Teach Soap

I came across one of my grandmother's old "kettle lye soap" recipes and while I do not want to use lard or tallow and had to substitute butters...what do you think about this modification...does it look correct in percentages? I just cannot seem to wrap my head around this today. I should also note that I cut her recipe into a quarter batch and adjusted the water.

18 oz Coconut Oil
4 oz Castor Oil
5 oz Shea Butter
18 oz Palm Oil
12 oz Olive Oil
1 oz Coffee Butter
wild silk
8.30 oz of Lye
19 oz of water (I am thinking of splitting this up into 10 oz water, 4 oz Coffee and 5 oz buttermilk)
5% superfatting

Her recipe was written, as you can imagine, using terms like mason jar full, handful etc etc. LOL Should I switch the oils around or ??? This soap when she made it lathered great and was very silky.

I am still working out recipes myself so I am not going to be too much help. But if I have my math right (and I stress IF) then it seems that your coconut and castor oils might be a bit high. From what I've read you really don't want to go more than 25% for coconut as it gets drying to skin at higher rates. So you can reduce that and add it to the olive oil. I've never used coffee butter so I really don't know about it so personally, again, I'd leave that out and add the amount to the olive oil.

I think if I were to rewrite this recipe it'd go something more like this for a 3 lb batch @ the 5% super fat that you had. I know a lot of people are going more to 7%, so you may want to recalculate at that rate:

5% castor - 2.4 oz or 68.039 gm
31% palm - 14.88 oz or 421.841 gm
35% olive oil - 16.8 or 476.272 gm
8% Shea - 3.84 oz or 108.862 gm
21% coconut - 10.08 iz or 285.763 gm

ETA the water & lye amounts
Water 18.24 oz or 512.095 gm
5% discount - 6.681 oz or 189.399 gm
7% discount - 6.54 oz or 185.411 gm

Hardness = 42 (suggested range 29-54)
Cleansing = 14 (suggested range 12-22)
Conditioning = 55 (suggested range 44-69)
Bubbly = 19 (suggested range 14-46)
Creamy = 32 (suggested range 16-48)

Of course you may want to wait for one of the more experienced folk to chime in who can give you a much better idea about all this. Good luck with your recipe. What a treasure to have one from your grandmother.

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Lisa
“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul” ~ Yiddish proverb

Thank you...as I said it just was not clicking with me. I have several of hers but this one was very old, faded and written cryptic. LOL I just remember using it as a kid.

I agree looking at your numbers that the coconut oil should be reduced...thank you thank you. I like working with the coffee butter...it just adds a little extra bump to me however I could switch it to cocoa butter hmmmmm must think on this.

May ask what calculator you used?

Most coffee butters are made with hydrogenated soy. I would sub cocoa butter instead.

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

You're welcome. Glad I could be of some help. I used the SoapCalc @ http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp
Another good calculator is Majestic Mountain Sage's here http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php
I use soap calc when I know the percentages. If I can't get my math right (sometimes I just don't trust my calculations) and just know the weight, then I go to MMS and enter it there then I will compare that recipe to one on Soap Calc....just to be sure.

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Lisa
“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul” ~ Yiddish proverb

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

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Lisa
“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul” ~ Yiddish proverb

_________________
Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

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Lisa
“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul” ~ Yiddish proverb

It's a reasonable price. If you aren't going to sell, they have a "lite" version that does all the basic stuff. The full version has inventory, costing, invoicing, etc.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!