Opinion on recipe

[Rosies]

Newbie here wanting to make a very small batch of soap

(21 oz.) and would like your opinions on it. I don't have the confidence I need in myself on reading the lye calc yet plus I haven't made any soap yet and that's why I want your opinions, Here's my recipe;

10 oz. Olive

4 oz. coconut

2 oz. castor

1 oz. stearic acid

2 oz. sweet almond

1 oz. shea butter

Water 5 to 8 oz.

Lye 2.80 oz.

I'm trying for a mild, bubbly, hard and moisturizing bar.

What if any changes do you suggest?

BTW, I love this site!

[Guest jurnalynn]

did you run this through a lye calculator your lye is off i'm new at this i think you better start out by playing around with the lye calculator and learning how to use it i spent a long time plugging in a lot of different numbers and learning what each thing on it meant it was helpful when i settled on a recipe i understood it then........as for the oils used i'm not qualified to answer on those and i have never used steric in soap

Laura

[Scented]

I suggest converting your recipe to % lol.

Welcome to the site!

Finding the kind of bar you want is going to take a lot of practice. Best advice I ever got was "Just make the damn thing and stop freaking out, K?" (Could have sworn that was what she said lol!)

So made it and spent a lot of time revising from it to find the combination of what I like. About 40 recipes, maybe. Sooooo, suggest that first you understand the lye calculator you are working with, plug in your oils. Make that first batch and start jockeying oils around from there. Seriously.

[CareBear]

I agree with Scented. Cept I'd add that you should leave the stearic acid out. That's not something for a beginner to play with, and you can make fabulous soap without it. If you want to keep essentially the same recipe put that amount toward the coconut.

Mild you got (50% olive), bubbly... not so much. Try QiuetGirl's recipe in the recipe section (but make it with water, not milk).

Oh and you said a 21 oz recipe but your oils only add up to 20 oz...

[Rosies]

I started out with percentages and converted it to ozs.. I wanted to make 20 ozs. but when I ran it through the lye calc it gave me a total weight of 21 ozs. that's why I said it was 21 ozs.

Telling me the lye is off isn't much help. How much should I be using?

Scented, what do you do with all the soap you don't like?

[Meridith]

Soap calc figures everything in % - not ounces. You have to figure out what your amounts are based on the %'s. Now if you use MMS' calc., you do input amounts and not %. I left out your stearic - it is not necessary to use. If you can get some lard, that would be nice to incorporate into you recipe. I figured a recipe, using your ingredients, minus the stearic, and based on 24 oz of oils. I used these %'s just as examples.

45% Olive

30% coconut

5% castor

10% sweet almond

10% shea butter

With this recipe, soap calc tells you to use 3.4 oz of lye and 9.12 oz of water. I took no water discount either. I'm not paying attention to any of the soap property numbers either. Now you would take those %'s and figure out your amounts for each fatty acid.

[Scented]

I started out with percentages and converted it to ozs.. I wanted to make 20 ozs. but when I ran it through the lye calc it gave me a total weight of 21 ozs. that's why I said it was 21 ozs.

Telling me the lye is off isn't much help. How much should I be using?

Scented, what do you do with all the soap you don't like?

Gave most of it away to my other half lol. Actually I entered into swaps. If I personally didn't like it, I tried to find out why and then altered my recipe. Some of it I just flat cut up and used as embeds in a more mild soap. You could rebatch what you don't like too. I actually started entering swaps just to get some feedback and with people I work with since their skins all have different ages.

[chrisinpa]

Soap calc figures everything in % - not ounces. You have to figure out what your amounts are based on the %'s. Now if you use MMS' calc., you do input amounts and not %. I left out your stearic - it is not necessary to use. If you can get some lard, that would be nice to incorporate into you recipe. I figured a recipe, using your ingredients, minus the stearic, and based on 24 oz of oils. I used these %'s just as examples.

45% Olive

30% coconut

5% castor

10% sweet almond

10% shea butter

With this recipe, soap calc tells you to use 3.4 oz of lye and 9.12 oz of water. I took no water discount either. I'm not paying attention to any of the soap property numbers either. Now you would take those %'s and figure out your amounts for each fatty acid.

If you use the soap calc wp you can use ounces.

http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/soapcalcWP.asp

[Carriegsxr6]

IMO that recipe looks safe to soap. With the addition of the 1 oz stearic, it will trace pretty fast so move fast and dont plan on getting pretty with the coloring, so use the full water of of 7.6 and lye is correct at 2.80. Let us know how it feels on your skin. :-)

Iodine number is a 65, so it has good hardness (thanks to the addition of the 1oz stearic)

Oliec number is 45 and Lauric and Lionelic numbers are both around 10, so it will be very moisturizing, without being too soft.

Stearic number is 10 so it should have stable fluffy lather and the bar should last a while in the shower.

[CareBear]

Telling me the lye is off isn't much help. How much should I be using?

you really need to be responsible for checking that out yourself. even if someone tells you, you MUST double check the amount with a lye calculator such as at soapcalc.com.

take the oil percentages that someone figured out for you (you should really do that yourself as well, but you got some good help), plug them into the soapcalc.com lye calculator page and read how much lye you need. you can do it all on one page. http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/soapcalcWP.asp. Here are the instructions in case you find that page confusing: http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/helptext.asp

[Rosies]

Carrie, you've been the most helpful with your opinion but I thank everyone. Opinions are what I ask for and I got several.

Carrie, you described what I'm looking for in this soap with the very moisturizing, fluffy lather and a very hard bar. Actually this soap is for my husband who is a diabetic and has very dry skin. I want to make the perfect soap for him.

I started out with percentages on the oils but converted to ozs. before I made this post.

I got different numbers on the lye on each lye calculator I used so I was uncertain about how much I should actually use. I know lye is very serious and I didn't want to go wrong. The numbers I put in my original post on the water and lye came from a lye calculator but I wasn't sure I was reading it right since I don't have any experience.

Thanks again to everyone for your opinions. After I make the soap I'll let you know how it turns out.

One other question, how long should I let this cure?

[Meridith]

You should cure for about 4 weeks. Some soaps, like a castille soap need a much longer cure like 6 months. I suggest you do a lot of reading through old threads and do some more research to totally understand the soaping and curing process. You really need to figure out your fats based on % and not oz. Once you figure out your %, that is when you figure out amounts such as in ounces.