Soap Making 101

[hillfarm]

I suppose my eagerness comes from an open door I don't want to miss. The ladt who made goats milk soap and lotion with VERY dedicated customers has moved out of our shop....Opening...but as fast as our shop fills up someone is going to come in with these products before I can get the jump on it. the customer's looking for goat's milk soap probably are not going to my homemade crisco, lye water, lavender soap. They look at ingredients and it has to at least sound more appealing than that. So yes I'm trying to learn and jumping hurdles at the same time. It's a simple matter of trying to find a way to survive.

In the commercial world they just dress up the name of basic ingredients for example:

Sodium hydroxide = lye Sodium tallowate = lye + beef fat Sodium cocoate = lye + coconut oil

According to Crisco the ingredients of it are: Soy bean oil, fully hydrogenated Palm oil, partially hydrogenated palm and soy bean oils, Mono and Diglycerides, TBHQ and Citric Acid (antioxidants).

So YOUR soap could have an ingredients list that says ... Soy bean oil, Palm oil, Glycerides, Sodium Hydroxide, Lavender and Anti-oxidants.

Yeah, what FF said. Brilliant.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I made a 4 lb batch last night (Tropical Vacation Scent) with my new wood mold and I'm so excited!!! I'll cut it tonight and see how it did! Smells wonderful!

 

[krisac]

when do you add thre fragrance if using essential oils. I foudn EO for Lavender and "candle and soap fragrance oil" for vanilla

 

[krisac]

okay this is going to sound stupid as most things I post do.. Hillfarms recipe was 3lbs crisco 12oz water and 6oz lye and she said OR I could replace water with goats milk
can I take this divide by three and still have good numbers? the lye calc says I need 5ish oz of water

 

[Gallina Vecchia]

I ran it through the lye calc on MMS using 16 oz soybean oil (crisco) and got a recoommendation of 4 to 6 fluid oz water and 2.06 oz of lye for a 5% superfat ( I use 5% for everything except laundry bars)

Re: adding fragrance and EO. I add at trace. Some FOs can really accelerate trace and you can end up with a semi-solid mass that is tough to push into a mold. P.S. Most vanilla fragance oils will turn your soap a brown or tan color.

 

[krisac]

okay, wellI give in . I only have a lb of crisco because I never bake anything. I was traumatized showing off my baking skills to my husband's grandmother. I made some sort of applesauce bundt cake or something...cooked to for thre four hours...I didn't know my oven was dying. flipped it out of the pan annd half of it was still liquid. Yep suzie Home maker that's me
God lord give me a triple stabbing any day.
kristina

 

[savingdogs]

When I've used that recipe I've added things at trace (oatmeal, honey, scent). Once it starts to thicken and reach trace you need to finish mixing it well and then immediately do what you are going to do in the way of adding stuff and pouring into your mold, you have about five minutes working time. Good luck!

 

[krisac]

the last batch that looked like ti was at trace that I added fo and oatmeal to became oatmeal oil...it is now 48 hours and Ihave mostly solid bright orange lumpy gook with oil all over the top of it. the first batch that took out of the mold I can still press my finger into. the 2nd batch never made it to molds it was just soup because I added all the oatmeal at the same time as the oils. I really can't wait for my class. They are such nice people and seem to have really good prices from what I've sen on the web. Glory Bee Foods. Might check them out they are online. so off to calculate organize and prepare for failure so I can be pleasantly surprised

 

[savingdogs]

I don't think you stirred enough on that other batch.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I add my FO when I add the oils to the milk/lye.