New Post My first potato soap

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Ironwave

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Good day to ye fellow Soapeans.

Actually i'm not allowed to say fellow, since i'm a complete failure with real soap making.
My first attempt spawned a nasty breed of potato.
It smelled even worse.



I found this soap tutorial online, from an astronaut.
I just replaced his oils for what I had, same weight, and made it as he did.
Didn't knew about things like soap calculators!

I had 500grms vegetable shortening (mixed with palm oil I think)
some olive oil, and a bit of castor oil, because it speeds up the trace stage I think he said.
Anyhoo, It spawned That-Soap-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

I moved on to MP soup, witch was not as much of a failure.

I found your awesome conglomeration of living data, and hope that I may gain, and give what I can, back again.

Of my silly questions I thought not to laughable to post, I selected these;

1 Are there a list or sheet or the like, that indicate what properties a certain oil may bestow upon the finished soap?
2 Are hardware bought RAW Linseed oil fine for soap? Im not gona eat it, so food grade cant matter all that much, do it?

I did a search (in the suggested way) on the forum after reading the newbie sections and faq's

Good day to ye.
 
hi and welcome!

whenever you make soap, you should check the recipe on a lye calculator. I primarily use SoapCalc, but will sometimes check on a another site just to make sure the lye is correct. it also has oil properties on it. read through the sight, and it has a lot of great information. http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

I don't have the answer to your 2nd question, so hoping someone with more experience will pipe up on the subject.

:)
 
Linseed (flaxseed) oil was and is still used to make soap, but I have not personally done so. Linseed from the hardware store may contain metallic "driers", petroleum solvents, and other ingredients, so be sure that it's 100% linseed. The raw version ~should~ be the 100% oil, but I wouldn't count on it without reading the ingredients list.

This fat has a high content of linoleic and linolenic fatty acids, so it will make a softer soap that may become rancid quickly (aka DOS, dreaded orange spots). If I were inclined to use it for soap, I would probably keep it to 10-15% or so in a soap recipe.

One resource for oil properties is soapcalc.net
 
Google "soaping oil properties". You should be able to print out a lot of lists to keep for you records.
 
Thank You everyone!

I certainly will try again.
It was strangely fun, even if it did fail.

Ill go and research all the helpful links now :-D
 
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