Teach Soap

So after looking through recipes and usually finding that I am missing an item, I decided to make my own recpie based on some things I have. This is going to be my first cold process, which I am planning on doing cpop. I used the lye calculator on the BB site. I guess I just want to know if the percent of oils I chose will make for a good bar, I like lots of lather. Thanks in advance!

Avocado Oil 3.20oz 10.00%
Castor Oil 1.60oz 5.00%
Coconut Oil (76 Degrees) 8.00oz 25.00%
Olive Oil 9.60oz 30.00%
Palm Kernel Oil 9.60oz 30.00%
5% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount 4.808oz
Ounces of liquid recommended 10.56oz
Yields 47.37oz

Looks like it should lather well and be a reasonably hard bar. The Only issue might be the amount of Palm Kernel which I find accelerates trace somewhat.

Thanks! Should I try decreasing the Palm Oil to 20 or 25 percent and increasing the Coconut Oil, and maybe the Avocado Oil? I don't think I'll be trying anything fancy with this first batch like layers or embeds, I'll probably make it just one color, or maybe two swirled.

Is it palm oil or palm kernel oil? Palm kernel oil & coconut oil are so similar in properties, that I'd use one or the other, but not both.

It does look like it will have lots of lather. Personally, I'd find the cleansing to be way too high, so I'd drop the palm and/or coconut a bit and up the olive & avocado. I'd also up the superfat to 8%.

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Genny

I would do a 7% superfat.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I think, for a first batch, that O'd increase the water for sure. While you can certainly use both coconut oil and pko, I'd decrease one or both. You are ending up with the following, per soapcalc.net

Soap Bar Quality Suggested Range Your Recipe
Hardness 29 - 54 50
Cleansing 12 - 22 36
Conditioning 44 - 69 44
Bubbly 14 - 46 41
Creamy 16 - 48 18
Iodine 41 - 70 47
INS 136 - 165 179

In order to see what the oils do when you add, subtract or change them out, try playing on this calculator some. While it is not necessary to have an INS of 160 to have a great bar of soap, that is supposedly the "ideal" number. When you have a lot over that, it tends to be more brittle in my experiences. If you want to increase your bubble factor, try adding in more castor oil. I never use less than 6% and many of my recipes use 8-10%. You can have a cleansing factor higher than the suggested range, but usually you would want to increase the superfat % to compensate for that harshness.

So I agree with Irena, I'd do a 7% sf. But I would also increase your water and look at lowering your pko and/or coconut oil. If you do lower one or both, I'd add that amount into the olive oil, but you could add part into the avocado and part into olive.

You should play on this calculator a while, it has a lot of info and is a wonderful learning tool!

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

Thanks for all the tips and the info on the Soap Quality calculator! That is exactly what I need so I can learn about the qualities of the oils I want to use! The Palm Oil I got is "Virgin Red Palm Oil", it is a reddish liquid, not a solid. I'm glad I posted here and Genny asked about the Palm oil because I must have inadvertently chosen PKO. Has anyone ever used the oil before?

I am going to play with my oils on the calculator, but I will be taking all of your advice and will probably increase the olive, castor, and avocado. Now to see how the palm oil changes thing vs the PKO.

Researching and posting before doing my first batch has already paid off!

Oh yeah, Palm Kernel Oil is much different than Palm Oil. Your recipe won't be as cleansing and will be a bit more conditioning if you're using palm oil & not palm kernel oil.

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Genny

So I made my first batch today. I decided on Hot Process because I simply don't have the patience to wait for a 6 week cure time to try out my first "from scratch" soap!

I have to say the Lye wasn't as scary as I had made it out to be in my mind. The big flakes from BB were very easy to use.

I absolutely love the soapcalc site! I changed my recipe so many times just trying to figure out how each percentage of each oil would change it.

Because I used Red Palm Oil I knew my batch would have an orangey tone so I had decided to use Mango Papaya scent. My loaf turned out a rather revolting shade of orange, I tried to make a small amount of yellowish swirl to make it a bit interesting but it's hard to do anything with an orange base. Still, it's my first soap and I love it. We'll see what it looks like when I cut it , I can hardly wait! I can't stop poking it!

Oh yeah, my final recipe:

Total oil weight 36
Water as percent of oil weight 40 %
Super Fat/Discount 7 %
Lye Concentration 25.698 %
Water : Lye Ratio 2.891:1

Sat : Unsat Ratio 40 : 60
Iodine 59
INS 152
Fragrance Ratio 0.5
Fragrance Weight 1.125 Oz
Ingredient Pounds Ounces Grams
Water 0.9 14.4 408.233
Lye - NaOH 0.311 4.98 141.19
# √ Oil/Fat % Pounds Ounces Grams
1 Avocado Oil 12 0.27 4.32 122.47
2 Castor Oil 10 0.225 3.6 102.058
3 Coconut Oil, 76 deg 28 0.63 10.08 285.763
4 Olive Oil 35 0.788 12.6 357.204
5 Palm Oil 15 0.338 5.4 153.087
Totals 100 2.25 36 1020.582
Soap Bar Quality Suggested Range Your Recipe
Hardness 29 - 54 38
Cleansing 12 - 22 19
Conditioning 44 - 69 57
Bubbly 14 - 46 28
Creamy 16 - 48 28
Iodine 41 - 70 59
INS 136 - 165 152