Soap Making 101

[flossy]

Hi all, brand new here (but been lurking for ages). Sorry if this question is a bit dumb, but I am keen as to make some soap for the first time. I found this recipe
Ingredients
8 ounces of shortening
6 ounces of coconut oil
2 ounces of olive oil
2.34 ounces of lye
6 ounces of water
1/4 ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate
2 ounces of white chocolate

First does it look all right to those of you who actually know something about all of this!! and what is shortening? I am from New Zealand, and I don't recall using shortening in anything. Could it be subsituted for canola oil or something similar?

 

[valmom]

I ran it through soapcalc, and the lye concentration looks right, except for the fat in the chocolate. I don't know how that would affect anything. "Shortening" is a solid fat sold in grocery stores here like Crisco (that's what I plugged in). Crisco is a mix containing, I think, mostly palm oil.

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/ViewRecipe.asp

 

[Farmfresh]

I would use Cocoa powder instead of the chocolate if you want to use it. Makes it cheaper, easier to calculate and doesn't wast a VALUABLE resource like chocolate!

 

[valmom]

Ooo, good idea. Wonder how much would make it smell really chocolat-y? (has anyone noticed that next to the regular hershey's cocoa powder there is hershey's special dark cocoa powder? )

 

[Farmfresh]

I make a Chocolate swirl bar adding the cocoa to one part of the soap recipe and then lightly mixing them as I pour them into the mold to produce a dark brown and white marbled bar of soap. Lovely to look at ... but beware! I used too much cocoa one time and ended up with chocolate suds!

It still worked just fine but it puts folks off to have brown bubbles in the soap!!

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I just had to browse here a bit. I'm not making real soap yet -- just the melt and pour kind in days past. (Though maybe I should -- I'm on the last bar of my olive oil soap stash and I'm going to need something QUICK). I'm saving extra goat milk now and hoping to have enough for a batch (with a pg FF heading into fall, that might or might not happen).

As far as chocolate-scented soap, I remember when I first got a jar of pure cocoa butter as a skin cream. Who knew it would be so HARD! When I finally scratched enough off and rubbed it into my skin, I went around smelling chocolate all day.

I think I would gain a lot of weight if I smelled like chocolate EVERY day!

 

[flossy]

Thanks you guys, that was great. And a total score this morning, a friend poped by and had a box of stuff for me, with sweet almond oil and apricot kernal oil, so I'm feeling extra happy at the other recipies I can look at.

 

[Panther Creek Homestead]

You guys are in the doghouse! Now I have spent the better part of a day reading this thread and want to run out and get all the ingredients. I also could totally see where this gets addicting. **running all the food smelling soap through my head**

 

[me&thegals]

You guys are in the doghouse! Now I have spent the better part of a day reading this thread and want to run out and get all the ingredients. I also could totally see where this gets addicting. **running all the food smelling soap through my head**

It IS bad, really, really bad! This week alone I made a few batches of cucumber-mint soap, tomato-basil, carrot-oats-goat's milk and a batch of chocolate-mint kitchen soap. I still have quite a list to get through

 

[flossy]

Ok then, what is everyone's favourite soap, for whatever reasons, smell, feel, whatever. What is number 1 for you?