Teach Soap

I've been using a recipe that I found in a book, but I would like to start experimenting with making my own recipes. I currently have coconut oil, cocoa butter, olive oil and castor oil on hand. Using the Bramble Berry lye calculator, I came up with this recipe:

10 oz. Olive oil
4 oz. Coconut oil
2 oz. Cocoa Butter
2.21 oz. lye
5.28 oz. liquid

I have a few questions though...I randomly decided on a 5% superfat when I calculated the recipe. How do you decide how much you should superfat? Would adding a tablespoon of castor oil to this recipe be too much? I'm also concerned that the soap might be too hard or brittle because of the cocoa butter and coconut oil. Any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I would calculate the castor oil right into your recipe. Maybe 0.5 oz. Since lye is still very active at trace, there is no guaratee that your castor will end up as your superfat. Add everything right up front. I prefer a 7% s uperfat because that's what my skin likes. Try it and see. Since this is a small recipe, I would convert the ozs. into grams. It will be more accurate that way.

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