Tallow pine tar recipe check

[Corsara]

I'm finally making time to make some more soap! I'm tired of waiting to try and get some castor oil
I have some pine tar, the goal is to make something my husband likes enough to be ok with my growing soap making habit..
In addition to the oils in my recipe right now, I also have a bit of palm oil left and some olive oil available. I've had so much fun playing with soap calc, but I have no idea if this is a viable recipe! How does it look?

Tallow 30%
Coconut oil 20%
Canola 20%
Pine tar 15%
Sweet almond oil 15%

I haven't messed with the lye concentration yet. I was wondering about other additives, but with what I've heard about pine tar and acceleration, I assume that's not a good idea for a newbie. I want to try sugar, rice water or aloe juice, and coffee grounds.

I am planning on using this method -
And I am modifying a mold my husband made me to hold around 4 bars, but I still need to calculate the volume.

 

[earlene]

I wouldn't add sugar to your first pine tar soap. In fact, for your very first pine tar soap, I would suggest keep it plain and simple without adding any other things, not even a water substitute. I'd also steer away from coffee grounds, as you have never made pine tar soap before, so you don't really have a base knowledge of what happens with pine tar.

Your recipe looks okay to me, although it will be somewhat on the soft side. I'd probably drop the pine tart to 10% for a first time pine tar soap. Maybe up the hard oils or sub another hard oil for the almond oil. I use a lower superfat, but if you are not comfortable with that, 5%SF should be fine, plus you have more CO than my skin likes, so that plays a part in choice of SF value as well.

Regarding Castor Oil, if you have a pharmacy or a Walmart nearby, go to the pharmacy section and look for Castor Oil in the laxitive area. You can buy a 6 ounce bottle (at 5% castor, that's enough for more than 6 pounds of soap) for about $2.64 (or so, depending on your local prices.) (link) This is what I used when I first started making soap. Very cheap and easy to find in almost every pharmacy I've been in, even many grocery stores.

 

[Corsara]

I wouldn't add sugar to your first pine tar soap. In fact, for your very first pine tar soap, I would suggest keep it plain and simple without adding any other things, not even a water substitute. I'd also steer away from coffee grounds, as you have never made pine tar soap before, so you don't really have a base knowledge of what happens with pine tar.

Your recipe looks okay to me, although it will be somewhat on the soft side. I'd probably drop the pine tart to 10% for a first time pine tar soap. Maybe up the hard oils or sub another hard oil for the almond oil. I use a lower superfat, but if you are not comfortable with that, 5%SF should be fine, plus you have more CO than my skin likes, so that plays a part in choice of SF value as well.

Regarding Castor Oil, if you have a pharmacy or a Walmart nearby, go to the pharmacy section and look for Castor Oil in the laxitive area. You can buy a 6 ounce bottle (at 5% castor, that's enough for more than 6 pounds of soap) for about $2.64 (or so, depending on your local prices.) (link) This is what I used when I first started making soap. Very cheap and easy to find in almost every pharmacy I've been in, even many grocery stores.

Thank you for your advice! Yes, I assumed I should not add any additives. I could add some palm oil for some more hard oils.

I checked our local Walgreens for castor oil, and they did not carry it, but I ordered an 8 oz bottle on Amazon today. How important is castor oil? It seems like it's in every recipe.

Any suggestions for lye concentration with how fast it accelerates? And does the method in the video I included look reasonable?

Sorry for all the questions! This is my first more involved batch, and I find the more research I do, the more questions I have!

 

[earlene]

Thank you for your advice! Yes, I assumed I should not add any additives. I could add some palm oil for some more hard oils.

I checked our local Walgreens for castor oil, and they did not carry it, but I ordered an 8 oz bottle on Amazon today. How important is castor oil? It seems like it's in every recipe.

Any suggestions for lye concentration with how fast it accelerates? And does the method in the video I included look reasonable?

Sorry for all the questions! This is my first more involved batch, and I find the more research I do, the more questions I have!

Re: the video: I really enjoyed listening and watching Elly's video and love that she includes so much information in the description area below her video! However, unless you have a soap-dedicated microwave in a soaping room, I would not include the pine tar in the bowl when melting the hard oils in the microwave oven. The pine tar odor wouldn't blend well with whatever foods I may later that day heat up in my kitchen, and I'm not really sure how long the odor would linger in my microwave. So I'd pre-melt the hard oils in some of the soft oils, but add the pine tar afterwards.

Re: castor: It supports bubbles. I have soaped without it, like when I didn't have any. So although it is quite popular as a soaping oil, I don't find it to be essential. You can add sugar to soap to help with the bubbles. But it's worth trying it out and seeing how it works for you and compare the soaps you've made without castor to the ones with castor.

Re: lye concentration: I'd probably switch to 33% lye concentration. You have a lot of water in your recipe and it will just add to faster heating, which in turn speeds up the process. But then it takes longer to evaporate out during the cure, making the soap take longer before you handle the soap without leaving indentations.

Re: the Lye solution method used in the video: I would not use the ice method to create your lye solution for this particular soap. It is not necessary in this instance to have ice-cold lye solution and it's a lot more problematic than making your lye solution normally with room temperature water.

 

[Corsara]

Re: the video: I really enjoyed listening and watching Elly's video and love that she includes so much information in the description area below her video! However, unless you have a soap-dedicated microwave in a soaping room, I would not include the pine tar in the bowl when melting the hard oils in the microwave oven. The pine tar odor wouldn't blend well with whatever foods I may later that day heat up in my kitchen, and I'm not really sure how long the odor would linger in my microwave. So I'd pre-melt the hard oils in some of the soft oils, but add the pine tar afterwards.

Re: castor: It supports bubbles. I have soaped without it, like when I didn't have any. So although it is quite popular as a soaping oil, I don't find it to be essential. You can add sugar to soap to help with the bubbles. But it's worth trying it out and seeing how it works for you and compare the soaps you've made without castor to the ones with castor.

Re: lye concentration: I'd probably switch to 33% lye concentration. You have a lot of water in your recipe and it will just add to faster heating, which in turn speeds up the process. But then it takes longer to evaporate out during the cure, making the soap take longer before you handle the soap without leaving indentations.

Re: the Lye solution method used in the video: I would not use the ice method to create your lye solution for this particular soap. It is not necessary in this instance to have ice-cold lye solution and it's a lot more problematic than making your lye solution normally with room temperature water.

Thanks! I don't own a microwave, so that won't be an issue! My castor oil arrived today, so now I have to recalculate how I want to do this.. I might try a small batch both with and without it to compare.