opinions please rookie here

[Melanie]

I have been playing with the soap calc for a while and I think I have a recipe I would like to try. ut before I waste all the oils I have collected I need advise please.

ere is what I have,

coconut oil 16 %

olive oil 37%

palm kernal 25%

lard 12%

caster 5%

jojoba 5%

hard 41

clean 26

conditiion 49

bubble 31

creamy 19

iodine 52

and INS 149

I want to make a batch of soap so bad and tomorrow is my only day off. Thanks for any help

[MarieJeanette]

Hi Melanie!

It took me almost a year of playing on SoapCalc and making gobs of soap to finally figure out which SoapCalc numbers made my skin the happiest, so please read my revised recipe with a grain of salt. Everyone's skin is different, and mine would find a cleansing of 26 and a conditioning of 49 to be way to drying, but for others it might be quite lovely and cause absolutely no problem. I've found through many trials and errors that my skin likes to have a conditioning level that hovers around 52 at the very least (the higher than that, the better), and a cleansing level that is no higher than 20.

If I were to make a soap with the ingredients you posted, here is a recipe that I think would be quite acceptable to me:

Coconut 15%

Olive 30%

Palm Kernel 15%

Lard 25%

Castor 10%

Jojoba 5%

Hardness 37

Cleansing 19

Conditioning 52

Bubbly 28

Creamy 27

Iodine 56

INS 144

You'll notice that my revised recipe has a lower hardness level than yours, but I've found that a soap can have a hardness level in the 30's and still be quite hard depending on the oils/fats used. The 37 for hardness can be decieving in this recipe because I think SoapCalc looks at OO as being a soft oil that contributes no hardness, but this is not true. In soap, OO is quite hard after a proper cure. Many soapers look at OO as being a hard oil as opposed to a soft oil because of how hard OO soaps get after curng. If you take that into consideration, my revised recipe has 85% hard oils, which will make a nice hard bar after curing, much more than the 37 that SoapCalc indicates.

With the 30% of bubbly oils, it will have a very nice lather, too. I like to formulate my recipes so that my creamy and bubbly numbers are very close together (with the bubbly being just a tad higher than the creamy). Even though my revised bubbly number is smaller than yours, when the bubbly and creamy numbers are so close together, it makes for a very nice, fluffy lather with just the right balance of creamy (at least this has been so in my own experience).

Now, bear in mind, this is just my opinion. :smiley2: When all is said and done, it's going to come down to what your skin partcularly likes, but that's how I would formulate it if it wre up to me. HTH!

MarieJeanette:)

[Melanie]

Thank you for the input. Now I have a better starting place. So far I have made two batches of cp soap and they were from a kit. Now kits are nice but I dont have a clue as to how to add different things to them. I have found the kits to have a nice lather but seem to be jsut a bit drying for my tired skin. lol Again thank you, I will put this into the cal. and put it together tomorrow. Yes I get to make soap.

oh and I am taking notes