Soap Making 101

[Emerald]

Finally a good use for Crisco! lol I've been wanting to make more soap and I may be able to afford the crisco one.. but I am going to buy the cheaper store brand and use up the rest of my Honey/almond soap scent. Should be ready for the holiday gift giving spree!
My first soap that turned out so well had tons of ingredients. Coco butter, caster oil, olive oil but it did turn out fabulous. I may have to try squirreling away a bit of cocobutter every week till I get enuf to do it again.

 

[savingdogs]

The store brand at our store of Crisco was a totally different list of ingredients. I thought I could use store brand too but was glad I double checked that. I suppose you could run the new ingredients through soapcalc.

 

[Damummis]

I hope more folks sign up for the swap.

I just came up with a small custom batch recipe. I am trying it today.

Krisac - I really haven't followed the whole thread, just pop in from time to time. With soapcalc you can take a small amount of oils or just one oil and it will give the amount of water and lye you need. I wanted to try an olive oil soap. I had it on hand. I put in 12 ounces of olive oil into the calc and it came back with 4.56 oz of water and 1.54 ounces of lye.

A quick run thru of the how to of soapcalc.
#1 - what kind of lye. You usually don't change this option.
#2 - how are you weighing your oils. I change that to ounces.
#3 - water. Leave this as is.
#4 - super fat and fragrances. Leave this as is for now.
#5 - Soap qualities. I leave this too.
THE OIL LIST- click on the oil you will use. I clicked on Olive for the above recipe. THEN go to
#6 - hit the red + next to the #1. You will see your oil pop up in the column. Because I am using ounces I had to click on the ounce column and type in my amount.
Now, you hit the Calculate Recipe button and then the View or Print button. This will bring you to another page with your recipe with water and lye amounts.

That is basicly how the soapcalc works.

 

[krisac]

deleted by staff

 

[Farmfresh]

Actually I see many VERY patient people trying their very best to be helpful. They have made good suggestions. ... Perhaps your hands on lessons will help.

 

[krisac]

Oils/Fats:

Ounces:

Oil %:
Crisco/Veg. Shortening

16.00

100.00


Total Oils Weight:

16.00

Ounces
Or:

1

Lb.

0.00

oz.

Total Recipe Weight:

22.96

Ounces
Or:

1

Lb.

6.96

oz.
Calculated Alkali & Water Needed:
Sodium Hydroxide (Lye) :

2.09

Oz.
Minimum Water :

4.87

Oz.

Other Items:

Amounts:

Units:
goats milk

12.00

oz
this if you can make sense out of it is what the lye calculator gave me. I have apparently been using it wrong.

 

[Farmfresh]

deleted by staff

 

[Bettacreek]

Wow. Please, step back and take a deep breath. 20lbs of caustic slop isn't going to sell at all, so just calm down and make a 1lb batch of simple, unscented soap. You might be surprised at how many people would buy an unscented bar of homemade soap. I feel like everything people are saying is just going through one ear and out the other because you are just so frustrated with everything. You can't be. Take a step back and just take a little advice so that you can accomplish one batch of soap, then move on from there. Yes, there are incredibly advanced recipes out there, however, they're generally not put out there for someone who has never made soap before. I'm going to say that most people who've started and are successful soapers started out with a very basic, most likely unscented fragrance, unless they had someone holding their hand through it all to help them. Just do a small basic recipe, learn first hand what trace is (light and heavy) because you can't really tell through pictures. Light trace will just leave marks on the top of your soap but will be thin and settles into the rest of the soap in the bowl without aggitation, heavy trace, it doesn't settle into your main batch without agitation when you take your utensil with soap on it and let it drizzle back into the bowl.

 

[hillfarm]

Krisac, most of us on here enjoy sharing and helping eachother and occasionally for ranting about something we are frustated by. We all are trying to help, but you're responses havent been appreciative just defensive. Please try to take things with the intent they are shared. No one was chiding you, simply trying to help.

 

[elevan]

Learning something new is often frustrating. Please allow frustrations to cool before hitting the submit button...

And as always, use the report button when there is a need for it.