NOOB question

[tklechak]

O.K., I'm as green as they come. I was wondering if someone could look at this recipe and tell me how much soap this will make. I'm thinking about 2.5 pounds or so. I just got a silicone soap mold from Amazon that is 12.5" long by about maybe 2.5 high. Does any one have an idea of how much this mold will hold?? (I can provide a link if need be). So ..... here is the recipe I want to use ......

Soap making Ingredients, all weighed out on a scale.
20 oz of Olive oil
2.5 oz Lye
7.5 oz Water
15 drops Orange Essential Oil
10 drops Patchouli Essential Oil
3 tbs Orange Zest - Finely grated.


Any help, comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Like I said, this will be the first soap I have made. Will this one be easy enough?? Thanks, Timm .........:crazy:

 

[shunt2011]

First it will take awhile for your batch to come to trace as it's all olive oil. It will also require a nice long trace.. Your lye/water look okay for 20 oz of oils. How wide it your mold. There is a sticky on this site that give you the formula for how much oils are needed.

 

[user 12568]

It looks like you're using the full water amount. With your soap being 100% Olive Oil, I'd be tempted to lower the water to closer to 5 oz. It will help you reach trace a bit faster and will help firm up the soap a bit quicker as well.

 

[tklechak]

shunt & gotee ...

So do you think it would be O.K. to do 10 oz Olive and 10 oz. Coconut Oil?? Anything different I should do ??? As I said, this is my first attempt, so I don't want to stray too far from the recipe. Any input??? I would like to make a patchouli & orange as easy as possible for the newbie I am. Thanks Folks !!! :crazy::crazy:

 

[judymoody]

If you multiply LxWxH of your mold and then multiply that by .4 it will give you the oil weight needed to fill the mold.

I wouldn't try 100% olive oil on my first attempt because it takes forever to cure and can produce a slimy lather. How about 75% olive oil and 25% coconut oil to start? 50% coconut oil could be too drying.

If you go to www.soapcalc.net and plug in your numbers (either by % or weight) you will get the proper amount of lye and water. Once you put in your numbers, you will press a button that says "calculate the recipe." There is a second button that says "view or print recipe" and it will open on a separate page. Soapcalc defaults to "full water" and a 5% lye discount (superfat). For a beginner, those defaults are fine. If you want to reduce the water, I wouldn't go lower than a 2:1 ratio of water to lye.

Also that amount of scent is not likely to give you any fragrance in your finished soap. As a general rule, your EO should be 2-3% of your oil weight. For a pound of soaping oils I would use .5 ounce of essential oil (total of both patch and orange, not .5 ounce each).

Hope I haven't confused you further! Enjoy!

 

[tklechak]

1st loaf

O.K., so I decided to do my first loaf while my wife is out of town so I could use the kitchen and not have to make it in the garage where it's cold :shifty: . Here's basically what I did. I decided to change the recipe some, so please tell me what you think ...

8.92 ounces water
2.97 oz lye
1 oz combination orange/patchouli EO
6 oz coconut oil 76*
14 oz olive oil pomace

Most everything is in the suggested range with the exception of "creamy". So what do you all say about this recipe?? I shouldn't strayed from the original recipe, but after input here, I decided to change it a bit. I do have 1 question (for now) .... how long should it take for it to get hard (or firm) ?? I know it needs to cure. Thanks for your input again!! I don't know if I got EO on me or if it's the whole house that smells like patch/orange. Only time will tell !! Now to clean-up :x

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I know that a lot of people leave their 100% Olive Oil soaps for a year before using them, but some people only leave them a few months. With it being 70/30 I think it'll still need more than the usual 4 weeks.

My mind works in metric, so I don't know off the top of my head if those numbers looks right for lye/water/oil amounts. If you used Soapcalc and went with the 5% superfat and so on then it should be okay if you followed it.

How was it molding up? Runny, firm, midway like a thick soup?

Most importantly - did you have fun?

 

[karenbeth]

Orange/patch yum! One of my favourites. I hope your wife likes the smell when she gets home.

 

[judymoody]

I see two possible issues with your modified recipe - one which is more serious. The first is that you didn't use a lye discount (superfat). I ran your recipe through soapcalc and it shows your superfat as 0% Generally 5% is recommended as a cushion for small measurement errors or variations in lye purity or oil chemistry. So your soap "might" be lye heavy and if not, you might find it drying to use. You won't know for sure until your soap has cured for a few weeks. If it is unpleasant to use, you could rebatch it later.

Without any superfat, coconut oil at 30% might also be experienced as drying. When I use 30% coconut oil, I SF at 8% or more.

Water amount seems a bit high to me. For this recipe, I'd have scaled it back to 6-7 ounces. But time will cure that. It will be softer upon unmolding but the excess will evaporate over time.

Bet it smells great! Congrats on taking the plunge.

 

[tklechak]

If you used Soapcalc and went with the 5% superfat and so on then it should be okay if you followed it.

How was it molding up? Runny, firm, midway like a thick soup?

Most importantly - did you have fun?

TEG .... Yes, I did have fun! .... I did not SF b/c I wasn't sure what it was or how to do it. Is that using shortening/lard??? Anyways, it was just a tad lighter than pudding. I checked on it this morning, and it has setup pretty well and smells pretty good as well. After I take it out of the mould, should I wrap it in parchment paper or Saran wrap to let it cure??? That is the hardest part ... waiting for it to cure and waiting to be able to use it. Thanks for the advice!! Timm .......:clap:

 

[tklechak]

I see two possible issues with your modified recipe - one which is more serious. The first is that you didn't use a lye discount (superfat). I ran your recipe through soapcalc and it shows your superfat as 0% Generally 5% is recommended as a cushion for small measurement errors or variations in lye purity or oil chemistry. So your soap "might" be lye heavy and if not, you might find it drying to use. You won't know for sure until your soap has cured for a few weeks. If it is unpleasant to use, you could rebatch it later.

Without any superfat, coconut oil at 30% might also be experienced as drying. When I use 30% coconut oil, I SF at 8% or more.

Water amount seems a bit high to me. For this recipe, I'd have scaled it back to 6-7 ounces. But time will cure that. It will be softer upon unmolding but the excess will evaporate over time.

Bet it smells great! Congrats on taking the plunge.

Thanks for your comments judymoody! I guess I will have to wait & see what happens in a few weeks. I looked at it this morning (without unmolding), and it looks & smells pretty good. I didn't SF, b/c I wasn't sure what it was (I think I know now). If I have to rebatch, how would I do that?? Thanks again!! Timm .......

 

[TVivian]

I didn't super fat in my first batch either.. Because I had no idea what that meant! I used a very simple recipe similar to yours, and the soap turned out fine. Now, months later the soap is really nice! Congrats on your first soap!

 

[tklechak]

Thanks TVivian !!

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

...........I didn't SF, b/c I wasn't sure what it was (I think I know now).........

Just to make sure - it's essentially where you use less lye than you need for the amount of oils, so that a percentage of the oils has no Lye to saponify with, leaving it as oil in your soap.

The default setting in soapcalc is 5%, which means it will automatically suggest a lye amount which would leave 5% of your oils unsaponified.