Newbie question re Songwind thread

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johnwoods

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On the very first page of the Songwind Shaving Soap thread, the OP gives the amounts of stearic, coconut oil, glycerin and essential oils they used for their small batch of shave soap.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/my-first-shaving-soap-is-a-success.34264/

They say they saponified with KOH, but do not provide KOH or water amounts.

I plugged the oil amounts and the lye type into soap calc and it gave me a recipe but I don't want to dive into it until I get some feedback from experienced soap makers.

The soap calc recipe recommends 3.04 oz of water and 1.72 oz of KOH to saponify.

It's taking 5% superfat and 38 water as % of oils as defaults, but I have no idea if these defaults apply for a soft / putty / shave soap.

Likewise, there is nowhere in the soap calc to indicate added glycerin. This may be irrelevant as it's added near the end of the saponification process and it's not technically oil.

But I don't know. Because - newbie. A couple of CP castile batches is all I've attempted so far.

This is going to be my first attempt at a hot process, and my first attempt at using KOH.

I'm not holding my breath for a stunning success, but likewise I'd prefer not to ruin a batch because of a simple mistake that could be easily avoided by asking for some advice here.

Any insight / wisdom would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance.
 
Shaving soaps are usually more complicated than a regular soap, in that certain things can't be provided by most calcs. But to answer the questions -

You will find that most people here only give the oils and their weights or % when offering a recipe to someone. That someone then has to use a calc to make sure that there wasn't a typo or what not. That's why it wasn't supplied.

You'll have to play with the water amount to find what works for you and how you personally cook the soap in your slow cooker and so on. This is especially true if someone likes a slightly harder end result than you are looking for.

Glycerine amount - you can just do some very simple maths to get that. The calcs don't generally help you to work out how much in weight your additives will be.
 
Thanks for the responses. I imagine I will be experimenting with water amounts. I am more curious about whether the KOH amount recommended by the soap calc sounds right. Especially if it’s the case that with shaving soaps “certain things can’t be provided by most calcs.”

Perhaps I should word my question differently. Referring again to the Songwind recipe:

Given that a person is making an 8oz batch of shaving soap which is 52% stearic acid, 48% coconut oil, saponified with KOH.
with and added 1.5 tablespoons of glycerin after it is done cooking, along with 1/4 oz of essential oils,

What amounts of each ingredient would people recommend I use? does "8oz batch" refer only to the oil weight, or to the total weight of the oil and the water?

Alternatively, would anyone be willing to comment on whether the following recipe (below) as produced by Soap Calc accurately represents the amounts described in the Songwind recipe? ie.

an 8oz batch of shaving soap which is 52% stearic acid, 48% coconut oil, saponified with KOH.
with and added 1.5 tablespoons of glycerin after it is done cooking, along with 1/4 oz of essential oils,


and whether the amount of KOH recommended by the calc in the recipe below seems accurate?

Screen Shot 2018-05-21 at 12.10.30 PM.png


Thanks again for helping a newbie.
 
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