you get a basic formula down, you may want to start to use the more "exotic" butters and oils. Look out for sales and close-outs. BB is a GREAT place to get Shea. I will only get a lot of my stuff from BB. Just shop around and you'll be able to afford some good stuff, no problem!

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

Thanks for the suggestion!

And I always use the metric system for measuring