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lizflowers42

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I am a new member from South Bend, IN! I have been making melt and pour soaps, lip balms, and lotion bars on and off for at least 10 years now. I recently began researching cold process soap making and I am gathering my supplies (hoping tha Santa helps with the protective equiptment, loaf molds, and thermometers!). I purchased my lye and have lots of oils available already. I was wondering what test recipe you all would suggest? I really love the idea of beer soap, but don't want that to be the first one I attempt.

Thanks!

Liz
 
Hi Liz,

Welcome to the forum! :D

You could look through the "Share your favorite soap recipe" thread and see if anything interests you. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=736

There is also a Soap Making Recipes & Tutorials section in which you may find a recipe. Then again, you could just list what oils you have and people could make suggestions.
 
Thanks Hazel!

Currently in my stash I have olive, coconut, vegetable(generic stuff from Aldi), vegetable shortning (another Aldi staple) and jojoba. I also have Shea butter (unrefined) and cocoa butter, beeswax pellets, and countless fragrance and essential oils! I am a vegetarian and really dislike the idea of lard or tallow in my soap...yuck! I know a lot of soapers love it though for its $ and lather qualities, but ewww!
 
You could make a Bastile batch with the olive, coconut and shea (or cocoa butter if you prefer). The only problem is this takes a longer curing time than a batch with a lower percentage of olive. Perhaps something like

70% Olive Oil
25% Coconut Oil
5% Shea Butter (or Cocoa Butter)
 
I will get back with you on the shortening ingredients. I feel like it is just vegtable oil in the solid form. I bought it for baking, but read that you can use Crisco in soap for a "grocery store" soap recipe.

I will get back with you after Christmas when I have hopefully received all of my protective equipment and give it a whirl! Until then I am reading as much as I can!
 
The vegetable oil I have is 100% soybean so I wondered if Aldi's is the same. I have used new Crisco (with palm) in soap and it's very conditioning. I posted a recipe along time ago on this forum which had Crisco in it. I'll have to look for it. However, I know some other brands of shortening have different ingredients which would affect the lye amount. There is a "grocery store" recipe in the Soap Making Recipes & Tutorials section. Here's the link if you want to take a look at it. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1902
 
Ok dumb question. How do I calculate ounces from the lye percentages. I am pretty sure there is a basic arithmetic formula, but I havent quite figured that out!
 
There aren't any dumb questions. However, there are confusing ones. I don't know what you mean by calculating ounces from lye percentages. :oops:

Are you asking how to calculate the lye amount based upon the oils in the recipe?
 
Soybean and cottonseed are the ingredients in old Crisco so you could use it for your lye calculation.

BTW, I found the recipe in which I used new Crisco. You have to scroll down a bit to see it.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19306&hilit=diatomaceous&start=30

I looked at it and realized I used coconut oil at 30% with a 7% superfat. I'd recommend using a slightly higher SF or lowering the coconut percentage if you know your skin doesn't handle coconut very well. In most of my recipes, I generally use 25% for batches I make with water and 27%-28% if I'm using buttermilk or cream. Normally, 30% coconut in a batch made with water is too drying for my skin.
 
Hazel said:
You could make a Bastile batch with the olive, coconut and shea (or cocoa butter if you prefer). The only problem is this takes a longer curing time than a batch with a lower percentage of olive. Perhaps something like

70% Olive Oil
25% Coconut Oil
5% Shea Butter (or Cocoa Butter)

This is what I would do for your first batch. It makes a great soap. You can replace that Shea with Castor as well which is also great soap. Easy to make as well.

Welcome to the Dark Side!
 
Stinkydancer said:
Hazel said:
You could make a Bastile batch with the olive, coconut and shea (or cocoa butter if you prefer). The only problem is this takes a longer curing time than a batch with a lower percentage of olive. Perhaps something like

70% Olive Oil
25% Coconut Oil
5% Shea Butter (or Cocoa Butter)

This is what I would do for your first batch. It makes a great soap. You can replace that Shea with Castor as well which is also great soap. Easy to make as well.

Welcome to the Dark Side!

I know! I checked out like 10 books from the library yesterday and have been reading nonstop! I will certainly make one of these easy ones for my first batch! I love hand made soap! Every craft fair I tend to find the soapers table in seconds!!!!
 
Good luck! Take it slow- learn all you can which sounds like what your doing. Once you do your first batch- your like- that was it? LOL Then the addiction starts and you make more and more until your soap takes up every square inch of your house- then you have to build a work shop and well you get my point...it's too addictive even after doing it a long time. I never get sick of it. :)

This forum has amazing info and most importantly people are nice. :D
 
Stinkydancer said:
Good luck! Take it slow- learn all you can which sounds like what your doing. Once you do your first batch- your like- that was it? LOL Then the addiction starts and you make more and more until your soap takes up every square inch of your house- then you have to build a work shop and well you get my point...it's too addictive even after doing it a long time. I never get sick of it. :)

This forum has amazing info and most importantly people are nice. :D

I'm almost as addicted to this forum as I am to natural soaps and ingredients, lol! THere are some extremely talented folks on here! So glad that I stumbled upon the forum while running questions through Google!!
 
Good luck! Take it slow- learn all you can which sounds like what your doing. Once you do your first batch- your like- that was it? LOL Then the addiction starts and you make more and more until your soap takes up every square inch of your house- then you have to build a work shop and well you get my point...it's too addictive even after doing it a long time. I never get sick of it. :)

This forum has amazing info and most importantly people are nice. :D

I made my first batch last night using just hydrogenated soybean/cottonseed oil (Dollar General Crisco) just to keep it simple for my first batch. I ran it though the lye calculator on brambleberry and did 5% superfatting because I like the idea of having additional fat to ensure all the lye is used!

I'm fairly certain that this will not produce a bubbly soap, but I will certainly still use it. It traced very quickly and my husband was the one that said "that was easy, are we done??"
 
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