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@Shelley D I'm like you, and my skin doesn't love coconut oil very much, either! One thing you can do instead of researching other people's recipes, is to learn about the various fatty acids, and the qualities that each of them brings to your soap. Then you can design your own recipes from scratch. Good places to learn about fatty acids in soap include this article and this one.
Just make sure that when you combine your lye solution to your oils that the temperature of each is within 10° of each other
While this can help prevent false trace, it isn't truly necessary. In fact, some folks use their fresh, steaming hot lye to melt their room temperature hard oils, before adding their liquid oils to the batter. It's called the Heat Transfer Method. :)
 
@Shelley D I'm like you, and my skin doesn't love coconut oil very much, either! One thing you can do instead of researching other people's recipes, is to learn about the various fatty acids, and the qualities that each of them brings to your soap. Then you can design your own recipes from scratch. Good places to learn about fatty acids in soap include this article and this one.

While this can help prevent false trace, it isn't truly necessary. In fact, some folks use their fresh, steaming hot lye to melt their room temperature hard oils, before adding their liquid oils to the batter. It's called the Heat Transfer Method. :)
I have been try to understand the different qualities of the oils, but sometimes it just gets all jumbled up in my head 🙃
I finally got a copy of Scientific Soapmaking and have just gotten started reading that, but I will check out the other articles for sure! Thank you!
I haven't tried the heat transfer method yet, but I totally love using frozen liquids for the lye solution because it doesn't get all hot and fume-y, and living in an old apartment complex with windows that no longer open, I don't have very good ventilation which is why I put off making my own soap for as long as I did. But when I learned about freezing the liquids, I jumped straight in and it's been an interesting adventure for sure!
Again, thank you for pointing me towards more information!
 
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