Very first recipe! Feedback?

I'm going to try making CP soap for the very first time! I created this recipe on BrambleBerry's lye calculator. I would very much like some feedback on it! It seems like it might be too complicated, but I'd like to use up some of my oils

Coconut Oil (76 Degrees)- 9.60oz- 30.0%
Olive Oil- 9.60oz- 30.0%
Almond Oil (Sweet)- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Apricot Kernel Oil- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Avocado Oil- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Castor Oil- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Grapeseed Oil- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Kokum Butter- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Shea Butter (Unrefined)- 1.60oz- 5.0%
Sweet Almond Oil- 1.60oz- 5.0%
5% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount- 4.470oz
Ounces of liquid recommended 10.56oz
Yields 47.03oz

I'm planning on discounting the water 20% and adding 2oz aloe vera juice after trace. Thoughts?

Edit: I ran the recipe through Soapcalc and adjusted it to improve the hardness, lather, and conditioning:

Apricot Kernal Oil- 5%
Castor Oil- 10%
Coconut Oil- 76 deg 35%
Grapeseed Oil- 5%
Kokum Butter- 5%
Olive Oil- 25%
Shea Butter- 10%
Sunflower Oil- 5%
Total: 32 oz
Lye: 4.576 oz (5% superfat)
Fragrance oil: 0.2 oz
Water: 10.16 oz
2 oz Aloe Vera juice added at trace

This is so exciting! I would really love to hear any feedback you might have on this recipe!

It's a bit ambitious for your first batch. Plus I think the cleansing value is a little high (23) and at 5% SF, it will probably be drying. I have dry skin so I like my recipes to be more conditioning with a lower cleansing value. But this is just my opinion.

Also, why would you want to add aloe juice at trace? It's a liquid.

You could drop your recipe down to about 4 oils. You could use the rest of the oils in other batches. If you want, I can make some suggestions about percentages, etc.

Hi Hazel! I am open to any and all suggestions. I agree it's a little ambitious for my first try haha.

Should the aloe juice just be added to the water then before mixing in the lye? What SF % would you suggest for a more conditioning bar?

I use either all aloe juice as the liquid or as half of the liquid. So just add it to your other liquid.

It's really not the SF that makes the soap conditioning, it's the combination of the oils. Do you have palm oil? The reason I ask is because it will help make a harder bar. Olive will help with conditioning and it will get harder but you'll have to let it cure much longer. The soaps I've made with high OO generally take 2 months or longer depending on what oils I've combined with it.

For example, you could try

10% AKO
10% Castor
30% CO
50% OO

Hardness 33
Cleansing 20
Conditioning 63
Bubbly 29
Creamy 22

You see how low the hardness value is but it will eventually get hard but it might take 2-3 months. You don't have to wait that long to use the soap but it will dissolve more quickly. The cleansing value is higher than I like but the conditioning value is higher so this will help. I like to superfat my soaps between 6%-8%. It just depends on what oils I'm using. For this recipe, I'd use an 8% SF because the coconut is 30%. I've found it's better for my skin if I use CO at 20%-25%.

Also, I wouldn't discount your water too much since it's your first batch. I'll play around with your other oils and see what I can come up with for recipes.

eta: Have you considered using the kokum butter as a whipped butter instead of using it in soap? I think the combinations of kokum, shea and one of the oils (either grapeseed, almond, sunflower or apricot) would make a nice body butter. Of course, you could use a blend of oils to add with the butters.

Thanks for the suggestions. I do not have palm oil. Here's a list of the oils I have: sweet almond, apricot kernel, avocado, peanut, sunflower, sesame, extra virgin olive, camellia, castor, grapeseed, and coconut. Plus, I have kokum, shea, and cocoa butters. I also have honey powder, beeswax, glycerine, and stearic acid, if that helps any.

I'd like to make a soap that's not too drying, but also has a decent lather.

ETA: Yes, I do make whipped butters with the kokum, shea, and cocoa butters anhydrous products like lip balm and solid lotions are what got me interested in making soap.

I'm with Hazel - four oils at most is fine for a first outing and depending on what fragrance you use (if any), I'd go with full water or close to it and maybe 7% superfat.

Good luck and enjoy!

Cirafly24 said:

Thanks for the suggestions. I do not have palm oil. Here's a list of the oils I have: sweet almond, apricot kernel, avocado, peanut, sunflower, sesame, extra virgin olive, camellia, castor, grapeseed, and coconut. Plus, I have kokum, shea, and cocoa butters. I also have honey powder, beeswax, glycerine, and stearic acid, if that helps any.

I'd like to make a soap that's not too drying, but also has a decent lather.

ETA: Yes, I do make whipped butters with the kokum, shea, and cocoa butters anhydrous products like lip balm and solid lotions are what got me interested in making soap.

Click to expand...

Oooh! You have avocado. I love avocado in soaps and lotions. I've been going through my recipes and almost all of them include palm oil. The only ones that don't are either high percentage CO or high percentage OO which both require longer curing times.

