Soap Making 101

[Morgaine]

I buy my Palm Oil from Mountain Rose Herbs by the gallon but am looking for a cheaper place to buy.

If you do purchase Palm oil, make sure it is Palm KERNEL oil, not palm fruit. The palm fruit will make your soap a rusty orange colour. Been there done that.

There are 3 different kinds of Palm oils used by soap makers. Palm, Palm Kernal, and Red Palm.

Red Palm and Palm are basically the same, but the Red is unrefined and that is why it has the red color to it. Refined Palm oil is white and looks a lot like crisco when hard. This is from the flesh if the palm fruit.

Palm Kernal Oil is made from the kernal inside the fruit and has a different fatty acid profile than Palm. IT is much more like coconut when used in soap.

I get my Palm from Columbus Foods. I like to get the No stir stuff in a 50# cube. THat way I don't ahve to worry about the stearic acid settling on the bottom of the pail.

 

[Morgaine]

I think stick mixer is what I mean--The kind you hold in your hand and plunge down into the lye-oil mixture. It was fast and great for the first batch, then took forever for the second until it got so hot I had to hold it with a washrag, then started smoking, then died. What?!?!

Any suggestions on brands? This one was an Oster. I want to make soap so badly that I'm thinking about doing it in my Kitchenaid instead!

Also, exactly how dangerous is the lye? I accidentally got a whiff while stirring the lye and water and was reminded to not breathe over it. I also got some on my hands, but I sprayed it right away with vinegar. Exactly how careful must I be. What happens to clothing, countertops and dishes if the lye is not washed off right away?

Stick Blenders are not made to be on constantly. I pulse my in 5 second burst while I also use it to stir. So far I have not burned out a stick blender, even when I make 30 pounds of soap a day. I like the Hamilton Beach SB so much better then the Oster one.

Different oils trace in different time too. Corn I haven't used by it's self, but Olive takes FOREVER. Last batch of castile took 30 minutes! And I was soaping at 120 temp too.


If you ever get lye on you again, please rinse it off with water first! The vinegar will start another chemical reaction and can actually make the burn worse before it neutralizes the lye. But the vinegar should be great to use to clean your area if you did spill some lye or raw soap around.

I had one batch of soap one time that seized sooo bad that I was not able to get it properly mixed and the lye seperated out. Some of it dripped onto my carpet and it ate a hole in the carpet and even into the plywood! So be very careful with it!

 

[me&thegals]

Lots of great new information! Welcome, newbs to this thread

Thought I would stick an idea out there that I don't think I've mentioned. All (or nearly all) the soaps I have made so far have beeswax and/or honey in them. I REALLY like soap with beeswax. I've made a couple castile batches, but put 2-4% beeswax in, and they are really nice hard bars. Actually, the 2% beeswax castile is quite soft, but the 4% is beautiful.

Anyway, since I'm a beekeeper and gardener I plan to have products from the hive and garden in all my soap. I found a cool idea online for making a honeycomb effect in the bars of soap. I lined my silicone pan with bubble wrap facing upwards, sprayed it really good with canola oil, then poured my soap batter in at a thinner trace. It filled in beautifully and peeled off perfectly beautifully. It is some really stunning soap. When the batter had hardened a little bit in the mold, I used a toothpick to texture the top with swirls a bit, somewhat like frosting on a cupcake.

 

[Carolyn]

I got a soap done like that a year ago in a soap swap, she also patted the top with bubble wrap and then put a glass bee in it. beautiful--hey ever whipped soap or piped it with cake decorating tips

 

[grannyB]

I just tried an experiment. Using a recipe of 16 oz olive oil, 8 oz peanut oil, 6 oz coconut oil, and 2 oz shea butter, I entered these amounts in 3 different online lye calculators, using a superfat of 8%. Every one came out with different amounts of lye and water. The lye ranged from 3.98 to 4.29 oz and the water ranged from 8 to 12 oz.



One of my books says water to lye ratio is best at 2.5 to 1. So I figure that if I am in the range of 4 to 4.2 oz of lye I would okay as long as my water ratio was right.

What would you do? Please give me your suggestions.

 

[valmom]

I love the idea of honey soap- but we go through so much honey eating it it seems like a waste to put it in soap! We don't have hives- yet.

