Soap Making 101

[Gallina Vecchia]

First off, thanks Farm for all of your help a while back! I line my molds, which are dishpans, cardboard boxes, rectangular drawer organizers, etc., with plastic wrap, dump the soap in, bang it a few times to get rid of the bubbles and fold the edges of the wrap over the soap surface. If I am doing an ugly soap like a laundry bar, I use a garbage bag to line an old cardboard box. Next day, I dump out the slab, peel off the plastic and cut. Easy. Since I do not do individual molds, this works well for me. I really like Majestic Mountain Sage's forum for soaping tips, as well.

 

[glenolam]

Where do you get your recipies from?

My most basic recipe was given to me, but more of them I sorta made up using soap calc. I only use coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil, olive oil in my basic recipe and when I'm feeling funky I have recipes that include almond oil, shea butter, acai berry butter, grean tea blend butter and stuff like that.

I'd be happy to post the recipe to my basic one if you'd like; can't do it right now because I'm at work but let me know if you're interested and I'll post it tonight or tomorrow.

 

[calendula]

Wow, there are a lot of pages to go through on this topic! I hope this wasn't already discussed; I don't want to be repetative. Does anyone make milled soaps? Wondering what a good fast way would be to grind/grate it up; its really hard on the food processor. Does anyone have any milled soap recipes?

 

[LovinLife]

Where do you get your recipies from?

My most basic recipe was given to me, but more of them I sorta made up using soap calc. I only use coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil, olive oil in my basic recipe and when I'm feeling funky I have recipes that include almond oil, shea butter, acai berry butter, grean tea blend butter and stuff like that.

I'd be happy to post the recipe to my basic one if you'd like; can't do it right now because I'm at work but let me know if you're interested and I'll post it tonight or tomorrow.

I would love it!

 

[Farmfresh]

Wow, there are a lot of pages to go through on this topic! I hope this wasn't already discussed; I don't want to be repetative. Does anyone make milled soaps? Wondering what a good fast way would be to grind/grate it up; its really hard on the food processor. Does anyone have any milled soap recipes?

I just sit with an old fashioned cheese grater, grate soap and watch TV!

 

[savingdogs]

I have an overpriced Pampered Chef grater that makes grating the soap really easy peasey.

I saw a place online where you could buy the laundry detergent ingredients all packaged together and they grated up the Fels Naptha for you. They charged a few bucks for the service however so I didn't save the link, but I think I found it in just a simple google search for Fels Naptha.

 

[calendula]

I suppose a plain cheese grater and elbow grease would do the trick, wouldn't it! I'll have to recruit the kids to help with it. I have a couple batches of plain soap that I want to mill. I had read that milled soaps will better retain the properties of any herbs or essential oils added, since you add those after soponification takes place. I want to make a "cold and flu" bar with eucalyptis and peppermint essential oils, and also a sweet smelling one for the kids.

 

[glenolam]

I would love it!

Here ya go! I work in oz so I've bolded that info, but kept the % in case you wanted to tweak it to something else. When I want to make a smaller batch (this one makes 8# of soap) I just cut the oz in half. Might not be the right way, but it works for me.


Total oil weight: 83oz
Water as percent of oil weight: 40 %
Super Fat/Discount: 8 %
Lye Concentration 25.744 %
Water : Lye Ratio 2.884:1
Sat : Unsat Ratio 44 : 56
Iodine 56
INS 158
Fragrance Ratio 0
Fragrance Weight 0 Oz

Water/milk 33.2oz
Lye - NaOH 11.51oz

Coconut Oil, 76 deg 29% 24.07oz
Olive Oil 49% 40.67oz
Palm Oil 22% 18.26oz

Here's the "numbers" from soapcalc too...

Hardness (29 - 54) 42
Cleansing (12 - 22) 20
Conditioning (44 - 69) 54
Bubbly (14 - 46) 20
Creamy (16 - 48) 23
Iodine (41 - 70) 56
INS (136 - 165) 158

 

[LovinLife]

Thank you!! This will give me a great place to start!

 

[glenolam]

You can also decrease the olive oil by up to 6% if you want and replace it with castor oil. Castor oil is said to increase the bubblies in your soap.