barred rock
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misslavey said:If you have a True Value nearby, they will have lye. If not, they will order it for you and they get it in store within a couple days. I called on a Wednesday and they didn't have any so they ordered a couple bottles and I picked them up by Friday morning, it was less than $5 (with tax) for about a pound.
Why not just do a 100% olive oil soap? That's what I did for my first batch and from there I began to add a new oil and combination with each batch thereafter. It's a good way to acclimate.
barred rock said:100% Olive oil sounds good....it will make a good soap?
IrishLass said:barred rock said:100% Olive oil sounds good....it will make a good soap?
Just so you know what to expect, 100% olive oil soap is definitely an aquired taste. Plus you have to wait at least 6 months to a year for it to be really good. I make special batches of it only for myself and another person because nobody else likes to use it. When using it directly on the skin or with just your hands to lather (i.e. no wash cloth), the lather is quite sparse to non-existant and has a goopy, 'egg-white' consistency to it. Why do I make special batches of it then? Because if you use one of those nylon puffy things to get some friction going, it's like a miracle has taken place to the lather. It's now rich, luxuriant and bubbly/creamy. And it's very gentle to my skin.
I second on looking over at Miller's soap site to get some good beginner recipes. In looking at the recipe you posted- that's a lot of soybean oil. Soybean oil is very high in linoleic acid which is notorious for causing soap to go bad if you use it at too high of a %. Also- the recipe as written doesn't look like it would produce much in the way of bubbly lather which could be very disappointing if you like bubbly lather. If you still want to use soybean oil, I would go lower on it or eliminate it altogether and add coconut oil in its place instead for some bubblage. You can buy coconut oil over at the Walmart Superstores (LuAnn Brand).
I calculated your recipe to put it into %'s and came up with 40% olive oil, 40% Crisco and 20% soybean oil. If I were to re-write the recipe for a 1 lb batch (which I think would be better for your size of crockpot if I'm not mistaken) and swapping out soybean for coconut oil, here is what it would look like, compliments of SoapCalc:
Olive oil (just the regular kind) ......40% (6.4 oz)
Crisco (the new Crisco with palm oil in it)..40% (6.4 oz)
Coconut Oil (the 76 degrees kind that Walmart sells)........20% (3.2 oz)
As for lye amount- if you superfatted it at the default 5% that SoapCalc (and most calculators) recommend, it comes to 2.2 oz lye.
As for water amount, I gave it a 30% lye solution rate which I think is absolutely fine for a beginner recipe (not too much as to cause warping as your bars cure, and not too little as to cause fast trace). This comes out to 5 oz water.
This will give you a good beginner soap that will cure hard in 4 weeks with a nice balance of conditioning/cleansing and lather.
To check to make sure I got the right amount of oil, water and lye (and you always want to double-check any recipe anyone gives you), just go over to SoapCalc, type in that you want to make a 1 lb batch under The Weight Of Oils section at the top. Then go to the Lye Concentration box and type in 30%. Leave the superfat % as is (it's always 5% unless you change it). Then go to where the oils are listed in a column. Scroll down and click on your chosen oils (one at a time) and hit the + button over in the Soap Recipe section, and then type in the % you want to use for each oil. Then scroll down to the bottom and hit Calculate and then hit View/Print Recipe. Once you hit View/Print, it'll bring up another screen with all your amounts in weight written out that you can print out if you want.
If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!
IrishLass
morena_mama said:I'm another newbie. So for what it's worth that is a fairly large first batch.
barred rock said:Irishlass: Hey how about replacing the water with Bigelow all natural mint herbal tea? I don't know why, but I like soaps that have a minty invigerating feel/smell to them.
IrishLass said:barred rock said:Irishlass: Hey how about replacing the water with Bigelow all natural mint herbal tea? I don't know why, but I like soaps that have a minty invigerating feel/smell to them.
You could certainly do that, but based on others' experiences that I've read who have tried the same, the scent will be very weak to non-existant, and if by chance any of the scent does come through, it won't last for very long. Your best bet to have that cool, invigorating mint come through is to add peppermint EO or FO. EOs and FOs are very concentrated and will pack way more of a punch than tea leaves (FO more so and more lasting than EO in my experience). For my mint soap I like to use a FO called Peppermint Stick from WSP. That stuff is powerful (go careful, it's easy to go overboard) and will give you a nice, cool, tingly feeling. It's great for showering with after a long, hot day.
IrishLass
barred rock said:What is FO and EO and where is WSP? lol!
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