Nikko
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2015
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 30
Hi All,
Firstly, thank you for having such a wonderful forum - I'm a member of a lot of other forums and well they're only as good as their members, so from my first impressions all here need a good pat on the back.
I do dislike folks who ask questions rather than using the search function so I WILL TRY not to ask obvious or easily found things - apologies in advance if I do.
A few of my questions are just seeking confirmation/or swift rebuttal of thoughts I have - so please feel free to just say YES or DEFINITELY NOT! ;-)
1) I've made a rectangular wooden mold from 15mm ply - the ends are not fixed in place, thus allowing me varying batch sizes (max interior size L: 53cm W: 9cm H: 8.5cm) - I'm aiming for a 9cm x 6cm x 2.5cm bar. So ~2862ml is a full batch.
Should I curb my silly male instincts do do a FULL batch at first and do say 50% of mold capacity?
2) The molds are made of Formply (more on that later) - raw edges painted with varnish/estapol - then I've lined it on all interior and top with the thickest polyethylene 'builders film' I could find - all stapled in place. My thought is this is a permanent backup liner but I would line the mold with a double layer of Gladwrap/Saran Wrap for each batch (discarding this after use).
Should this be acceptable?
3) I've a decent amount of oils on hand and haven't settled on a good initial recipe. I should flag that I'm an avid shaving buff (old style safety razors, brushes etc) and as such have an appreciation for the properties beef tallow brings to a soap (it's very much sought after in shaving soaps).
The oils I have onhand and shortlisted for my first batch are:
- tallow (via the red wrappered Superfry sold in Australia)
- palm (via the yellow wrappered Frymasta sold in Australia)
- coconut (refined varient)
- canola (seems to get a bad rap but I'd like to add say 10%)
- rice bran
- olive
- castor (which people say they superfat BUT I read it has to be saponified to get the benefits???)
So I'd like a hard soap thats otherwise well rounded in it's qualities.
After reading a LOT of recipes I was thinking this as a rough starter:
- 25% tallow
- 25% palm
- 20% olive
- 15% coconut
- 10% canola
- 5% castor
5% superfat (unsure if it's better to lye discount or manually calculate and add 5% EXTRA nicer oils at trace to achieve this?)
Was going to add a little green clay powder (to initial oils to get easy mix) and a little ground oatmeal at same time.
Is that all reasonably feasible or glaring issues?
4) RE: scent - I didn't want to go too crazy but have a large selection of essential oils onhand. Initially I was thinking just some rosemary (mid note) + a SMALL amount of eucalyptus (top note) + Neem oil (as the base note plus for it's medical properties). I have scent tested and it works ok as long as you keep the Euca % well down.
Some say to add the EO's initially and others say only at trace, which one is more logical?
Thank you in advance for any assistance/feedback you might be able to give.
Nick
PS. This may be of benefit to other Australians or others but I made the molds of an building material found at Bunnings (in the trade/bulk materials section - I got a 1200 x 595 sheet) called Formply - which apparently is Formply is made of a high-density overlay (HDO) of phenolic resin impregnated paper bonded to plywood. It's specially made to have concrete applied to it in building work and was the same price as normal 15mm ply.
Being that it's made to have concrete put on it I'd imagine it's quite alkali resistant. The surface has a hard black coating that might even be able to be used without lining for soaps? If nothing else it should save people having to paint/varnish/oil their wood before use and provide an extra layer of protection against spills etc.
I've never heard of anyone else using it but from my preliminary investigations and it's zero marginal cost I would theorise there's an upside there for it in a soap mold.
Firstly, thank you for having such a wonderful forum - I'm a member of a lot of other forums and well they're only as good as their members, so from my first impressions all here need a good pat on the back.
I do dislike folks who ask questions rather than using the search function so I WILL TRY not to ask obvious or easily found things - apologies in advance if I do.
A few of my questions are just seeking confirmation/or swift rebuttal of thoughts I have - so please feel free to just say YES or DEFINITELY NOT! ;-)
1) I've made a rectangular wooden mold from 15mm ply - the ends are not fixed in place, thus allowing me varying batch sizes (max interior size L: 53cm W: 9cm H: 8.5cm) - I'm aiming for a 9cm x 6cm x 2.5cm bar. So ~2862ml is a full batch.
Should I curb my silly male instincts do do a FULL batch at first and do say 50% of mold capacity?
2) The molds are made of Formply (more on that later) - raw edges painted with varnish/estapol - then I've lined it on all interior and top with the thickest polyethylene 'builders film' I could find - all stapled in place. My thought is this is a permanent backup liner but I would line the mold with a double layer of Gladwrap/Saran Wrap for each batch (discarding this after use).
Should this be acceptable?
3) I've a decent amount of oils on hand and haven't settled on a good initial recipe. I should flag that I'm an avid shaving buff (old style safety razors, brushes etc) and as such have an appreciation for the properties beef tallow brings to a soap (it's very much sought after in shaving soaps).
The oils I have onhand and shortlisted for my first batch are:
- tallow (via the red wrappered Superfry sold in Australia)
- palm (via the yellow wrappered Frymasta sold in Australia)
- coconut (refined varient)
- canola (seems to get a bad rap but I'd like to add say 10%)
- rice bran
- olive
- castor (which people say they superfat BUT I read it has to be saponified to get the benefits???)
So I'd like a hard soap thats otherwise well rounded in it's qualities.
After reading a LOT of recipes I was thinking this as a rough starter:
- 25% tallow
- 25% palm
- 20% olive
- 15% coconut
- 10% canola
- 5% castor
5% superfat (unsure if it's better to lye discount or manually calculate and add 5% EXTRA nicer oils at trace to achieve this?)
Was going to add a little green clay powder (to initial oils to get easy mix) and a little ground oatmeal at same time.
Is that all reasonably feasible or glaring issues?
4) RE: scent - I didn't want to go too crazy but have a large selection of essential oils onhand. Initially I was thinking just some rosemary (mid note) + a SMALL amount of eucalyptus (top note) + Neem oil (as the base note plus for it's medical properties). I have scent tested and it works ok as long as you keep the Euca % well down.
Some say to add the EO's initially and others say only at trace, which one is more logical?
Thank you in advance for any assistance/feedback you might be able to give.
Nick
PS. This may be of benefit to other Australians or others but I made the molds of an building material found at Bunnings (in the trade/bulk materials section - I got a 1200 x 595 sheet) called Formply - which apparently is Formply is made of a high-density overlay (HDO) of phenolic resin impregnated paper bonded to plywood. It's specially made to have concrete applied to it in building work and was the same price as normal 15mm ply.
Being that it's made to have concrete put on it I'd imagine it's quite alkali resistant. The surface has a hard black coating that might even be able to be used without lining for soaps? If nothing else it should save people having to paint/varnish/oil their wood before use and provide an extra layer of protection against spills etc.
I've never heard of anyone else using it but from my preliminary investigations and it's zero marginal cost I would theorise there's an upside there for it in a soap mold.