I unmolded my lemongrass/sage scented today- I LOVE the smell. So clean smelling and light! I do hope it dries a bit harder, though. This is only my second batch with coconut oil in it, and they are both sort of soft. (the other oils are olive, crisco, and canola). I used 20% coconut to try to get some sudsing action since the batches I made before this have a hard, thin lather rather than suds. Is that too much? Does coconut soften the bar that much? I use soapcalc to try to see if my oils will make a harder/softer bar, and try to aim for harder.

This was only my 5th batch of soap, so I am still very new at this!

 

[Morgaine]

I just tried an experiment. Using a recipe of 16 oz olive oil, 8 oz peanut oil, 6 oz coconut oil, and 2 oz shea butter, I entered these amounts in 3 different online lye calculators, using a superfat of 8%. Every one came out with different amounts of lye and water. The lye ranged from 3.98 to 4.29 oz and the water ranged from 8 to 12 oz.



One of my books says water to lye ratio is best at 2.5 to 1. So I figure that if I am in the range of 4 to 4.2 oz of lye I would okay as long as my water ratio was right.

What would you do? Please give me your suggestions.

The reson why you got several different calcs was because each calc prob has a different sap value for the oils you entered. Some online calcs have a 5% superfat prebuilt into the sap values. One reason why I try to always use the same calc when formulating a recipe. My personal preference is soapcalc because it lets you easily do % and then resize for different molds.

The water will vary depending on how they calculate it. Some do it as a lye solution and others as a percent of the weight of the oils. I find always thinking in terms of a lye solution much simpler because 1 pound of Olive will have a different lye amount than 1 pound of Coconut and if you base it on weight of oils you could get into trouble if you have a tricky fo or something.

I most often use a 40-45% lye solution. That's strong, but I know my recipe and only use on well behaved fo's.

 

[Morgaine]

I love the idea of honey soap- but we go through so much honey eating it it seems like a waste to put it in soap! We don't have hives- yet.

I unmolded my lemongrass/sage scented today- I LOVE the smell. So clean smelling and light! I do hope it dries a bit harder, though. This is only my second batch with coconut oil in it, and they are both sort of soft. (the other oils are olive, crisco, and canola). I used 20% coconut to try to get some sudsing action since the batches I made before this have a hard, thin lather rather than suds. Is that too much? Does coconut soften the bar that much? I use soapcalc to try to see if my oils will make a harder/softer bar, and try to aim for harder.

This was only my 5th batch of soap, so I am still very new at this!

Coconut will add hardness to your bars. If you are using the default amount of water on soap calc, most recipes will be soft because they reccomend a LOT of water. It's something like a 26% lye solution I think? Anyway, if you want a harder bar faster, go to the number 3 step, water. The default is 38% of your total weight of oils. Change it instead to lye concentration and put in the mumber 33. You have a very forgiving recipe and can easily discount your water by that and not have any problems. You will get a much harder bar faster that way.

Oh, and Lemongrass and sage sound lovely together! Did you blend it yourself? I have both eo's and might try that combo. I've done lime, basil and mint eo's before that was very fresh and herby.

Oh, and 20% coconut is not too much at all! It's just about right for me. I that in my bars. I also do 100% coconut or sometimes I do 80% Co, 20% shea butter and will do a 20% superfat with those two recipes. Lovely soap with a ton of bubbles. Makes a great salt bar too.

Lard will make a nice hard bar too that has a really creamy lather.

 

[valmom]

Wow- 20% superfat? How high can you go before the bar is too fatty? I go with the default 5% superfat on soapcalc because I know nothing yet I just bought some shea butter, too to try.

I will try discounting the water a bit more- the bars really do seem to take a long time to age and harden. I've been leaving them 4 weeks and even so one of my batches are very soft still (although, that one might have been a bust since it was starting to set up in the pan!)

The lemongrass and sage is from Southern Scents- I bought their sampler pack and I love that option. I make 1 pound at a time and used 1/2 ounce of scent, and it is plenty strong (SO is pretty sensitive to smells and gets migraines).

 

[Grandma Goldie]

I have never made soap but I have read this entire thread and there is a lot of good information here. I just have a question (one for now) Which is easier to start with a cp soap or a hp soap? Or does it make a difference?