Noob questions

Hi, guys, I am very new in soap making, so i have so beginners questions.
First of all, just to let you know, I come from a country where we don't have all types of oils or butters, or the ones that we have are extremely expensive. So what I can use mostly is sunflower, olive, coconut (we have only extra virgin and it is quite expensive, but i am planning to use it anyway), palm, lard. We have other types as well, but are a bit hard to find. So for now i am sticking to olive, palm and coconut.
Now time for my questions.
1. I made my first batch. I used:
100 gr. coconut oil (melted)
100 gr. palm oil (melted)
300 gr. olive oil (pomace)
did a calculation online for water and lye, and at the end used some lemon fragrance oil (which i probably used too little, since i can't even smell it now)
It came to trace very quickly, sooner than i expected, but seemed OK. Poured it and unmolded it 24 h later. I did the zap test, and I can feel some bitter/salty taste, and just a little bit of tingly sensation afterwards, but nothing too much. Do you think it is normal? Is it safe to use?
2. For future use, is it ok to use food coloring? I can't find different types of coloring where I live.
3. Is cocoa powder enough to achieve chocolate smell of soap? I can't find any cocoa butter or choc fragrance oil, but I have high quality cocoa powder.
4. I have green clay that I use for facial mask. I don't know if it is french or not, I know it is cosmetic, and also expensive and very good quality. Can I use that for coloring?
5. I have tea tree essential oil. Have you tried combining it with lemon FO? I am very scared of mixing different scents, since I still have no experience, and don't know if they go together.

I attached pictures of my soap, and only one has like white lines, the others look very smooth. Please let me know what you think Thanks in advance!

Hi an d welcome! That is a very pretty soap! The "zap" from the zap test is a feeling, not a taste. If you have to ask, it's not zapping. Now just let your soap cure for 4-6 weeks.

Soap needs a lot more fragrance or essential oil than people expect, and some don't survive the saponification reaction. I like to use the fragrance calculator on the Brambleberry website.

I don't think that food coloring survives the lye reaction, but perhaps one does. Easier to find things that you can use for soap colorings are: carrots or spinach (use the juice in place of water, or puréed), turmeric, anatto, cocoa, coffee, paprika, finely powdered activated charcoal and clays. If your French green clay is just pure clay, you can use it. Many other organic things that seem like they should work do not, they change color with the lye reaction to brown, like beets, berries, green tea.

I have heard of some people using finely ground cosmetics like eye shadows for soap colors, but I know little about it. It should work if it was all oxides and micas.

Unfortunately your cocoa will not add chocolate scent, but it is nice for coloring or making a pencil line.

To test a scent mix, try dipping one toothpick in each scent. Say you wanted to try a 2:1 ratio of lemon and tea tree, dip 2 toothpicks in lemon, 1 in tea tree, and put them in a jar. Let them sit in the closed jar a while, then smell it, does it smell nice?

Be careful to use pure essential oils, or fragrance oils made for soap, some do not work well in soap. Sometimes anchoring scents in clay before adding to the soap helps them to stick.

Thank you very much. Very informative and encouraging info, Seawolfe.

A heaping TBSP. of French green clay per pound of oils should be enough to color your soap. As seawolfe said,make sure it is real French green clay and not bentonite clay or Kaolin clay colored with micas or other colorants that might not survive the saponification process. A little red Moroccan clay goes a long way, too much will create a colored lather. Cocoa is OK for coloring soap, but will not leave a lasting fragrance. Food coloring will morph in cp soap.

Congrats on your 1st batch! :clap: I'm only 2 ahead of you and mine looked a lot like yours, so suffice to say you seem destined for great things!

Tea tree oil is often used with lemongrass EO so I'd think lemon could be fine - however I've heard that Lemon EO often finds it hard to be noticed after CP - hence a lot of folks use the more durable lemongrass instead (which is also often cheaper). I have a lemongrass and tea tree scented shaving soap and its a really wonderful scent. I think the ratio the other memeber advised is about right, tea tree is very strong so needs to be in the minority.

RE: Clays - I just got 1kg of french green clay and 1kg of kaolin delivered to my door from Portugal for under $AUD20 - now I am sure yours is superior quality but I am pretty sure for use in soaps these are more than up to the task at hand. Just off ebay - happy to linky if you want.

I'm a big fan of not having to reinvent the wheel so why not go to a shop and sniff their soaps or body washes or whatever - you'll notice there are common pairings of EO's that repeat over and over - so if you like their product's scent (use it as a rough guideline as your with proper EO will be vastly superior) then just use this pairing as a guide.

If you're struggling for ideas go to a soap makers site and see what fragrance combos they make - they generally go this because they work. And imitation is the highest form of flattery so it doesn't harm them in any manner.

