New to soap making.

Dear All,

Hello, I am new to soap making. I have never made a soap in my life only ever bought them.

I would like to make a soap from scratch. I recently came across "Grandpa Pine Tar Soap", from America. I really love the earthiness of the soap and the fact it is basic in its ingredients and contains no added perfumes.

I would like to make a similar soap. So would appreciate any help and advice.

kind regards

Jam and cream scones.
United Kingdom.

Hi, and welcome, Jam!

You need to do a lot of watching videos before you are ready to make soap. I would start here:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR6ttCSrLJI&list=PLAADF6209996265D2[/ame]

Watch the whole series (don't mix lye in glass or Pyrex!), then we can start making suggestions.

BTW-the pine tar is an advanced technique. You need some experience first.

Welcome Jam!

Welcome. I would not advise trying to learn soapmaking by trying to make a Pine Tar soap. You need to get your soapmaking skills perfected before making a difficult soap like pine tar. Also be aware it can be a high allergen soap if you ever start making it and giving it away. Pine Tar is the allergen

Welcome Jam
Even a simple home made soap is very nice. I vote for cold process if you aren't sure which technique to use. We love to ask and answer questions here so don't be shy. And we looove photos of soap, even the crazy failed batch photos!

Dear Millie, Cmzaha, Arianna & Susie.

Thank you for your replies. It seems like I have some watching to do .

So far I have learnt:

1) That Lye is highly toxic and is used in the "Saponification process". The ratio of fats to lye has to be right otherwise soap can be too hard/soft. Additionally if the Lye has not been blended effectively it can cause irritations.

2) The cold process of soap making requires no "cooking" (heat), whereas the hot process requires medium/low heat and rapid mixing.

3) Pine Tar - for soap has to be produced in a closed kiln process- otherwise it may contain creosote which is carcinogenic.

If any of the above statements are incorrect then please feel free to chime in as I say I am a "newbie", and would appreciate the advice of professionals and "...dab hands".

Can Anyone please suggest a basic soap recipe that has 1) easy to make, 2) requires minimal ingredients and 3) contains natural products.

kind regards

Jam and cream Scones.
U.K

Jam said:

Dear All,

Hello, I am new to soap making. I have never made a soap in my life only ever bought them.

I would like to make a soap from scratch. I recently came across "Grandpa Pine Tar Soap", from America. I really love the earthiness of the soap and the fact it is basic in its ingredients and contains no added perfumes.

I would like to make a similar soap. So would appreciate any help and advice.

kind regards

Jam and cream scones.
United Kingdom.

Click to expand...

Have you smelled a pine tar soap made by a hand-crafter (vs a commercial product)? I ask because, personally, I don't think they smell at all the same. I've smelled commercial bars and always thought they smelled great. But I tried making it once and the smell was so bad that I had to move the whole operation out of my house. Once it had cooled down (it was HP), I tossed it. I still have nightmares about that smell. Of course, a lot of people here love them, but if I were you, I'd try a cold process soap with a nice pine fragrance (maybe add some patchouli to bump up the earthiness). Most of the pine fragrances I've tried accelerate, so be prepared for that!

Dear Saranac,

No never tried a hand-crafted Pine-Tar soap. There is no availability in the U.K of Pine-Tar soap due to European directives. So I am left to order products on-line. I was persuaded to try making a Pine-Tar soap myself, but on careful consideration and advise from those who are experienced I have decided to pursue simpler recipes until ones skills are developed enough.

Due you have any simple recipe suggestions please?

regards
Jam and Cream Scones.
U.K

Welcome to the forum. I agree with the statements that one should learn to make a simple cold process recipe and then perfect the CP technique before moving into the more complicated HP pine tar recipes.

Jam said:

Dear Saranac,

No never tried a hand-crafted Pine-Tar soap. There is no availability in the U.K of Pine-Tar soap due to European directives. So I am left to order products on-line. I was persuaded to try making a Pine-Tar soap myself, but on careful consideration and advise from those who are experienced I have decided to pursue simpler recipes until ones skills are developed enough.

Due you have any simple recipe suggestions please?

regards
Jam and Cream Scones.
U.K

Click to expand...

Do you have any objections to using lard or tallow in soaps? Or would you rather keep them vegetarian?

What sorts of oils do you have affordable access to?

In general, a soap recipe should be about 40% hard oils and 60% soft oils, though you can play around with those ratios a LOT til you find a recipe that you really like.

