Need good advice

[sliginion]

Ive just started on lye soap making and I dont think im doing so well lol.

First I tried with just lye water from ashes and 16 oz of lard and it came out like it might b a greasy soap.

Second... today I tried making goats milk lye soap with 16 oz lard, 12 oz goats milk from a can lol, and 3.5 oz lye. I need some advice making a good soap. Pls

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Hello

To start with, I would get actual real sodium hydroxide- it makes it so much easier having a known base.

Then try making a soap with 15% coconut oil, 50% lard and 35% olive oil. It's a very standard recipe from which one can make variations

Where are you from?

 

[shunt2011]

TEGS recipe is a good place to start. Second, use a good soap calculator to run your recipes through for the correct amounts of lye and liquid. Soapcalc.net or soapee are good. Welcome to the forum.

 

[sliginion]

Searcy AR

 

[Kamahido]

Sounds like you need to start with soap making basics. Making goat's milk soap is an advanced technique. Soap Queen has a several part video series on Youtube on soap making basics.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR6ttCSrLJI&list=PLAADF6209996265D2[/ame]

She starts out explaining the basics of soap safety. Why? Because if you get Sodium Hydroxide in your eyes you ARE going to the emergency room/losing sight in that eye.

 

[sliginion]

I have no idea ab wat oils do what when it comes to soapy and leathery type oil but I will try a small batch of olive oil and coconut for starters I checked the goats milk soap I made yesterday and It turned out pretty good. Its kinda hard after just 12 hrs in the mold

 

[Steve85569]

I have no idea ab wat oils do what when it comes to soapy and leathery type oil but I will try a small batch of olive oil and coconut for starters I checked the goats milk soap I made yesterday and It turned out pretty good. Its kinda hard after just 12 hrs in the mold

TEG's suggested starting point for oils is a good standard. Lard, Olive oil and Coconut oil in that order. Makes a nice not too harsh bar of soap and saves you from needing to do a lot of experimentation that some of us ( I ) did.

Remember that soap needs to cure for several weeks before using it!

 

[DeeAnna]

DO NOT use that soap! Do NOT handle the soap without gloves! It will cause serious chemical burns -- it is not safe to use!!!!!

At 16 oz lard and 3.5 ounces of lye (I'm assuming you mean real NaOH and not that wood-ash "lye" solution), you have something like 50% excess NaOH in that soap. Small wonder it's hard already -- it should be brittle as glass with that much lye in it. I don't want to know why you did this ... suffice to say I hope you're risking only your own skin and not any one else's.

I will just stop at this rather than say anything more .............. :think:

 

[sliginion]

No 3 lbs lard and 3.5 wood ash on the first batch and its greasy feeling lol

The second betch I used 16 oz lard 12 oz goats milk and 3.3 oz lard water made with crystal lye

 

[DeeAnna]

"...lard water..."

What's that?

***

Whether you used 3.3 or 3.5 ounces of pure NaOH in your second recipe, it makes no matter -- it is still dangerously alkaline. Do NOT use it.

 

[sliginion]

Lye water

I think my wood ash lye water was too weak in the first batch

Ill use less lye next time

 

[earlene]

That's still too much lye for 16 ounces of lard. If you go to SoapCalc and plug in 16 ounces of lard, click 'Calculate Recipe', then click 'View or Print Recipe' you will see this:

See the amount of lye you are supposed to use? It is 2.15 ounces with 6.08 ounces of water. You used twice as much goats milk as you would water, but you cannot know how much fat is in the goats milk to offset the excess lye. (Maybe one of the science folks here would know, but I sure wouldn't.) You used way more lye than you needed for that amount of lard.

 

[Seawolfe]

Dude, stop.
Spend about 40 hours doing some research.
Please.

 

[DeeAnna]

Were you following any instructions when making the lye from wood ash? If not, there's a lot more to it than just soaking ashes in water. And there's a lot more to making soap from this kind of lye than just mixing fat with the lye. It's really not something a person can do by the "seat of your pants". Even a century or three ago when this was a common way to make soap, it was a process that required training and experience to really do right.

Seawolfe is right. Quit goofing around with this. Stop. Learn. Do it right.

 

[earlene]

Sliginion, we are just worried you may harm yourself using soap with too much lye in it.

Here is a link to the Beginner's Guide to Making CP Soap at the HSCG. It might help you a lot to read up on the process before you make your next batch. It is not the only site with information about how to safely make soap, but it's a good resource.

The Lye Calculator I used to produce that picture above is at this link. There is a tutorial about how to use SoapCalc here on the SMF forums here.

If you can find another soap maker in or around where you live in Arkansas, then I strongly urge you to find out if they or someone they know teaches soap making classes. The HSCG does have a listing of certified soap making instructors, but I don't really see any near you. However you may find someone if you keep looking. That's not to say that you cannot learn on your own. Of course you can. Many of us do. But after 6 months of making soap, I came to realize there was so much I didn't know that I really felt it was good for me to take a class. I crossed two states to take a class from one of the instructors on that HSCG list and I am really glad I did. I learned new things I had not known before and met some really nice people, too.

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome Sliginion!

All of us here truly wish to help you get on the right track and make great soap, but I second everyone's concern that it would be in your best interest to take some time out to do more research before attempting any more batches.....

If I understand correctly, for your first batch that came out feeling greasy, you used 3 lbs lard and 3.5 wood ash....

Can you tell us more about how you went about preparing the wood ashes? Do you know what the strength of it was? If you used a particular recipe online, can you point us to it? It will be of great help to us in attempting to help you if we know all the specifics. As DeeAnna said, it's a very tricky process making soap using wood ashes. For what its worth, I've been making soap 10 years and I have no desire to even think about trying to attempt making soap from wood ashes.

And for your second batch, you used 16 oz lard, 12 oz goats milk, and 3.3 oz lye water made with crystal lye. ....

Can you tell us more about your second recipe such as where you got it or how you came up with it, and also how you went about making your lye water out of the crystal lye? From you description above, it sounds like your total lye solution weighed 3.5 oz, but we'll need to know the actual weight of the lye you used in proportion to the weight of your water. Also- just to be sure- was the crystal lye you used 100% NaOH?


IrishLass

 

[sliginion]

99% crystal lye and I did do the egg test before mixing it lol but ur all a great help for helping me figure out this new hobby. it really means alot to me
Wood ash lye is a challenge but I love a challenge. The egg test on the wood ash was about a penny floating out of the water.
And I will try my soap before I ever let anyone else use it I promise... lol the burn says its working lol (joke)
I came up with my own recipes
The goats milk recipe turned out really well