I know, but I would like a GREAT base recipe!

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SoapyGoats

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I know that I wouldn't want to give away a GREAT recipe, but what is a good, base recipe that is great in hard water with only Palm (or good sub) Coconut and Olive oils in it?

I am still learning, just like anyone else.
 
Last edited:
30% coconut
30% palm
40% olive
Easy and basic. Vary those percentages a bit across a few batches and test in 6 weeks to see what you like best.

So....what's with the disclaimer?

Sent from my XT907 using Soap Making mobile app
 
Swap out the palm with lard and you have a close resemblance of my basic recipe. I don't recall the exact % but this is close if not right on. Been using it for a few years now.
 
IMO, you should be an expert before you start selling. Being an expert doesn't mean being perfect, or knowing everything. But it does mean knowing more and having more experience than somebody who just picked up their first soap making book.

Look at it from a customer POV - as a customer, don't you expect the craftspeople you buy from to know their products? You have goats. Would you buy a goat from somebody who was posting on a goat forum asking things like, "What do goats eat?" and "How do I milk a goat?"
 
I agree with dixiedragon....you should not be selling if you can't formulate a recipe with basic ingredients and soapcalc. It takes lots and lots of batches and recipes until you find the one that is you feel is the IT recipe. Many of us have tried lots and lots of recipes and formulas to find what we thought was the best recipe we could make ...I personally didn't start selling until I knew I was able to provide the best possible (after lots of testing) to my customers. I don't beat up others up for selling but also won't say it's okay if they haven't done the footwork and homework required. Good Luck to you!
 
I feel the same way as shunt - which is why I don't sell. The people who sell soap seriously do what she does - they make numerous batches, they take notes, they test and tweak until they find the recipe that they feel is excellent. I expect that when I buy handmade goods - soap, lotion, jam, etc.

I am not that organized, and I have a fairly, "I want to make some soap - let's see what I have in the cabinet" sort of approach. Usually my soap is good, sometimes it is great and sometimes it's sort of meh. I am not going to sell a product for $4-$5 a bar that might be just "meh".
 
I would be worried about the liability. If someone decides to claim they were injured by your soap and you can not explain your processes in a very concise manner you just lost your case. If someone who has purchased your soap, saw the post on this forum and decide to be sue happy that would be a can of worms I would not want to open on myself. If this concerns you, you may not want to google your username as it returns results that include your website and post on this forum. Hopefully I don't sound preachy, I'm just sharing the way my paranoid mind works. I now return you to our regular soaping topic.
 
Being new to soaping, I am totally excited and want to share my soap with the world….but my world is going to start small…my family and my friends. If they want to start buying soap from me after I have gifted it to them, then excellent. It will tell me that I found a good recipe. That's what family and friends are for….guinea pigs! Muahaha!

If I can produce a soap my family and friends want and ask for, then I may go onto selling soap eventually, but I want to sell with confidence, which to me means knowing your product is good and knowing you could answer any question about it if asked.

I knew someone who enjoyed (kind of a sick hobby imo) going to markets and asking people questions to see if he could stump them. This person was too smart for his own good, (a bonafide genius), but he enjoyed testing people. He said that it kept the markets honest. He wasn't mean about it, and had excellent people skills, but you would know exactly where your knowledge lacked after talking to him. :???: I always think of him when I consider selling something, lol.

What would you do if you ran into him at a market?
 
I've had some people make it sound as if you have to be a expert before you sell anything, and made me feel as if I was not to bright. Like I shouldn't have soap problems, if I' selling.:thumbdown:

You have to be an expert. Customers WILL ask you tough questions and being able to explain why the lye won't burn their skin off or why you selected each oil in your recipe can make or break a sale. I get grilled by at least one customer at every show or market to see if I really do know my stuff or if I'm just copying someone else's recipes. Luckily, the expertise is easy to acquire through making lots of soap, tinkering with recipes and researching your ingredients and their qualities. You'll get there too, just have to put in the time and energy and patience. Soapmaking is like any craft, there's only so much you can learn from others, the core of your craft has to come from doing and perfecting your process.

The starter recipe I posted is actually really close to what I started with. Not close to the recipe I sell, but a good starting point for a decently well rounded bar of soap that you can tinker with to find your own awesome proprietary blend :)

Sent from my XT907 using Soap Making mobile app
 
I knew someone who enjoyed (kind of a sick hobby imo) going to markets and asking people questions to see if he could stump them. This person was too smart for his own good, (a bonafide genius), but he enjoyed testing people. He said that it kept the markets honest. He wasn't mean about it, and had excellent people skills, but you would know exactly where your knowledge lacked after talking to him. :???: I always think of him when I consider selling something, lol.

What would you do if you ran into him at a market?[/QUOTE]

I had a boat neighbor and a brother in law like that. My boat neighbor had a very high IQ and my BIL had a high IQ with a photegenic memory. My boat neighbor was always asking sneakie questions pertaining to navigation to test my knowledge and I simply did not let him get to me, but I very seldom did not know the answer. I remember my navigation instructor tell us "you cannot remember everything but know where to get the answer." This also applies to my soaping, since many of my soap recipes are created to a particular soap I have to label properly. Unfortunetly sometimes I do forget the reason I added a certain extract, (know where to look it up), but few people ask. Old age is not nice to memories. I am a person with an average IQ but I do read, research and test my recipes before taking them to market. Yep, I do have an answer if someone like that comes to my booth and I do not let them intimidate me
 
I agree with dixiedragon....you should not be selling if you can't formulate a recipe with basic ingredients and soapcalc. It takes lots and lots of batches and recipes until you find the one that is you feel is the IT recipe. Many of us have tried lots and lots of recipes and formulas to find what we thought was the best recipe we could make ...I personally didn't start selling until I knew I was able to provide the best possible (after lots of testing) to my customers. I don't beat up others up for selling but also won't say it's okay if they haven't done the footwork and homework required. Good Luck to you!

