Making MP from scratch..

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Though the recipes are great, there is a lot of other info. she did a great job of throughly explaining the ingredients. She also dedicates a couple chapters to running a business that is.

...Also, a little info on aromatherapy. While I am all for saving money, I am happy I spent the $7.

Yeah, you're right; $7 is a bargain. :)

On the other hand, it depends on your experience and knowledge of ingredients, how useful the rest of the information is. ;)

Also - if you're not a fan of tensides/surfactants; perhaps this way of soaping might not be your cup of tea.
 
Shipment of glycerin came in today!! So here's the recipe I decided to try:

Olive - 35%
Coconut - 45%
Sunflower - 10%
Avocado - 10%
3% SF

That's cooking at the moment. I'm thinking of using 50/50 glycerin and simple syrup to dissolve. Thoughts?

I didn't have any sorbitol, but I want to try it yo compare to the simple syrup.
 
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What happened today :D

My SIL was given four soaps as a present from a colleague who vacationed on Bali (Indonesia).

He handed those to me with the question if it was good soap and if he could use it safely. ;)

The soap is transparent, with opaque shavings.
First impression: the soap is rather soft; pressing with a finger leaves a clear dent.

Looking at the ingredient list:

sucrose
Cocos Nucifera Oil
Elaeis Guineensis oil
Water
Sodium Hydroxide
Stearic Acid
Propylene glycol
Glycerine
Fragrance
Avena Sativa Meal (oat meal)
CI 16255
Tocopherol

Apart from the oatmeal - present in the opaque shavings, these ingredients could be a tweaking of the recipe used in the first post...

Speaking of coincidence. :D
 
I tried a similar recipe

Hi there! I made the original recipe Cee mentioned at the end of her blog post (the one posted on the Russian blog, which was a 50% coconut oil, 50% castor oil, no Palm and SA) and although the soap came out beautifully!!!! and quite translucent, it is soft and it sweats A LOT!!! It is very hot now in my part of the world, and that soap sweats like crazy. I made a few embeds out of it, you have to work fast, at really high temps, or the soap starts to thicken fast on you. I am not sure if Zacil and Cee's version is much different, I am planning to make it to see by comparison, and I am yet to use my embeds in CP soap. I get my soaps to full gel in the oven, with the light on all night and I've had bad luck with embeds melting due to the heat. I prefer to make them out of CP soap for that reason, that way I have better luck with them surviving the oven insulation stage.

Best of luck!

Kyra


I apologize is this is in the wrong place. I couldn't decided since it's technically MP, but also not..

I've seen this link on here before and I filed it away for use at a later date:
http://oilandbutter.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-to-make-your-own-melt-and-pour-soap.html

I'd like to make my own MP base using this method, but I'd like to use my own recipe. I was wondering if anyone has experimented with this and used different oils? I'm afraid that if I use too many "soft" oils, that the resulting MP will be too soft since it's 50% glycerin.

The recipe it calls for is:
Coconut 32 %
Palm 32 %
Castor 32 %
Stearic Acid 4 %
SF 3 %

I don't normally use palm oil and would like to sub in different oils/butters. Any thoughts?
 
It is quite soft. I am keeping it to use as decoration on my soap cakes and cupcakes so I did not use the soap for washing. By the look and texture of it though, it looks like it's going to melt pretty fast and yes, it gets easily scratched and nicked when handled. It also is covered and I mean covered with sweat! I am not sure I could use it as a regular M&P soap. I would think it's rather useful for embeds. M&P is so darn expensive here, no way I could buy it bulk to soap with it, and surely I wouldn't pay top buck to use it as decoration. So for my purpose, this made from scratch base is cheap and accessible and I can make it any time I want to. Now I am curious about how would that soap work as a... soap... I am going to go cut a slice :).
 
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Really excited about the results! Its super bubbly and I don't find it at all drying. I was afraid I would with that much coconut oil. It seems to take color and fragrance well. It melts really easily but also forms a skin pretty quick so you have to work fast and keep it moving. I think next time ill do a 50/50 sorbitol and glycerin solvent mixture and see how that compares. I haven't noticed it sweating terribly yet, which surprised me. And its harder than I thought it would be. I'm pretty pleased!

