How to build a soap recipe!!!

[Bunny]

How to build a soap recipe - Part Uno

Please note, this is only a general get started guideline. Some awfully strange recipes make fantastic bars of soap, and you’ll never know unless you try it!

For soapmaking instructions and precautions, please see Robin’s CP tutorial. I’m going to assume you’ve printed it out, and read it forward, backwards, and can recite it in your sleep.

Ok, many bars are comprised of 50% hard oils and 50% soft oils. There are many variations, but we’re keeping around here for simplicities sake in teaching. Yes, I know if you soap with 20% hard oils you can still get a good bar and vice versa.How to build a soap recipe - Part Uno

Please note, this is only a general get started guideline. Some awfully strange recipes make fantastic bars of soap, and you’ll never know unless you try it!

For soapmaking instructions and precautions, please see Robin’s CP tutorial. I’m going to assume you’ve printed it out, and read it forward, backwards, and can recite it in your sleep.

Ok, many bars are comprised of 50% hard oils and 50% soft oils. There are many variations, but we’re keeping around here for simplicities sake in teaching. Yes, I know if you soap with 20% hard oils you can still get a good bar and vice versa.

Cleansing: Coconut Oil, Palm Kernal Oil, Babassu Oil

Soft Oils: Sweet Almond, Apricot Kernal, Avocado, Castor, Hazelnut, Hemp, Meadowfoam, Olive, Passion Fruit, Rice Bran, Soybean, Walnut, Wheat Germ

Hard Oils: Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Kokum Butter, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Palm Kernal Oil, Lard, Tallow

We’ll start out with the hard oils. You know you want a cleansing bar, and the cleansing oils just happen to be hard oils. More than 15% coconut may dry your skin and be itchy, and more than 20% palm kernel oil may do the same. (I’m not to familiar with the babassu) Now, these are very inexpensive oils, so you want to use the max possible without getting dry skin, and for maximum bubbleage. (I like that word, bubbleage.)

Once you have your cleansing percentages figured out, add them up and see how much you have left out of the 50%.

Like this:

15% Palm Kernal

+15% Coconut

-----

30 % So, I have 20% more to fill in hard oils.

Please note that most butters don’t need to be used at more than 5%, more is usually a waste.

We’re going to throw in some palm as it makes a nice hard bar, resists melting in the tub, and can take the soap into trace sooner. Lets say 15%, as it’s an inexpensive oil too. If you don’t have any palm, or prefer it, use lard.. It makes an awesome bar of soap! It also slows tracing time if you feel you may want extra time for that swirl!

So, we have the 30% from above, plus the 15%, which totals 45%. Time to pick a butter for some label appeal! This one is personal preference. I’ll say cocoa for this one.

Here’s the total breakdown we have so far:

15% Palm Kernal

15% Coconut

15% Palm or Lard

+5% Cocoa Butter

-------

50% total hard oils

Ok, now to the soft oils. What oil tickles your fancy? You know as well as cleansing bar, you want to feel soft once you're out of the tub. Anything that just sounds like it feels good? I think avocado sounds good, and apricot kernel sounds pretty cool too. So, we’ll use 10% of each of those to keep the expense down, while imparting wonderful conditioning. You can use more as your wallet allows and as you experiment. Feel free to plug in any of the above oils in the soft oils category, as all the ones I choose to list are highly conditioning.

Here’s where we are with the soft oils:

10% Avacado

10% Apricot Kernal

+10% Sweet Almond

--------

30% total soft oils

Now, we’re going to add the rest in olive or rice bran oil, as then are nice and inexpensive, but don’t let the price fool you, these are wonderful oils!

10% Avacado

10% Apricot Kernal

10% Sweet Almond

+ 20% Olive

---------

50% total soft oils

Now, we add this to the above hard oils and it’s going to look like this:

15% Palm Kernal

15% Coconut

15% Palm or Lard

5% Cocoa Butter

10% Avacado

10% Apricot Kernal

10% Sweet Almond

+ 20% Olive

------------

100% and a kick bootie bar of soap.

