How to find out the percentage of oils in this recipe?

[winusuren]

Hi, Sorry if its a silly question. I came across this recipe in a website. They have listed all their ingredients in percentages. How to find out the total oil portion alone for a total of 100% as we usually do? Why do people list the ingredients like this?
Palm Oil 29.86%, Coconut Oil 17.06%, Palm Kernel Oil 17.06%, Sodium Hydroxide 12.03%, Castor Oil 8.53%, Turnip Extract 6.06%, Olive Oil 4.27%, Peppermint Oil 1.28%, Tea Tree Oil 1.28%, Benzoin Oil 1.28%, Charcoal Powder 0.85%, Vitamin E 0.44%

 

[Ephemerella]

Not silly! And its because irregardless of the size of the batch, percentages remain a constant.

So if your batch is 500g of oils, you will be using 29.86%, or, 149.29g of Palm Oil

If your batch is 1000g of oils, you will still be using 29.86% of Palm Oil, which will now be 298.59g

Using percentages can be very handy for describing a recipe for others to use.

 

[Cindy D.]

Hi, Sorry if its a silly question. I came across this recipe in a website. They have listed all their ingredients in percentages. How to find out the total oil portion alone for a total of 100% as we usually do? Why do people list the ingredients like this?
Palm Oil 29.86%, Coconut Oil 17.06%, Palm Kernel Oil 17.06%, Sodium Hydroxide 12.03%, Castor Oil 8.53%, Turnip Extract 6.06%, Olive Oil 4.27%, Peppermint Oil 1.28%, Tea Tree Oil 1.28%, Benzoin Oil 1.28%, Charcoal Powder 0.85%, Vitamin E 0.44%

If you are making a 1000g batch of soap, you would need to move the decimal point to the right one space. When I put it in soap calc, there is no turnip seed oil listed, so that must be the 6% super fat. You should be able to put all the oils in soap calc in grams and then you can see your percentages of oils. By tapping the percentage button, you can put in the amount you need for your mold and it should tell you how much of each oil to use. Then you can get your additive amounts from the percents given. my siblings.

 

[DeeAnna]

I stripped the soap making fats out of the ingredients list -- I did this quickly so you might want to doublecheck that I got them all.

...Palm Oil 29.86%
Coconut Oil 17.06%
Palm Kernel Oil 17.06% ...
Castor Oil 8.53% ...
Olive Oil 4.27% ...

Now pretend all these fat percentages are grams (or ounces) as listed below. Enter those numbers into Soapcalc or other calc. Set up the total weight of fat, the superfat %, and the water content as you usually do. That should do it.

Palm Oil 29.86 g
Coconut Oil 17.06 g
Palm Kernel Oil 17.06 g
Castor Oil 8.53 g
Olive Oil 4.27 g

 

[KiwiMoose]

I never understood why people have such weird percentages - I'm guessing it's something to do with converting from ounces to percent?
Why not round them all off to something more simple? E.g:
Palm Oil 35%
Coconut Oil 15%
Palm Kernel 15%
Olive Oil 30%
Castor Oil 5%

Even so( and even with my adjustments) - this recipe looks very cleansing and I don't think I would use it - I would certainly tweak it to my liking.

 

[DeeAnna]

You have a valid point, @KiwiMoose. I'd first get the recipe converted to the more typical "fat weight" basis rather than the original "batch weight" basis first, and then make the numbers more sensible.

 

[winusuren]

Oh..I understood now. Thanks all for taking time to reply.

 

[Nona'sFarm]

I never understood why people have such weird percentages - I'm guessing it's something to do with converting from ounces to percent?

This is true for me. Sometimes when I am making small batches I'd rather use oils in 1/2 ounce increments, so my percentages come out a little weird. That's probably why working in grams is a good choice in soapmaking, the increments are more minute. I just can't seem to wrap my head around using grams yet. For example, if someone says a mold holds approximately 300 grams of soap batter, in my mind I can't picture the size of the mold, but if they say it holds about 10.5 oz, immediately I "see" the size of the mold and how many bars I can cut from it. But I am going to bite the bullet soon and start using grams as it seems to lend itself better to soapmaking, in my humble opinion. Just need to train this old brain in a new way of thinking. If nothing else, it will be a fun challenge for me.

 

[dmcgee5034]

@Nona'sFarm - I converted to grams, and it’s still not the easiest thing for my brain, but I know my measurements are more precise so it’s worth it. True confessions, I use the gm to oz calculator on google all the time.

 

[DeeAnna]

1 weight ounce = 28.3 grams

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The percentages are for total batch weight (but excluding the water) rather than for total fat weight. (And I see that @DeeAnna already mentioned this in post #6). Following on from post #4, for a total batch weight of 100 g, the soaping fats add up to:

76.78 g

With this total fat weight in hand, we can calculate each individual fat as a percentage of the total fat weight.

Palm Oil 29.86 g 38.89%
Coconut Oil 17.06 g 22.22%
Palm Kernel Oil 17.06 g. 22.22%
Castor Oil 8.53 g 11.1%
Olive Oil 4.27 g 5.56%

The percentages are clunky, so following on @KiwiMoose comment, for this particular recipe, this is close:

Palm Oil 39%
Coconut Oil 22%
Palm Kernel Oil 22%
Castor Oil 11%
Olive Oil 6%

To calculate the additives relative to weight of fats, do the same kind of math:

Turnip extract is 6.06% or 6.06 g of 100 g total batch weight. Relative to total fat weight it is (6.06/76.78) x100 = 7.89%

The essential oils (tea tree + peppermint + benzoin) are 3.84% or 3.84 g of 100 g total batch weight. Relative to total fat weight the blend is (3.84/76.78) x100 = 5.0%