My God at the typos... That's what I get for posting from my phone. Stupid autocorrect..

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Which recipe did you end up making? The 50/50 CO and Castor Oil? Or the one with Stearic Acid and Palm?
 
I actually came up with a recipe for the oils I had on hand:

Olive - 35%
Coconut - 45%
Sunflower - 10%
Avocado - 10%
3% SF

I'd love to get some stearic acid and try as well and see how that affects it. And of course I want to make one with shea, and one with cocoa, and one with honey.... The experimenting has just begun :D
 
Interesting mix of oils for that base. I am super happy it worked for you! What percentage of glycerin did you add to the paste?

This is encouraging me to experiment further since I am not super happy with my recipe. I used 80% glycerin in mine (with a 50% CO and 50% Castor oil + NaOH) and I am thinking to go lower on the percentage to see if I get less sweat and more hardness. I don't care for translucency, as I will only be using the base for embeds, so working with other oils and less glycerin will be interesting to experiment with.

Here are the pics of the base I made. As you can see, there is sooo much sweat, I have a hard time picking up the block of soap, it slides, right out of my hand. The translucency is pretty good as you can see from the photos I am posting, but note the already rounded edges after only one hand wash! So it melts fast! in the water. Translucency is not something I look for in my base -- hardness, lack of extreme sweat and being able to melt and pour simple embeds is what I am looking for.

Please share any of your other experiments :)

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You're transparency is definitely better than mine. I'm going to assume it has something to do with castor oil because I ended up using 100% glycerin plus the original 50% simple syrup because it wouldn't dissolve. Its very interesting because of I stir too quickly while melting, little tiny bubbles start floating around ha. I blame the syrup.

Ill have to go test one of the slices, but from the little scraps I've tried, I don't think it melts away that fast.
 
My corners rounded slightly, but not nearly like yours did. I think that much castor oil plus the hovering yes for a really soft soap.

20140813_110147.jpg
 
What happened today :D

My SIL was given four soaps as a present from a colleague who vacationed on Bali (Indonesia).

He handed those to me with the question if it was good soap and if he could use it safely. ;)

The soap is transparent, with opaque shavings.
First impression: the soap is rather soft; pressing with a finger leaves a clear dent.

Looking at the ingredient list:

sucrose
Cocos Nucifera Oil
Elaeis Guineensis oil
Water
Sodium Hydroxide
Stearic Acid
Propylene glycol
Glycerine
Fragrance
Avena Sativa Meal (oat meal)
CI 16255
Tocopherol

Apart from the oatmeal - present in the opaque shavings, these ingredients could be a tweaking of the recipe used in the first post...

Speaking of coincidence. :D

what's the name of the brand? was it desoap? i heard that one is pretty popular over there at the moment. there are TONS of soapmakers in Bali, with varying qualities. mostly retail for really cheap (2 bucks and less). desoap is around 4 bucks me thinks.
 
You're transparency is definitely better than mine. I'm going to assume it has something to do with castor oil because I ended up using 100% glycerin plus the original 50% simple syrup because it wouldn't dissolve.

Aha! Good to know about the extra sugar solution. If I would have tried a recipe other than the one I have, I would have been stuck, not knowing why it doesn't dissolve and how can I fix it. Thanks for mentioning this!

Its very interesting because of I stir too quickly while melting, little tiny bubbles start floating around ha. I blame the syrup.

I remember reading in some of the comments on You Tube or some blog about the bubbles floating around. :) Didn't happen with my recipe.

Ill have to go test one of the slices, but from the little scraps I've tried, I don't think it melts away that fast.

Yes, yours surely seems like a much harder soap. Mine melts even under all that sweat :(
 
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I might up the SF with the next batch. Even though it doesn't dry MY skin, I'm afraid others might find it drying simply because of the high CO. I understand that will mess with the clarity, but I'm not trying to produce a clear soap. At least not at through moment ;)
 
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