Next lesson, how to use sooz! (Ok Robin, feel free to take over anytime here..lol)

Please note, I didn’t list all the available oils or butters, I just choose the most common ones I have seen used in soaping. This is just a very basic instruction, none of this is set in stone. Be creative, play with percentages, and have fun! Please ask questions if you have them! And get the soaping pot out!

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[lisafrantz]

Wow this is wonderful!!!! As a new soaper it's great to have some guidance.  So far I've followed recipes to the letter for fear of making a bad batch but this makes me feel more comfortable with trying something new.  Thank you

[TexasBrat]

Bunny is that you!!!! 

[Vicky_CO]

I wish it was. A lot of the tute I moved to articles gave links in these sections.

[Candybee]

Hope its okay to add my two bits.

For a basic bath bar I also like to start out with the basic tried and true formula:

50% hard oils

50% soft oils

But here is where I break those down and build my recipe:

Of the hard oils I use:

25% creaminess oils - these are solid fats that give your bar that creamy feel such as: lard, palm oil, tallow, shea butter, cocoa butter, mango butter

25% fluffy lather oils - these are solid fats that give your bar lots of bubbles such as: coconut oil, palm kernal oil, babassu

Of the soft oils I use:

40-45% basic conditioning oils - these are liquid oils that give your bar high conditioning and or gentle conditiong such as: olive oil, sunflower oil, avocado oil, grapeseed, etc.

5-10% creamy and/or luxory/exotic oils: these are also liquid oils that give your bar a little something extra such as more creamy lather, extra conditioning such as: castor, sweet almond oil, or exotic appeal such as: argon, manoi de tahiti, etc.

Here is a simple sample recipe using this formula:

45% olive oil

25% coconut oil

25% palm oil

5% castor oil

This will give you a nice creamy, bubbly bar of soap. Simple recipe, simple to make. Notice that the hard oils, coconut oil and palm, make up 50% of the bar and the liquid/soft oils, castor and olive, make up 50%. The creaminess and lather oils are both 25% giving you a good balance of creaminess to lather in your soap. Last, the olive will give your soap lots of gentle conditioning while the castor will add extra conditioning and creaminess and boost your lather as well. I love castor oil in my soap. A little goes a long way. Too much and it can kill lather or make the bar too soft. I generally use only 5% in my basic bath soap. I use higher amounts only in specialty soap like shampoo bars or high condtioning bars.

Here is a more complex variation on splitting the hard oils and the soft oils down:

Soft oils (making up half the recipe):

35% Olive Oil

10% Avocado Oil

5% Castor Oil

Hard Oils (making up half the recipe):

15% Coconut Oil

10% Palm Kernal Oil

20% Palm Oil

5% Shea Butter

Total: 100%

How about an exotic triple butters soap recipe but using the same formula:

45% olive oil

25% coconut oil

10% mango butter

10% shea butter

5% cocoa butter

5% sweet almond oil

Notice the hard to soft oils are still split 50/50%. The hard oils; coconut , mango, shea, and cocoa butter are split, half for lather (coconut oil) and half for creaminess (mango, shea & cocoa butter).

The soft/liquid oils are also split in this case 45% is olive and 5% giving the bar high gentle conditioning (olive oil) with the extra creaminess (sweet almond oil) of a high end luxory bar.

Note: I actually like to split my coconut oil with palm kernal oil. I find my skin like 15-20% coconut oil so the rest I make up in PKO. Both CO and PKO have similar properties; they produce lots of fluffy lather and help harden your soap. If you happen to be sensitive to cococut oil exchange it or part of it for PKO or babassu.

I always come back to this split when testing a new recipe or trying to figure out one that needs tweaking. When considering using new oils or ones you haven't used before always run them through a good soap calculator and adjust the oils for the properties you want in your bar.

Its a good idea to get into the habit of always running your recipe through a soap calculator. I use soapcalc and run my recipe through that every time I make soap. I also make notes and put in all my additives. Then I print out my recipe. Each batch I make has 'papers' so I can go back to it and see how it was made.

[itsmenoodlehead]

Vicky,

How long have you been making soap for? I'm guessing youve been doing this for at least a good week or two? . I would love to be able to take a couple of classes from you. I hope that some day I'll be able to speake about soap and recipies from experience like you do. Hope you have a great day today.

Noodle