Teach Soap

Greetings assembled soapers,

In the last materials order, I bought a couple of ingredients not used before, and came up with the following recipe (which I think will produce a softish, moisturising-y bar) I intend to use the diluted rose absolute with. Unfortunately, the online calculators I have used (MMS, SoapCalcb the main ones) don't seem to include Apricot Butter. Almond butter has a similar SAP value (.098 vs .097) which Im sure I could use instead, but Ive done the calcs manually anyway, and just wondered if someone could double check them please?

Olive oil (25%) 188g
coconut oil (20%) 150g
Apricot butter (10%) 75g
Avocado oil (10%) 75g
Palm oil (20%) 150g
Castor oil (5%) 38g
Illipe butter (5%) 38g
Wheatgerm oil (5%) 38g

NaOH 100g

I figure this should give me a 7% superfat.

ANy thoughts? I'm sure I have included more oils than necessary, and the combo of a highish % of apricot/avocado/castor might mean it takes a while longer to harden, but I like playing

Cheers,
Adam

I haven't used most of those, but I do know that wheatgerm oil has a tendency to go rancid pretty quickly, so I would add some ROE or Vit E to prevent that.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
Like us: http://www.facebook.com/AvitalsApiaries

Do you think it might be a problem, even at 5%? I always add grapefruit seed extract to batches as a preservative anyway.

A further problem in doing these calculations seems to be that not every oil/butter has an agreed SAP value! For instance, sweet almond butter has two very different values at these links
http://www.pvsoap.com/saponification_chart.htm
http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp

Cheers,
Adam

I would use the SAP of soy for the apricot butter, leave out the wheatgerm and the rose hydrosol. The last one will not add much scent if at all. Grapefruit seed extract is not a preservative but an anti-oxidant. The pH of CP soap is high enough that it doesn't need a preservative.

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

Ok, thanks for the input. Would you replace the wheatgerm with anything, or just leave it out completely?

Adam

I would leave the wheatgerm out. I would also lower your apricot butter and your avocado. Both of those are so called "soft" oils. Go with a higher % of olive. Is Illipe butter a hard or a soft butter?

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

As far as I can tell, the illipe is sortof a substitute for cocoa butter. And I wanted to include the apricot butter as it's one of the new acquisitions
Im happy for it to be a softish bar - I dont mind waiting a little longer for it to cure.

Adam

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

Much appreciated - I shall post up some pix when cut
I'll just do a single batch, and see what happens.

Cheers,
Adam