Recipe question?

[alison82]

The recipe I want to use is...

7.5 oz Coconut oil 76 degree
7.5 oz Palm oil
6.25 oz Olive oil pomace
2.5 oz Castor oil
1.25 oz Shea butter

The question is...does it have to be olive oil pomace? And can the coconut oil be regular coconut oil from the grocery store? I'm new at this so I dont know.

 

[Obsidian]

You can use any olive oil and the coconut oil at the grocery store is 76 degree. Where did you find this recipe? Can you also post the lye.water amount? With such a high amount of coconut oil, it may be a drying soap.

 

[alison82]

I found this on Soapqueen blog

It has 7 oz distilled water & 3.5 oz lye

 

[Obsidian]

Most people on here will tell you that many of soapqueens recipes aren't that great. I would suggest one with a lower amount of coconut, unless you have quite oily skin that recipe will most likely be too drying. I would suggest this instead, same oils but in different portions.

Palm 10 oz
Olive oil 7.50 oz
coconut oil 5 oz
castor 1.25 oz
shea 1.25 oz

water 9 oz
lye 3.45 oz

If adding scent, .80 oz will be good as long as you aren't using a spicy FO like cinnamon.

 

[alison82]

Thank you...I appreciate any advice.

 

[alison82]

If I wanted to make the recipe into 50 oz, how would I calculate that?

 

[Susie]

50 oz is a lot of soap for a beginner. Best to stick to 16-32 oz to start with. And is that 50 oz by volume or weight? 32 oz of oil in a soap will give you roughly 48 oz soap by weight.

You can use a variety of things to use for a mold: plastic drawer dividers from the dollar stores(must have a 2 or 5 on the bottom if you don't want to line it), silicone baking molds, even a box lined with a plastic trash bag will work.

 

[alison82]

I have a silicone loaf mold that holds 40-44 oz. I wanted a little extra left over.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

As Susie said, that's a lot for a first batch. Often beginners will want to change a recipe slightly based on the results and a larger batch means that you start to end up with a lot of soap on your hands.

Even though you have this silicone mould, do consider using something smaller as a mould for now until you know that you will be happy with the results.

 

[Obsidian]

You would use http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcWP.asp to resize your batch. Its a bit confusing to learn but you need to if you are planning on making more soap, especially if you are using recipes you find online.

A simple typo could cause a disaster with a batch soap, all recipes you find should be ran through a lye calculator just to double check that the lye amount is correct.

Since its early and I really don't have the brain power to properly explain soapcalc, I went ahead and resized it for you. I also suggest making a smaller batch but I know this is a good recipe, just make sure you give it at least 6 weeks to cure.

Palm 20 oz
Olive oil 15 oz
coconut 10 oz
castor 2.5
shea 2.5

water 19 oz
lye 6.9

Scent 1.56 oz

 

[McSpin]

My soaps with high percentages of coconut oil have turned out quite nice. I've made sure my superfat % is at least 2% for every 10% increment of coconut oil. In other words, a recipe with 30% CO would have the superfat of at least 6%. I've gotten into the habit of adding an extra 1-2% superfat just to make sure. So, my 50% coconut oil soaps have been made with 12% superfat. I hope I explained that well enough. After a 6 week cure, these soaps have been very nice and not at all drying to me. Whereas, after a 2 week cure, they were quite drying. I have given a 50% coconut oil soap to about a dozen people and they all have commented on how they like it very much. The bonus for using lots of coconut oil is more bubbly lather.