I've use powdered eye shadow for coloring before, the main ingredients were mica and/or oxides. Some colors could morph though so be aware of that and maybe experiment with a spoonful of soap before you mix the eye shadow into the whole batch.

Welcome. With those oils that you can get, you can make amazing soaps.

Try 20% coconut, 60% lard and 20% olive next!

Some food coloring will survive the process, but not usually as what they started off with. For example, I used a blue food coloring and ended up with a nice mauve shade. Some don't survive at all other than a blech shade of grey/brown. The best idea is to make a batch of slow tracing soap that you can divide, and test each color separately. Then you will know.

You have all the oils I need to make soap. I like adding castor oil to help the lather, and you might be able to find it in your local drug store sold as a laxative. It is an old fashioned remedy, and my friend in Croatia can find it, so maybe you can also.

If you use the palm, you need to melt the entire container and stir well before measuring out what you need.

I use food type colorants only. They are cheap, available, and I know I am not allergic to them. Here are a few examples:

Coffee-simply save leftover coffee(liquid) in the freezer until you have enough to make a batch of soap. Gives a lovely light brown color, but no scent. Or you can use the grounds in the batter for exfoliation.

Cocoa-as mentioned above, it can be used for colorant or for pencil lines.

Paprika/annato-put 14-28 g in a jar and pour 6-8 oz liquid oil(olive or something else that stays liquid at room temperature), put it in a pot and gently heat for half an hour, let it cool and pour the liquid off of the powder gently so you don't have to filter it. This can also be done at room temperature, but it takes quite a bit of time. I don't know how long, so you might have to do some research there. These two give different shades of orange that you can use more or less of to vary the color from a light lemon yellow to a very dark cinnamon type color. Just substitute out for a portion of what the recipe calls for in that oil. You can also use paprika as a dry colorant directly in the batter for a whole different look.

For scents, I use only essential oils. You need to verify the purity of any essential oils and make sure you know they are intended to be used on the skin rather than other purposes before using it in soap. Tea Tree can be used, but it is VERY STRONG, be very cautious on the amount.

So many nice people, here. I loved your advice, guys. I am excited to make my new batch soon. The only question is, what will I do with so much soap Family and friends..... free soap coming up... haha

Aye. Plus, keep batches between 500 to 1,000 grams to start, so you can let a soap cure before tweaking it and making it again. While waiting 4 weeks at least between soaping can be annoying, it actually means that you can make one recipe one week, next week make something totally different, like a salt bar, then the week after a shampoo bar or what ever and so on, by which time your first recipe is cured so you can test it and makes the little adjustments.

Oh and the white lines in your second picture - I am thinking those are stearic acid streaks from the palm oil. Like Susie says, melt your WHOLE container of palm and stir well before taking some out. When palm oil hardens in its container, it forms layers of different densities, these can cause problems if you only take out from the top or bottom. I melt my big container of palm oil, stir well, and portion it out to smaller jars. Then when its time to make soap I melt the whole jar, stir well and measure out what I need.

They are just cosmetic, and I quite like them in soaps like you have there, but its good to know the why of things

So what I can use mostly is sunflower, olive, coconut (we have only extra virgin and it is quite expensive, but i am planning to use it anyway), palm, lard.

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These are all excellent soap making oils.

Colors - what does the container of the clay say on it? Any ingredients? If it's a "clay mask" with other stuff, that other stuff might act weird in your soap. If it's 100% clay, go for it. If it's not, make a small batch and use a tiny bit of clay and see what happens.

Food colors from the grocery store are generally too dilute to work. Do you have access to concentrated frosting color? Perhaps at a hobby store? Some of those work. White (look for one that contains titanium dioxide), Red #40, blue (will turn purple).

Grocery store - beta carotene capsules will give you anywhere from yellow to vivid orange-red, depending on how much you use. You can also use carrot puree, but I think beta carotene is easier. Dried parsley for green. Cocoa will not give you a chocolate smell - there's no natural way to get that in soap. But you can use it to get brown soap. You can also use coffee for brown. If you use instant coffee, dissolve it in hot water first - the granules won't dissolve in soap batter.

Crayons may also be an option.
http://www.millersoap.com/soapdesign.html#Color

You may be able to find activated charcoal capsules in the grocery store also. I once used some activated charcoal meant for aquarium filters. You will have to finely crush it, but if you are desperate for black it's an option.

Seawolfe said:

They are just cosmetic, and I quite like them in soaps like you have there, but its good to know the why of things

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Oh, I like them too, they look lovely. I was just afraid that they might be lye pockets, or water lines.... i don't know, still new at this, lol....
Thank you for all the great ideas, today i got lovely rose molds.... so, time to find some cool recipe. Thank you all!!!