Help on newbie on soap making

Hi!

I would like to try to do some artesanal soap
I've searched on internet and found some tips, but I don't know how to use the sites like sopcalc.net to calculate the exact portions of the ingredients to mixture.

Anyone can help or point me a recipe for these ingredients?
I would like to use:
- lye + water
Oils:
- olive oil (most)
- coconut oil
- tee tree oil
- lavender buts

Many thanks!

First off you need to do a lot of research in order to learn the basics of how it all works. Millersoap.com has a lot of info and recipes available. As for soap calc there are a lot of help if you click on the number boxes in each section it is a help file. Even if you use a written recipe you need to verify it is correct in soap calc or another soap calc program. Most soap supplier sites have calculators but it is best to find one you are comfortable with and use it. There is a huge amount of files in this forum if you do some searching. Just be aware that there are a lot of bad recipes on the web. Word of advice for lavender buds it the fact they usually end up looking like rat droppings and in my opinion are quite scratchy. Tea Tree Oil is an essential oil that does not lend to making soap itself. It is used for the properties of the tea tree oil and/or fragrance of it. Also do some looking up of the properties of the different oils such as coconut which is one that lends lots of cleansing and bubbles but can be drying for some.
Research, research, research...

Aye, just have a look around at some of the threads on here and it will go a long way to getting you going - a treasure trove of info

Thanks for the advice! It's a good point the one about the lavander buts.. About the tea tree oil I only intend to add a small quantity for its properties.
I will keep searching..
Thanks!!

Check the usage rate recommended for Tea Tree it doesn't take much as it's relatively strong....also if doing CP can't really tell what properties may survive the saponification process. However, I love some Tea Tree in my facial soap. I like to think some of the properties are there.

one example for you. In order to improve you skill at the very early stage, just read books for the beginers, visit this kind of threats more frequently
Wish you luck!

80% olive Oil
20% coconut Oil
Or, to make about 4.5 lbs of soap, you would use:
40 oz. olive oil
10 oz. coconut oil
16 oz. water
6.9 oz. lye
Between 1.5 and 2.2 oz of fragrance or essential oil, according to your preference

You are not going to want to use 1.5-2.2 oz tea tree essential oil. You would not be able to store them in your house to cure them. Cut the EO to no more than 0.8 oz for that size recipe. Tea Tree is VERY strong!

Susie -

Thanks for mentioning about tea tree's strength. This person doesn't know anything since she/he plagiarized David Fisher's recipe. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soaprecipes/a/castrecipe_5.htm

Can you say spammer? Sure...I knew you could.

Lavender EO and tea tree EO is a nice combination.

I was seriously wondering why a newbie wanted to make that much soap first try.

Don't be so harsh, Hazel. Plagiarize? Recipes are usually copied word for word. Four and a half pounds of soap is the amount of soap I first made from a kit from essential depot with 3oz of essential oil (granted, only one of the ounces was tea tree). What they said isn't so far fetched. You basically called them an idiot, and regardless if it's true, it's hurtful.

From Merriam-Webster.com

pla·gia·rize
ˈplājəˌrīz/
transitive verb
: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

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I don't know what else to call it. This person claimed it was her/his recipe in this post. http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=463149#post463149
(Scroll down and you'll see my reply to that post. It was harsh, too.)

This person didn't even attempt to alter the info. It was copied and pasted verbatim from David Fisher's article about simple recipes with olive oil.

As for hurting this person's feelings, I seriously doubt this person will see my replies since I already banned this spammer. However, perhaps this person will see them since all this person has to do is register another account with a different username and IP and she/he will be right back posting more spam.

If this had been a legitimate member, I would have PM'd the person to say the post needed to be edited to give credit to David Fisher because it was copied verbatim. It's actually not an original recipe. I'm sure many people have used 80% OO/20% CO for a batch. I haven't but that's because I prefer 70% OO/25% CO/5% Castor. Actually, I could use 30% CO with 65% OO and 5% Castor since the combination of OO and Castor is so conditioning. It's not the recipe I was objecting to but the use of DF's writing. If this person had just said use 80% olive and 20% with x amount of FO or EO, I probably wouldn't have even picked up on the spam.

