Teach Soap

Because of the horrible attitude displayed by the mods in this forum, I have decided to leave, and to delete my tutorial.
Those of you interested in my rebatching technique can find it at:



Where you can incidentally also find lots of good, uncensored advise.

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A book for those who want to learn new things.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger
slow to understand.
Ignorance, and prejudice, and fear
go hand in hand..."

Neil Peart - Rush.

i like 'em.

what scent r they?

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~Shell

If you are a newbie, please don't try this until you have a few soap batches under your belt.

I use an electric salad shooter, so I don't need to chop anything.

InodoroPereyra,
How many lbs. of cut up soap did you add to the hot oils? How much oil, water and how much lye?

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

The initial soap was rosemary with cedarwood, eucalyptus and peppermint, but after using it for a few days it revealed to be irritant, so I rebatched with only rosemary. So it ended smelling like rosemary, with just a hint of the other scents.

_________________
A book for those who want to learn new things.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger
slow to understand.
Ignorance, and prejudice, and fear
go hand in hand..."

Neil Peart - Rush.

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

_________________
A book for those who want to learn new things.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger
slow to understand.
Ignorance, and prejudice, and fear
go hand in hand..."

Neil Peart - Rush.

So you used a 30% lye solution?

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

_________________
A book for those who want to learn new things.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger
slow to understand.
Ignorance, and prejudice, and fear
go hand in hand..."

Neil Peart - Rush.

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

Soapbuddy: I think we're talking about 2 different things. (Either that, or I'm completely confused)

When you calculate a recipe on soapcalc, it gives you, by default, a calculation for water= 38% of the total oil weight. I used 30% of the total oil weight in water, instead of 38%. I didn't use 30% of the water I should have used, if that's what you meant.

_________________
A book for those who want to learn new things.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger
slow to understand.
Ignorance, and prejudice, and fear
go hand in hand..."

Neil Peart - Rush.

Soapcalc gives you a 38% lye solution (not water) by default. If you used less water, then your lye solution will be higher.

Ok, let me help you. Try this lye solution strength calculator http://www.rivercitysoaps.com/dwcp/watercalc.php

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

_________________
A book for those who want to learn new things.

"Quick to judge, quick to anger
slow to understand.
Ignorance, and prejudice, and fear
go hand in hand..."

Neil Peart - Rush.

Your lye solution is lye and water, mixed together so that the lye is dissolved, meaning it's in solution. So the solution strength is the percentage of lye that's in the lye solution. No oil involved at this point.

There are basically two steps:
1. Figure out how much lye you need to use, based on the oils you've chosen for your soap.
2. Figure out how much water you need to use, based on how much lye you came up with in step 1.

You can use any lye calculator you like for step 1. For step 2, you can use SoapCalc if you click the "Set" box next to "Lye Concentration" and enter the desired number in the box by the % sign. Or you can use the water calculator at http://www.rivercitysoaps.com/dwcp/watercalc.php.

A note on the water calculator: It's set up to give you the amount of water to use with a given amount of lye to get a certain solution strength. There's also an option to figure out the solution strength for a given amount of lye and water. So if you know you've been using 8.8 ounces of lye and 21.1 ounces of water, you can plug those numbers in and find out your solution strength is 29.43%. Knowing where you're starting from helps if you want to try easing into stronger solutions.

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

You can also use the following table to figure out your water as well. Multiply your lye amount by the number given to get the % solution. Lye x 1 (equal weight of lye and water) is at the edge of the solubility of lye - you must be extremely careful. I don't think I've ever gone higher than 40% solution, and I've actually backed down to about a 38% solution for most of my recipes because it works better.

Lye x 1.0= 50%
L x 1.15= 46.5%
L x 1.2= 45.45%
L x 1.25= 44.44%
L x 1.3= 43%
L x 1.4= 41.66%
L x 1.5= 40%
L x 1.6= 38%
L x 1.7= 37%
L x 1.75= 36%
L x 1.8= 35.7%
L x 1.9= 34.5%
L x 2= 33% - a common one
L x 2.1= 32%
L x 2.3= 30%

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