Teach Soap

Does anyone have any idea if I need to throw this batch out? I was intending to make a batch w/ 180 ounces of oils but I somehow used the lye calc recipe that adjusted it to 100 ounces of oils.

I sure liked the lye calc better the way it used to be when it asked you how many oils total instead of having to resize the batch everytime.

I was trying to make a man-scented soap so on the fragrance calculator I put in 263 ounces of soap, which is what 180 ounces of oils makes. It said I should use between 7.23 ounces of Atlas Cedar for light and 13.5 ounces for heavy. I used a total of eight ounces of EOs in 100 ounces of oils. The breakdown is as follows: 4 ounces of Atlas Cedarwood, 2 ounces of bergamot, 0.5 ounces of clove, & 1.5 ounces of rosemary.

I re-ran the fragrance calc for 100 ounces of oils and it says for that amount I can use 4.25 ounces of Atlas cedar, whereas I used only four ounces, but plus another 4 ounces of the other three EOs.

This was a pretty expensive mistake. I am thinking I need to throw it. I can't even use it for laundry soap bc it is superfatted at 10%. Argh.

When I calculate my essential oils for soap, I only go by the amount of oils and not oils/water/lye. I extrapolate each essential oil separately, then make a blend according to the safe usage of each essential oil.

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

I'm kind of new to this but couldn't you make another batch the same size without the scent and then re-batch the two batches half and half? Then you would be at 5% super fat.

10% superfat isn't so bad. I normally superfat at 7-8%. My skin finds anything below that drying.

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

Ok. I will take that as a yes that I should throw it away. Thank you.

That is good to know that you calculate your EOs based on the oils not the total amount of soap. Do you know why the BB fragrance calculator asks for how much soap you are making, rather than how much oil? Maybe they meant to ask for how much oils rather than how much soap (they should change that) bc I went back and put in 100 ounces of 'soap' into the fragrance calc and for either cedarwood or atlas it said 2.75 - 5 ounces, which pretty much jives w/ my link below that says to not go above an ounce of EOs per lb of oil. Wow thanks SB. That is super important to know.

So where do YOU get safe usage rates for essential oils in cold process soap, noble teacher? I cannot find it on the IFRA website. I googled it and came up w/ this from modernsoapmaking.com: http://www.modernsoapmaking.com/essenti ... uidelines/

This list does not specify between Atlas Cedar and regular cedarwood, but it says 0.5 ounces per lb of oils. So for 100 ounces of oil that would be 3.125 ounces. Thank God for this forum and you for answering questions. I really appreciate it. Can I send you some super awesome puerh tea from some 400 year old Chinese tea trees as a thank you ? You have answered so many questions for me...

I would NOT throw it out. I would chop it up and remake it into two batches. I do not use the BB fragrance calculator. I love them for everything BUT the calculator. It does not seem to differentiate between EOs and FOs, although they say it is correct.

I use Thesage.com for the calculators. They do everything by the amount of oils being used in your soap batch and they differentiate between EOs and FOs. I've never had an issue with their calculators.

Hope this helps.

Saradippity Soaps

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

Thank you Jilly Bean & SB. Of, course- shred it & add it to an unscented two batch! Why didn't I think of that?

SB, if you like tea you should let me send you a cake of puerh tea for all the work you do on here & help you've given me. I sent ArtisanShelly some tea too after she taught me the room temperature glycerin method for ls making, & you have been equally kind. I was flabbergasted the first time someone (a Buddhist monk) turned me on to this stuff. If you like, just pm me an address.

I'm going to have to try thesage.com calculator. Do you mean just for the fragrance calc or also for the lye calculator? I love the BB lye calc...

I use The Sage Lye Calculator as that was one of the first online calculators. I don't need all the bells and whistles that other calculators provide. I'm pretty familiar what each oil does in soap. I just need the right amount of lye and the water range. That's another nice thing about The Sage lye calc. It gives you a water variance if you want to do a water discount.