One I've made that turned out very nice is:

30% Olive oil
25% Coconut oil
25% Rice bran oil
15% Shea butter
5% Castor oil

You could easily swap out the shea for lard, tallow, or palm oil (which is NOT the same thing as palm kernel oil). I happen to prefer to stay with mostly vegetarian recipes that avoid palm.

Hello from an expat Brit.

A very good and basic recipe is -

50% lard
25% olive oil
20% coconut oil
5% castor oil

It's not just a basic recipe, as a lot of people here make that or something very similar as the staple soap - it's a great bar, for certain. Many of us have added so-called wonder oils to the mix only to then leave them out again, but each person has different skin and so tweaking even slightly to suit you can make a huge difference.

Pine tar can be found in equestrian supply sections of country stores, or on Amazon in the UK. Mine was shipped here from the UK. As others have said, it's far from straight forward so wait until you're happy with how to make soap before you try it is also my advice. I ended up having to grab it out of the pit with my (gloved) hands and smooshed it in to the mould! Not what you want too early in the learning process.

Lye is not really bad in that sense. It's used here in a weaker solution to make some bread. Respect it, of course, but if you can boil water, add noodles and then strain the noodles out of the hot water without incident, you can handle a lye solution.

A very basic and easy to work with recipe that many of us use slight variations of...

50% lard, tallow or palm
25% olive
20% coconut
5% castor

The ingredients are all readily available at the grocery/drug store (in the US) and are fairly inexpensive. It is about as simple as you can get with a balanced bar.

Jam said:

Dear Saranac,

No never tried a hand-crafted Pine-Tar soap. There is no availability in the U.K of Pine-Tar soap due to European directives. So I am left to order products on-line. I was persuaded to try making a Pine-Tar soap myself, but on careful consideration and advise from those who are experienced I have decided to pursue simpler recipes until ones skills are developed enough.

Due you have any simple recipe suggestions please?

regards
Jam and Cream Scones.
U.K

Click to expand...

I think I'd start with something like this:

5% Castor
25% Coconut (or palm kernel, or babassu, or a combination);
35% Palm Oil (or lard, or tallow, or a combination);
35% Olive Oil (or some other high-oleic soft oil).

Run that through Soapee.com with a 5% SF and set the "Amount of water in recipe" to a 2:1 Water:Lye Ratio. I use FO/EO at 6% of the oil weight, but check your supplier's recommendation. Give it a good cure (4-6 weeks) and see what you think. Some like less coconut, some more, but you need to decided that for your self (and based on what your skin likes).

I agree with all that has been said.

Pine tar soap is not where I would start. When I do make PT soap I need to be prepared. It sets up rather quickly for me.
I get a smokey / musky finished aroma from it but it can be rather strong during the saponification process.

All of the "basic recipes" are very good places to start and should give you time to work with.

Welcome to the world of soap making!

Ditto what have been said above. You have been given some great tried and true recipe. Try them, compare them, and see what you like. Then start fine tune it.
After you have got some 10-20 lbs soaping experience under your belt, then maybe you can ventures into pine tar soap.
(each lb means 1 batch, that's the minimum amout of safe soaping consider the average scale weights 0.5g.
And welcome to the addiction.

Dear Kittish,



Thanks for the info. I had no idea there was a difference between hard and soft oils. I would only consider making or using a vegetarian soap, I'm sure animal based soaps are fine but just not for me.

I would appreciate an elaboration on what constitutes a hard/soft oil. I'm guessing oils that solidify are hard? Off-course I could be wrong as I used for example Jordanian/Spanish olive oil which was solid hard blocks whilst for example Tunisian/Italian/Greek oils are normally free flowing. And does one use refined/unrefined, organic/cold pressed (Is there a difference?).

Additionally, I do not know anything about oil and their properties do you have any advice on this please (e.g one oils is better at addressing softness and another at skin conditions)?

May I also enquire as to why you avoid palm oil (is it just a preference, because as far as I'm aware palm is vegetarian unless in the US you have a different version)?

Sorry to bother you with all these questions I realise it is possible to type all of theses questions and get answers on the net but there is no accounting for tried tested experience.

regards,

Jam and cream scones.
U.K

p.s the recipe mentioned above is that a complete recipe? do you have to cook all the ingredients together? do they lather?

Dear The Efficacious Gentleman, mx6inpenn,Saranac, Steve85569 & cherrycoke216,

Thanks for all the advice. Im hoping to get to Sainsburys/Homebase & Holland and Barrett sometime this week to pick up the ingredients.

