Ideas for first soap....

[Arimara]

Susie in your recipe you indicate you use 5% castor oil. Is that the oil that is used for superfatting?

When we say superfat, much of the time we're talking about the lye discount that gives us the said superfat amount. If you plugged in a recipe in a lye calculator with a 0% superfat, you may notice that you have a little more lye to be used than if you ran the same recipe through with a 5% superfat. The calculator subtracts a little bit of what is needed to gives us a superfat.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Further to the above, in cold process it doesn't matter when you add oils - at the start or at trace - the end result has been proven to be chemically the same. Plus, many oils only bring things to the soap when they saponify and the unsaponified oil would be something else entirely. Castor helps the bubbles, but would it do so when it is the unsaponified oil.......? I wouldn't imagine so. Same with coconut oil - gives bubbles, but if you rub coconut oil on you it won't bubble well.

Of course, some things are better unsaponified, but for certain cases we need what comes from the soap of the oil rather than the oil itself. It's good to start thinking about that difference, that the saponified oil and the unsaponified oil can have totally different properties

 

[penelopejane]

As you can see I am in the minority's in loving Castile soap.

I think it's a great soap AND it's easy to make! You could try a batch and test it along the way but definitely reserve some bars to try in one year and then in 2 years and see if you like it.

 

[Scooter]

I have only made 5 batches and started just a few weeks ago. It is addictive, so be careful. This was my first batch, 100% coconut oil: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xZkbfz-b8[/ame].

The link above will take you to a tutorial from Soaping101, one of my favorite youtube channels. For a first soap, 100% coconut has the advantage of being both simple and fast(er) to cure (well, compared to a soap high in olive oil).

There are no right or wrong answers to your question. I think the people who are suggesting recipes from stuff found at WalMart are giving you great advice. Which reminds me, the person who makes the Soaping 101 videos has a great tutorial on how to make soap with ingredients you get from a local dollar store. I did not find all the ingredients at my dollar store(s) but I think that is a great attitude to have. Here is a link to the dollar store tutorial: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWnqXTqZTvU[/ame].