Excellent response. It's one thing to create the recipe for selling - and the other thing is the actual selling. If people think creating the best recipe is hard wait until they decide to form a business, run a business and then try to sell to make the business a success. Oh my goodness, be prepared for the headaches and disappointments. People not only have to learn about soapmaking but also about business-making. There is a whole lot more in starting and running a business than a Facebook page, an Etsy website or a table at the local craft fair. For anyone wanting to eventually start a business selling soap and/or candles study as much business processes and concepts as possible. 'Make it and they will buy it' is not a real business plan. :sad:

LatherLifeNaturally - my reply is not aimed directly at you. :) It is my 2 cent advise for everyone not to fall into the "start a business fast" trap.
 
A while ago, a member mentioned that they had seen soaps for sale that claimed to be all natural and contain cranberry eo. There is no such thing as "cranberry eo". The most charitable assumption we can make is that the soap maker didn't know the difference between an eo and an fo. Lots of new soapers go on forums and ask that very question. I don't think those soapers are dumb or "not so bright". I think they are not well informed. Which is fine - people come to forums to learn. Forums like this see people all the time asking stuff like "What does CP mean?" and "I am scared of lye, what can I use instead?" and "What is an eo?" None of those people are dumb. But none of them know enough to make soap to sell at that time. If they want to make soap to sell, they need to educate themselves.

That person who labeled their soap as containing cranberry eo is lying. A person with serious sensitivities to artifical fragrances might well buy that soap, thinking it is safe, and have a bad reaction. It is that soap maker's responsibility to know their craft well enough to know the difference between an essential oil and a fragrance oil.

Another situation - on a soap making mailing list I was on (years and years ago), a member wanted to make scented oils for people to put on their skin, kind of like perfume. She mixed a base oil (sweet almond, I think) and a fragrance oil at a 1:1 ratio and had a friend test it!!! The friend ended up with a mild chemical burn on her arm, and this person was surprised this had happened! IMO, she had decided to skip the "boring" part of the business - research, testing, etc - and jump right into the "fun" part - mixing stuff up and having people put it on their skin. List members angrily pointed out to her that fragrance oils are used at a ratio of .5 oz per pound of oils - so a 1:32 ratio - in CP soap, and in a much lower ratio for things like lotions, and that she should have known that, and that she had been irresponsible. This person got very upset and said that she knew what she was doing, she sold soap and lotion all the time, etc. Clearly this woman had no real understanding of the craft and no understanding of the risks involved, and her friend was injured as a result of her ignorance and impatience. Less than one minute of Googling would have told her that, "Hey, putting fragrance oils on the skin at a 1:1 ratio is not safe." But she didn't bother.

Another example: http://millersoap.com/ss.html

I am new to soapmaking, and recently made my very first batch - a 100% olive oil Castile soap. However, I made over ten pounds, thinking I would be able to rebatch some of it. Only after visiting your site did I learn how hard it is to rebatch all-vegetable based soaps. Indeed, my two attempts at rebatching have been disastrous. However, I grated some of the same Castile soap into flakes last night, added some shea butter, glycerin, oils and scent, and came up with a lotion that was quite nice. With a little more refining, I will gladly offer this recipe to other site users if that's OK.

I really can't believe Kathy Miller not only posted that email but didn't correct the author! However, I don't think Kathy makes lotion, so she probably didn't notice. I read it and thought, "Holy smokes, this dummy is putting ground SOAP on her skin and thinks it's LOTION." And it sounds like she wants to share her "recipe" with other people! If she had a lick of sense, she'd Google basic lotion recipes and see that none of them contain soap!

My point in all of this ranting is that if you want to make soap and other toiletries for other people - just for gifts and especially for selling - you need to be knowledgeable so you can provide a product that is safe. I imagine these 3 people frolicking about, giving away (or selling, even worse!) fake cranberry essential oil, perfume that will burn your skin, and lotion made of soap, and I cringe.
 
Excellent, thoughtful responses, all. LatherLifeNaturally, I hope you take these responses to heart. Not a one of us is trying to be mean or discouraging, but instead we're trying to help you understand the complexities and potential consequences of selling too early. These are observations that all of us can learn from. I am thankful to hear from all of these experienced people. We all learn from one another, and from the vantage point of an experienced soaper, I can say that I learn something, often many things, from these thoughtful discussions and sage advice.
 
Thanks everyone!

One more thing, what do you all do with test, trial & err batches, etc? (Besides using them yourselves)
 
The hard-core soapers I know keep a note book and samples. They make a 1-2 lb batch of each recipe and put a copy of the recipe in the notebook. They recruit their family, friends and co-workers to be test markets. They give out the samples when the soap is ready (usually 6-8 weeks) then ask for feedback. Some actually have a survey type thing they email to their test markets. They also hold back a few bars to check how the soap is in a year, if it has DOS (dreaded orange spots - rancidity), how the scent holds up, how the bar feels in a year.

Christmas is coming - pretty much everyone I know will be getting 4-5 bars of soap. You can also shred it for laundry detergent or even just donate it.
 
Yep, that's just what I do. I have a notebook with every recipe that I have made in it, separated by CP or HP. I make notes on how the FO/EO behaved, if it lasted over time, whether to use more or less, etc... I note everything about the batch so I can make it exactly the same the next time in case I really like it. This is another reason that your measurements need to be done accurately, besides safety.
 
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