My first recipe

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bernard

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So after learning the basics and really wanting to try this, I have come up with the following recipe to start with.

Coconut oil: 35%
Sunflower oil: 35%
Olive oil: 20%
Castor oil: 10%

Soap Calc gives the following:
Hardness: 42
Cleaning: 35
Conditioning: 57
Bubbly: 44
Creamy: 16
Iodine: 73
Ins: 166

How is this for a basic soap? Thoughts / comments / critique is higly appreciated!
 
I would start with something like:

50% palm, lard or tallow (my preference would be lard)
25% Olive oil
20% Coconut oil
5% Castor

5% SF, can also use the standard water amount as a beginner and it is okay.

This will give a soap that can be unmoulded and cut within a reasonable time and will be a lovely soap after a 4 week cure, with a nice lather and post-use feel.

Your original recipe will take some time to unmould, as it is mainly soft oils. For my tastes the CO is too high, but many do use that sort of amount - I would prefer it lower though. While castor CAN be used at 10%, for many it is the upper limit and I find 5% gives a great boost to bubbles.

Most importantly, I would then play in an orderly way with the recipes (doesn't sound fun, I know, but it works) for example, make a soap with 10% castor and after a while make the only change as lowering the castor to 5% and upping something like the olive - but only make 1 change at a time so that you can see how a difference between the 10% and 5% impacts the soap.
 
I agree with TEG. Unless you are using HO Sunflower Oil you would be at risk getting DOS with that high of an amount. However, if you are set on using it you could use it at 10%. Also, I would keep your CO at 20-25%. Anything higher can be drying for some. Try different combinations (be sure to check soap calc).
 
What oils are available to you cheaply? I think your first recipe isn't great, but isn't terrible. While I thing Effy's (tee tee) recipe is better, if you want to give yours a try b/c that's what you have on hand, go for it.
 
Thanks for the advice, guess it's back to the drawing board with my recipe.

I would start with something like:

50% palm, lard or tallow (my preference would be lard)
25% Olive oil
20% Coconut oil

Thanks for the recipe, will look if palm oil is available, trying to keep the soap Vegan.

What oils are available to you cheaply? I think your first recipe isn't great, but isn't terrible. While I thing Effy's (tee tee) recipe is better, if you want to give yours a try b/c that's what you have on hand, go for it.

Well sunflower is quite cheap here, hence that being my main ingredient.
 
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IMO, I think it is better to build a good recipe with what is available to you at a good price, than to try to duplicate what people thousands of miles away are doing.

Do you have the option of high oleic sunflower? that is less prone to oxidation and rancidity than regular sunflower.

You may find your recipe too harsh - 35% coconut is a lot. The "standard" is 15%-20%. I say "standard" in quotes because while that the range that the majority of soapers use (from my observations on this forum), there are plenty of soapers who use less or more.
 
Also, Bernard, take the soapcalc numbers with a pinch of salt. They are fun to look at, I always take a glance at them. Also good for providing quick ratios of the fatty acids in your soap so that you get an idea of how they will actually be once cured. But they can be misleading and are not necessarily great for letting you know what will be good w/r/t to *your* goals.

Eg, this soap. The numbers are good, right? An INS of 166 seems perfect. But as others have said, your recipe will probably make a soft soap that is slow to cure (the iodine value actually tells you that, the higher it is, the softer). The hardness value really goes to how hard the bar will be on unmolding, not necessarily how hard it will be in use or how fast it will "melt". A high cleansing number (35 is pretty high) such as that produced by high amts of CO, seems good, but as EG pointed out actually can be very drying. Like others with dry skin, I prefer my cleaning value in the low teens. Basically *any* handmade soap will clean (as long as it has saponified!) after that, it is all about the feel in use for me.

Mavens, if I am wrong on any of this, please correct. Bernard, DeeAnna is a poster here who has dealt a lot with the soapcalc numbers, her posts explaining them in plain English are really helpful if you search for them. Look for posts by her and TopOfMurrayHill - he is also v. helpful but focuses more on the chemistry of the acids, not so much immediate newbie things. I'm sure there are others I am forgetting, too, you will get to know them if you stick around.

I like using soap calc, especially the fatty acid breakdowns, which *are* helpful in trying to figure out how a soap will actually end up, but get better advice/information here than from any analysis there. The search function here is an amazing teaching tool (be sure to scroll down to the end of the page if you find a relevant one in a search to see if there are similar posts w/good advice.)

I bet you can get palm there, based on the weather. Don't use the red stuff at more than 5%, though, it will make the soap a brighter orange than you can imagine.
 
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I will be the outlier here and say go for it :) Although I personally would bring that castor down to 5% and OO up 5%

I think its better to make an ok batch now with what you have than ship and wait and make the usual recipes - just to get some practice in. And its amazing what can make a good soap - my early batches were just 75% OO and 25% CO and they were nice soaps! Especially to someone who had never made soap before. It really drove home to me that you can make soap with what you find at your grocery store.

PS if you can find lard - lard is da bomb in soap!
Edit - oh I see vegan - well maybe palm then :)
 
OK, taken your advice in account and the fact that sunflower oil has a 3 month shelf life (read that somewhere), here is my new recipe:

Palm Oil: 50%
Olive Oil 30%
Coconut Oil, fractionated: 15%
Castor Oil:5%

Hardness 45
Cleansing 16
Conditioning 54
Bubbly 20
Creamy 34
Iodine 56
INS 157
 
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Bernard, sorry for chipping in again, hopefully this is not going to be unwelcome. I'm sure one of the experts will opine too, take their advice over mine.

New recipe is much better! Don't use fractionated CO, it is not good in CP, the regular kind - CO 76 degrees is most common over here, but you can use the 92 as well - is the stuff you want. I would just flip the palm and olive amounts, though, that much palm and CO together might be stripping, both are higher in the more cleansing/less moisturizing fatty acids (myristic/palmitic/stearic).

Also, I hope you *try* lard at some point, even if it is just to make soap for you. You will see posts extolling the virtues of lard over and over again, it is really a great fat for soap, one of the favorites for non-vegan/veg soapers.
 
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I'm not vegan, but some of my friends are and want them to be able to use it too.

If you are not vegan, let me strongly suggest you make a batch of soap using the same recipe, only with lard, then compare the soaps after each has a month to cure. You will be astounded at the difference. You could always save the lard one for you and your non-vegan friends.(Maybe make them different colors or scents so you know which is which.)
 
To tell you all the truth, I do plan on making a deer fat rich soap in the future, will have about 300kgs of deer fat next year as my dad owns a game breeding farm. :O

But for now I just want to practice with veggie soap. :)
 
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Things we never thought we would say.....

Maybe not, but wow, the possibilities! I instantly thought of all the recipes I could make, and I bet I could package that in a camo wrapper and sell a billion of those to the hunters and the wanna-be hunters around here. I'd bet every sporting goods store in the south would have to carry it! Someone could have made a killing(pun intended) for father's day alone! Then there is the whole hunting season...you could have duck fat soap for duck season, and ...
 
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