When I was originally thinking of Pine Tar, it was only available on amazon (Brickmore brand) and the UK brands (Stockholm/Decathlon) did not clearly state they were 100% Pine Tar and whether they were produced the closed Kiln process (non-cariogenic).

As a complete novice I will be putting the recipe (below) through a abbreviation translator. Its astonishing how soap has its own language!!

Many thanks.

Jam and cream scones.
England. U.K

Recipe

5% Castor
25% Coconut (or palm kernel, or babassu, or a combination);
35% Palm Oil (or lard, or tallow, or a combination);
35% Olive Oil (or some other high-oleic soft oil).

Run that through Soapee.com with a 5% SF and set the "Amount of water in recipe" to a 2:1 Water:Lye Ratio. I use FO/EO at 6% of the oil weight, but check your supplier's recommendation. Give it a good cure (4-6 weeks) and see what you think. Some like less coconut, some more, but you need to decided that for your self (and based on what your skin likes).

Jam said:

Dear Kittish,



Thanks for the info. I had no idea there was a difference between hard and soft oils. I would only consider making or using a vegetarian soap, I'm sure animal based soaps are fine but just not for me.

I would appreciate an elaboration on what constitutes a hard/soft oil. I'm guessing oils that solidify are hard? Off-course I could be wrong as I used for example Jordanian/Spanish olive oil which was solid hard blocks whilst for example Tunisian/Italian/Greek oils are normally free flowing. And does one use refined/unrefined, organic/cold pressed (Is there a difference?).

Click to expand...

Hard oils are ones that are solid at room temperature, like the various butters (shea, cocoa, mango, etc) and things like shortening. Coconut oil is usually considered a hard oil, even though it has a rather low melting point.

Soft oils are those that are liquid at room temp, such as most olive oils (never heard of one that was solid at room temp), avocado, rice bran, canola (rapeseed), and so on. With olive oil, I wouldn't use extra virgin or virgin in soap, there's no point and those tend to be more expensive. Whether you use organic oils is up to you, I tend to think that's pretty much only a label appeal thing for people who sell.

Additionally, I do not know anything about oil and their properties do you have any advice on this please (e.g one oils is better at addressing softness and another at skin conditions)?

Click to expand...

Check this link: http://www.lovinsoap.com/oils-chart/
Lots of really great information there about different oils and what sorts of properties they have.

May I also enquire as to why you avoid palm oil (is it just a preference, because as far as I'm aware palm is vegetarian unless in the US you have a different version)?

Click to expand...

It is indeed a preference, as most world wide palm farming practices are extremely destructive to the environment. It's probably silly, because commercial scale farming for other ingredients is probably just as bad, if not worse.

Sorry to bother you with all these questions I realise it is possible to type all of theses questions and get answers on the net but there is no accounting for tried tested experience.

regards,

Jam and cream scones.
U.K

p.s the recipe mentioned above is that a complete recipe? do you have to cook all the ingredients together? do they lather?

Click to expand...

It is a complete list of all the oils used in the soap. To determine actual amounts for oils, water and lye, use a lye calculator (SoapCalc.net or Soapee.com are the two most popular ones). Watch the Soap Queen video series linked above by Susie. Watch the whole series of them, starting with that first one. Just don't copy the bit where she uses pyrex to mix her lye in.

And yes, the recipe I posted produces a lovely lather. It's the recipe I used for the soap in the August 2017 challenge.

The soap calculators (www.soapcalc.com and www.soapee.com) can be intimidating at first, so before you make anything, run your formula by all of us. We're happy to help!

Getting closer to first soap pictures! :mrgreen:

Jam said:

As a complete novice I will be putting the recipe (below) through a abbreviation translator. Its astonishing how soap has its own language!!

Click to expand...

Jam,

There are some really good threads to read over in the Beginners section of the forum. This one is terrific for the language of soap (and welcome aboard) ...

The Acronym and Abbreviation Definition Thread...

That recipe looks okay - I prefer the 50% lard version because I find it is creamier.

Out of interest, are you a vegetarian or is it just an "ick" factor of using animal fats in soap? If the latter, you'll probably have more actual animal fat on your skin after eating meat than from using a soap made with animal fats

Edit -

I would also read through at least 10 pages in the recipe feedback, beginner, and lye based sections, looking particularly at anything which mentions recipe in the title. Seeing the many variations on offer with the explanation and reasoning builds up a great picture not only of what a property of a saponified oil is, but how that plays in with others in a whole recipe.