Teach Soap

Hi everyone,
I havent posted in a long time. I have put off my soapmaking for a while due to illness and haven't had any questions for a while. I was doing MP and that is pretty easy. But I have been lurking here for a while and soaking up as much info as I can. I recently read that I should convert to grams in CP for better accuracy. My question is about the amount of water needed for a recipe. I am looking at the basic 2 lb recipe in Anne Marie's e-book "Making Cold Process Soap".

6 oz Coconut Oil
6 oz Palm Oil
9 oz Olive Oil
1 oz Castor Oil
7 oz Water
3 oz Lye
1.4 oz fragrance

When I input the amounts in oz into SM3 everything equals what I would come up with in grams on a conversion chart except the water. My conversion chart tells me that 7 oz =198.44666188 grams but SM3 tells me I need 215.93 gr/ml of water. Could it be because it shows my Lye Solution Strength to be 28.3%? What should SM show my Strength to be? I have my Lye Discount set as 8% and am using all BB products.

Amy

I have always used oz and never had a problem.

I would leave the water in ozs, as that is not as critical.

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

Thank you both. I love this forum. Everyone is always so friendly and willing to help.

I have never used grams in anything (except grahams as in crackers! ). I use ounces because that is what I am used to. I have made eighty-three 36 bar batches of soap to date (122 ounces of oils, plus water & lye). One batch was crumbles and lye heavy for no apparent reason. one batch I grabbed a bottle of canola/olive blend which looked exactly like my olive oil bottle and so it did not work out. One batch came up oozing oil and big holes and I don't know why, but I rebatched it and it was fine.

Out of 83 batches, I've never used anything but ounces. I did realize that I have to be careful because my digital scale does its thing in the format of pounds:ounces:10th ounces. When weighing, if you want 19 ounces, you want 1:03:00 (16 ounces = 1 pound).

I absolutely would not worry about using ounces for the liquid; however WEIGH them on the scale. Do not go by a measuring cup. Not all measuring cups measure the same.

Happy Soaping!

I pretty much measure everything in ounces for my soap unless I'm making a small batch, then it's in grams. But, when I print my recipe I always have the amounts shown in both ounces and grams for easier reference. Lotion ingredients are always measured in grams.

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

If you need to rid your house of any kind of scent from FO to garbage, simple get out a flat bowl or other container and pour white vinegar into it and leave it on the counter for a day. House will be rid of other scents! Been using that trick for 30 years . . . it works!


Jill

Thanks for the tip. I use vinegar water to wipe my walls. Don't know why I didn't think of this. Will definitely use it from now on!