However, I didn't bother PM'ing this person because he/she was a spammer. I'm sick and tired of all the spam we get on this forum. I'm not going to waste my time being considerate of spammers' feelings.

eta: Oh yeah! "Idiot" is a nicer word than I use to describe spammers. If I see more posts like this from other spammers, I'm going to be just as harsh if not even worse. It's a great stress reliever. :twisted:

girlishcharm2004 said:

Don't be so harsh, Hazel. Plagiarize? Recipes are usually copied word for word. Four and a half pounds of soap is the amount of soap I first made from a kit from essential depot with 3oz of essential oil (granted, only one of the ounces was tea tree). What they said isn't so far fetched. You basically called them an idiot, and regardless if it's true, it's hurtful.

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I am looking at what Hazel wrote very carefully.

"Susie -

Thanks for mentioning about tea tree's strength. This person doesn't know anything since she/he plagiarized David Fisher's recipe. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/so...strecipe_5.htm

Can you say spammer? Sure...I knew you could."

I just can't see where they were in any fashion called anything other than a spammer. And after seeing the same copy/paste on another thread, I think spammer is an appropriate name. Hazel was telling ME that that person was a spammer and not to take it seriously. Not addressing them.

People like that who post on a newbie forum can create bad situations and bad results for folks who do not have enough experience to filter out bad advice. Can you imagine how badly someone would think about this whole forum(and all the members) if they had made that soap with that much tea tree oil? All those oils wasted, that lye wasted, not to mention a stinky mess they would not even be able to tolerate in the house to cure! Then they would tell everyone they know where they got the recipe! That is my reputation, your reputation, and everyone else's reputation down the drain. Lots of folks have their business names on this forum, think about the impact on them.

I truly think this was handled appropriately and swiftly enough to minimize potential disasters for newbies. JM2C

Susie said:

You are not going to want to use 1.5-2.2 oz tea tree essential oil. You would not be able to store them in your house to cure them. Cut the EO to no more than 0.8 oz for that size recipe. Tea Tree is VERY strong!

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Interesting I use tea tree at 6% and I sell a lot of tea tree oil soap

Hazel said:

eta: Oh yeah! "Idiot" is a nicer word than I use to describe spammers. If I see more posts like this from other spammers, I'm going to be just as harsh if not even worse. It's a great stress reliever. :twisted:

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That is kinda scary, but I sympathize with you when it comes to spammers. -_- those movie threads were annoying.

@handmade_soap: 20%/80% of CO/OO sounds good (I made a batch or two of that recipe), but don't be afraid to try out palm, tallow, or lard. Palm is a solid choice for a hard bar while lard will give you a lovely lather. I have yet to really utilize a substantial amount of tallow though.

In addition, soapcalc.net is one of those sites that you should probably take your time to study. It looks overwhelming, but it gets easier the more you use it.

cmzaha said:

Interesting I use tea tree at 6% and I sell a lot of tea tree oil soap

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OK, you are a stronger woman than I! I can't tolerate it at even 0.5%. Sorry, it is apparently just me that can't tolerate that smell.

Okay, I guess I don't understand what a "spammer" is or does. Forgive my comment.

girlishcharm2004 -

Forgiveness isn't necessary so don't worry about it. If it had been a legitimate member, you would have had every right to call me out on being harsh or mean.

girlishcharm2004 said:

Okay, I guess I don't understand what a "spammer" is or does.

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You haven't seen any of the movie threads posted by spammers? That's spam. This person hadn't posted movie threads but had posted comments which are considered "spam holders". This means the person posts an innocuous comment and lets a few days go by. Then this person comes back and edits the post to put a spammy link in it. Because several days have passed, this type of spam can get easily missed and will remain until someone stumbles across it. There are probably still some of this type of spam on the forum.

Because of the contradiction of the grammar and spelling, I wondered about this person so I searched for the recipe. That's how I found out it was from DF's article. Then I checked this person's IP & email addy. The IP was all right but the email addy came back connected to 2 other spammers. This is how I knew the person wasn't a legit member and was actually a spammer.

Who needs Sherlock when we have Hazel!

cmzaha said:

Interesting I use tea tree at 6% and I sell a lot of tea tree oil soap

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Carolyn at 6% the Tea Tree is fully therapeutic at that percentage. At 3% it starts to become therapeutic for some people.