Help with my first recipe to try...?

[Dana]

I thought I would try this recipe from Cathy Miller's site. According to the site, this will make about 7lbs of soap....WAY more than I want to try for my first batch.
I don't have any exotic ingredients, but I do have access to these items. Is this ok for a first base recipe to try? Also I have no fragrance oils to try.

It calls for:

39 oz. olive oil
24 oz. coconut oil
18 oz. palm oil
26-30 oz. cold water (lower for essential oils, higher for troublesome fragrance oils)
12 oz. lye crystals

So what is the best way to make it into a 1 or 2lb batch? Yes I have a good digital scale Also with no fragrance oils to add how much water should I use?

Also if there is a different or better first recipe to try I'd be open to suggestions.
I'm trying to avoid ordering any exotic ingredients as I don't have the extra funds right now.

Any and all input and suggestions are appreciated
thanks as always
dana

 

[Mothi]

Well, that recipe uses 81 oz of oil. So figure out the percentages used for that recipe and you get:

48% Olive Oil
30% Coconut Oil
22% Palm Oil

Which equals 100% so we are good. You can use a calculator like SoapCalc and plug in the percentages and then select how big a batch you want to make. The batch size on this calculator is determined by how much oil you are using, so keep in mind the real batch of mixed soap will be larger.

Whenever changing the size of a recipe, I always run it through a calculator or two.

I started with a recipe that used 10 oz of oil. My scale at that time was an ounce scale. I now have a gram scale. So far none of my attempts have been a total flop. **knock on wood**

My first recipe was similar to that one except I also used Sweet Almond Oil (which I ordered online). Other oils I also have now are Avocado and Castor.

 

[Dana]

Thanks Mothi for the help.

I'm mathmatically challenged to be sure

So to reduce it do I just decrease the total numbers but keep them in the same percentage range (does that make sense?) I only want to make about a 2 lb batch at the most....

Dana 8)

 

[Mothi]

When I make batches, I go by how much oil I want to use. So I am not 100% accurate on batch overall size so maybe someone can jump in on that. But below is the best I could come up with, which uses 25 oz of oil.

2-pound(ish) batch
Olive Oil - 12 oz
Coconut Oil - 7.5 oz
Palm Oil - 5.5 oz

Lye - 3.6 oz (5% superfatting)
Water - 8.3-9.5 oz (If it was me, I would just end up doing around 8.7 oz)

I hope others would jump in too. I have only been soap making for a month now with about 10 batches under my belt.

EDIT: I keep my recipes in terms of percentages, so they are essentially the same properties wise, just the batch size changes. So if I decide I want to use 25 ounces of oil using the percentages for this recipe, it would be 25 * (48/100) for the olive oil. It would be 25 * (30/100) for the coconut oil, and 25 * (22/100) for the palm oil. Then run those oil amounts through a calculator to figure out how much lye (depends on how much you want to superfat) and how much water to use. When I use water, I use distilled water.

 

[Dana]

That's really helpful Mothi, thank you. I'm really excited about getting started!
I'm sure once I get a few batches under my belt it will all make a bit more sense to me.
Right now between all the acroynms and percentages my head starts to hurt when reading the forums

Thanks again I really appreciate it!

Dana