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

I have a question about TheSage.com lye calc, specifically the liquid content. I am making a batch of liquid soap and there is a HUGE discrepancy between the BB lye calc & TheSage.com. For 100 ounces of coconut oil w/ KOH superfatted at 0%, BB is telling me to use 80 ounces of liquid whereas the sage says to use 25-38 ounces. What's up w/ that?

I am using 100% pure KOH from Essential Depot, rather than the 90% purity level that the BB lye calc assumes, and since I am superfatting at 0% I thought maybe it was important to use a lye calc that assumes the correct purity level so my batch doesn't come out lye-heavy. I have used the BB lye calc w/ this same recipe AND Essential Depot lye before and not had a problem, so I am thinking I will use the liquid content of 80 from the BB lye calc and the lesser lye amount from the Sage calc. Any idea why there is a greater than 100% discrepancy between the two lye calculators on the liquid content?

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

I just got off the phone w/ Essential Depot inquiring about the lye purity, but first- SB, do I presume correctly that you prefer to use the specified water amount from thesage.com lye calculator, rather than the BB lye calc?

It is good that the BB lye calc states that calculations are made using 90% lye purity but thesage.com doesn't give that information. Do you have any idea? On a 100 ounce batch, the lye difference is about one ounce, which is significant but not a 10% difference, which would have been about 2.5 ounces.

I am hoping to contribute something to the forum by explaining that ArtisanShelly suggested making laundry detergent from 100% coconut oil superfatted at 0% and I have done that many times w/ no problem and I use it also for dish soap and often hand soap as well from a foam dispenser w/ no problem. The liquid soap I make for hair/body is from olive oil superfatted @ 3%, but whenever I do that the latter recipe always seizes when I add citric EOs or clove, but I can add as much of that stuff as I want to the 0% superfatted coconut soap and it stays a perfect liquid. That's why I like to superfat at 0%. But the 3% superfat recipe makes a very nice hand soap when you intentionally make it seize w/ the citrus EOs & clove. I put it in a large cup by the sink for handwashing & I LOVE it, but I speculate it could be used as body gel as well. I have been using the 0% superfatted coconut as a hand soap from a foam dispense, using the BB lye calc w/ no problem. You are correct that their KOH is roughly 90% pure, but the NAOH is very nearly 100%.

I wrote Essential Depot asking about the lye purity question, and not receiving a reply in 48 hours I called them & just got off the phone. I checked the MSDS sheet from Essential Depot's lye products and the KOH it says is 100% and the NAOH is 95-100%, but apparently that is incorrect. They finally put me on the phone with a supervisor who asked me for the batch number on my products along w/ the expiration date bc apparently the purity varies from batch to batch, but the short answer is their NAOH is guaranteed at 96% and the KOH at 90%, but they try for 100% on the NAOH. The KOH is a less pure product, generally being manufactured by reacting NAOH w/ impure potassium.

The supervisor looked up the NAOH & KOH batch numbers I am currently using, and it is 99.6% & 90.8% pure, respectively. He suggested everytime I get a new batch I write their technical department (techdep t@ essentialdepot . com) to inquire about purity levels. But the NAOH is pretty much 100% pure. Thought you might want to know.

Clove oil will make your soap seize. That's just one of the essential oils that will do that. Since I prefer not to neutralize (I don't want to fuss with it once I'm done) I always superfat at 3%. I know The Sage doesn't give you a choice on the purity of lye, but I have never had a problem with their lye calculator. I've done this for years.

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

As per Jillybeans suggestion, yesterday I shredded the soap I put too much EOs into and added it to a new unscented batch. I am worried about 'fragrance pockets' like SB talks about. I added the shredded soap to new soap at a light trace then globbed it into the mold, but this morning I can still see the shreds. It's hard enough, but I am not sure if it's safe to sell, even at a discount. I don't think I'm going to do the other half. Any opinions? Maybe it would be better to heat the soap shreds into a liquid before I add it to the new soap- anybody ever experimented w/ that?

Fragrance pockets happen when the soap seizes. This is not in your case. Some people add a small amount of water to the shreds, so they soften up overnight. Then you can add that to another batch. It might take longer to harden up due to the extra water.

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