Silly question

[Tara]

I am thinking of trying some soap for myself I usually just do M&P .My question is when you see a recipe that calls for olive oil, is this the same olive oil you find in the grocery store? And if it calls for say coconut oil, hempseed oil and olive oil can you just use coconut and olive oil? I found a simple recipe to start off with that only uses 3 oil types.

[eugenia]

Yes, it's the same olive oil they have in the grocery store. I get whatever's cheapest, as long as it's 100% olive oil. You can sub oils in a recipe, but you have to run the new numbers through a lye calculator. Oils have different saponification (SAP) values, and the amount of lye required changes, depending on the oils used.

Hemp is a lineolic, conditioning oil. You could sub safflower, sesame, soy or sunflower oils, all easily found. Here's a link to oil properties http://www.millersoap.com/fatacidtab.html

[Sherie]

Yep, what "e" said! I have been using Sunflower oil in some of my batches and it's great! I just did a new recipe last week with Canola. It soaped great, was a little speedy but I think that's due to the FO I used. I haven't tried it yet, it's still curing. Try a batch with olive, soybean, coconut & sunflower. You can get them all at wally world.

[Tara]

Thanks e and Sherie. I will make a trip to wallyworld this week then.