For example, one of my recipes is 85% CO, 10% castor, 5% cocoa butter with 17% SF. I added some coconut milk to it but you don't have to use the milk. It is a very hard bar and produces big bubble lather. I used soapcalc to calculate the lye and left the "water as percent of oil weight" at 38% because I was using a new FO. It stayed soft for a couple of days before I cut it. I've noticed when I use coconut milk that the batches seem to stay softer but that might be because I don't gel them.

Next time I make this batch, I plan on upping the SF to 20% because I still find it a little drying for me. However, friends and family have commented they really like it. It just depends on your skin type.

I said earlier that it's not the SF that makes the soap conditioning, it's the combination of the oils. I should mention that's not true with high percentage CO soap. You have to use a high SF to offset the drying property of the coconut oil.

Since you don't have palm oil, do you have new Crisco with palm oil? I've used this in several recipes and family and friends have liked all the batches I've used it in. I starting using Crisco because I can buy it anywhere and it also adds conditioning. All the batches had great lather. Most people don't realize that Crisco was originally created for making soap.

One of my basic recipes that I use for experiments is

30% Olive oil
30% Coconut oil
30% Crisco new w/ palm
10% Castor oil

Hardness 36
Cleansing 20
Conditioning 60
Bubbly 29
Creamy 25

For me, I've changed this recipe to lower the coconut and I use 7% SF

30% Olive oil
25% Coconut oil
35% Crisco new w/ palm
10% Castor oil

Hardness 34
Cleansing 17
Conditioning 63
Bubbly 26
Creamy 26

Both of these recipes create a soap that lathers great after only 4 weeks. I also allow these soaps to gel if I don't use milk in them.

This is just a suggestion but for your first batch you could make a castile soap. This would be simple to try and give you some experience with the soap making process. The downside is castile soap's lather is best if it cures 6 months or longer. When I first started soaping, I didn't want to make a castile because I thought I didn't want to wait that long to use the soap. I kicked myself later that I didn't. I didn't make my first castile until a year after I started soaping.

Using some of the oils you listed, you could try the below recipe with 7% SF. I think this would create a nice bar. I'd try it myself if I hadn't run out of avocado.

45% Olive oil
30% Coconut oil
10% Avocado
10% Castor
5% Cocoa butter

Hardness 37
Cleansing 20
Conditioning 59
Bubbly 29
Creamy 25

I hope this helps you.

Wow, thank you for all the information!! I really appreciate it

I think I will try that last recipe. I just have to get the lye!

You're welcome.

I saved the last recipe because I liked the values on it. As soon as I get some avocado I want to try it myself. Thanks for posting because I wouldn't have come up with it if you hadn' t been asking about your recipe. I think it might be a very nice soap.

Just wanted to give you an update! Last night, I made my first CP soap using the recipe you suggested. Everything went smoothly and I'll be cutting it tonight. Can't wait to see how it turned out! I will post pictures

Congratulations! I can't wait to see the pics.

I'm finally getting around to ordering some avocado. I want to try this recipe, too.

Of course, now I also need to buy more olive 'cuz I don't have enough. :roll:

Here they are! The soap was at the perfect texture for cutting, trimming, and making soap balls. Reminds me of working with clay.





After trimming all the bars, I had quite a bit left over, so I made some soap balls!

Wow! Those look great. You'll have to let me know how well it lathers in a few weeks.

Hazel- wanted to give you an update on that recipe! I tried the soap this week, and the lather is great...very stable and creamy. It was not drying at all, in fact, I didn't even need to use hand lotion afterward. Definitely a keeper!

Thanks again for your advice

Here's a photo

Fantastic! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out and I'm really glad you like it. I would have felt terrible if you had made it and then found you didn't like it.

I finally got some avocado and olive but I haven't had time to soap. I just realized it's been 4 weeks since I made my last batch. I'm going into withdrawal. I hope I can get a couple of batches done this coming weekend since it's a 3 day weekend.

I came back to this thread because I loved my first soap so much, I want to make it again...and I'm just dying laughing at my recipe in the first post.

Thanks again for reigning me in, Hazel, and for coming up with such a great recipe for me! Did you ever end up trying it out? It's really great...my fiance liked it so much that he's begging me to make a batch for him for Christmas with his favorite scent.

Oh my! I completely forgot about this post. I'm so glad you liked it. I kind of made this but I made it with 50% OO and left out the cocoa butter. I also added heavy cream for approximately 1/4 of the liquid. I thought it turned out very nice. It was little soft at first but hardened up nicely after a longer cure. Now I'd have to order more CB in order to make it. I just don't know where my supplies go.

I think shea would be really nice in place of the cocoa butter. Have you tried using a different butter?

I've recently been using high oleic sunflower oil and subbing it into my recipes in place of avocado. I really like it plus it's more stable than regular sunflower because of the way it's processed. It's also cheaper than avocado. :wink:

Thank you for letting me now that you liked this recipe. I'm really glad it worked well for you.

I haven't tried it with shea butter! I actually just ordered a couple pounds of shea butter because I use it straight on my hair and skin, so maybe I'll try it out in soap too.

I hadn't used CB in anything for a long time...I had forgotten how amazing it smells! When I opened a fresh container last night I wanted to eat it

Please let me know if you try this with shea. I'm interested in hearing how it would turn out. I'm very low on butters and I've been wanting to do a foot/elbow butter so I'm reserving the little I have left for it.