Teach Soap

First of all Happy New Year!

I've been trawling through the posts and tuts etc in preparation of making some soap.

Now the questions!

I am looking to make a basic soap that I can just add bits to, so have found this recipe

24-28 oz. cold water (depending on how firm you want the bars in 24 hours)
12 oz. lye crystals
55 oz. olive oil
16 oz. palm oil
16 oz. coconut oil
Temps around 110-115 degrees

(http://www.millersoap.com/castile.html#FavCastile)

Which I thought would b good as my base. Then I can add bits, eg lime slices and fresh mint (sort of a wake up bar) or colour etc add whatever I fancy.

I was also looking to make a moisturising soap could I just add some shea butter to the above recipe?

Will the first recipe still moisturize the skin?

Many thanks.

Not to rain on your parade but you'd be wise to start with 1lb. batches . And you don't want to put lime slices or fresh mint in soap ( you won't like the outcome. You really need to use things that will stand up to the lye process. Having said that welcome to the world of soapmaking.

Thanks for the welcome. So to adjust the size is it ok to adjust the quantities up or down as LONG AS THE RATIO is the same?

So maybe I'll use the rhind of the lime and dried mint.

Will that recipe still be moisturizing though?

Thanks.

Welcome and Happy New Year. That's a very large batch of soap for a beginner. I'd do a 1 pound batch first as Linda Wise suggested. Also, you may want to wait until you have a few batches under your belt before experimenting with additives....and only try one new thing at a time so you can isolate problems if something goes wrong. I like adding lavender buds to my goat's milk lavender recipe. It took me a while to figure out to soak the buds in a tablespoon of olive oil for several hours before adding them or they all float and rise to the top instead of being suspended throughout the soap. You learn little tricks like that.

I ran your numbers through the soapcalc and it will make a conditioning bar of soap but you won't have much lather. Cleansing will be mediocre. You should run your numbers through a soap calculator and adjust by percentages of oils instead of "halving" or "quartering" recipes. www.soapcalc.com is a good one.

Shea butter has a lot of elements that don't siponify so it's a great superfatting agent and will moisturize the skin. I've used up to 15% in some recipe with good results.

Good Luck

Alot of your questions will be answered by going through the old posts on this websight. I do that and I've been making soap for 5 years. When Im thinking about useing somthing I've not used before I check the old posts to see if that subject has come up . That way you get instant answers.

I'm going to second what everyone else has said: start simple, start small and work your way up from there.

I made my first batch over a year ago, it was a coconut, olive and palm soap, no additives. Start with just a few ingredients and don't make a huge batch, this way you'll get comfortable with the process (i.e. using a soap calculator, seeing what trace is, practicing safety measures) before you get fancy and try to add things such as colors, scents or other stuff.

As others have mentioned, be careful what you add: most fruit/herbs, such as lime or mint, will turn brown and not look very pretty, nor will it feel very good on your skin if left in large chunks. Bottom line: read, read, read, watch youtube videos of the process and then start simple and small. You can't expect to be a concert pianist the first time you sit down at the piano . Enjoy and welcome to the forum!!

Oh, and to answer your questions: any CP soap that has a superfat in it is going to be much less drying to the skin than commercially prepared soap. Yes, for extra moisturizing, you can add shea butter to your recipe, but will have to adjust the amount of lye with a soap calculator. Happy New Year and happy soaping.

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Kim

Thanks for all the responses, I will start with a basic soap, probably the first recipe to dial process and setup.

Then I will start to tweak. I will also have a play with soapcalc.

I have read through the posts hence where my head was spinning!

OK, I've now used soap calc and have the following figures for the big batch quantity,

Hardness 29 - 54 34
Cleansing 12 - 22 13
Conditioning 44 - 69 63
Bubbly 14 - 46 13
Creamy 16 - 48 22
Iodine 41 - 70 65
INS 136 - 165 140

Does this tally with someone else?

I was going to add a few drops of essential oil to the mix to give it the hint or mint that I was after.

If this is in ozs., that's a pretty big recipe. I would recalculate so it's about 1 lb. A couple of drops of mint will not be enough to scent the recipe. For mint, I would go 0.5 oz. per lb., but your scent preference might be different.

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

I'm going for a batch which will yield about 500g so just over 1lb.

I will take note of the mint.

Thanks.

Let us know how it goes Smoog Enjoy!

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Kim