Teach Soap

On a whim, I bought some orange butter from Camden Grey. It smells so wonderful.

I later realized that it is not listed on SoapCalc. Does anyone know what other oil/butter its SAP value is very close to?

Thanks?

BubbleBath

I would use the SAP value of hydrogenated soybean oil.

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

Thanks, Irena!

BubbleBath

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

When I was looking at fancy 'butters' for soapmaking, I read the ingredients very closely. Many of them are simply an essential oil blended with a solid or semi-solid oil. You might like to simply pick up some cold pressed orange, tangerine, or blood orange essential oil and keep better control over your other soap ingredients.

As an aside, I recently purchased some blood orange essential oil and it is AMAZING! Yes, it's citrusy, but it has subtler back notes, including a bit of floral tones.

Enjoy!

I have a question about these "fancy butters", as ayianna called them, such as orange or coffee butter. If there are just made using hydrogenated soybean oil (is that right, soapbuddy?) and an essential oil, why would you not just buy the essential oil and scent your own oil, soap, lotion, scrub, whatever? What's the point of getting the butter? Is there something special about them?

Thanks!

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Olivia :)

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

Most 'fancy butters' are an ingredient and some other kind of hydrogenated or solid oil.

I have seen some pretty amazing things in my quest for neat ingredients to play with. One butter I came across was a capsicum butter. It is my belief that these things are marketed more for leave-on products? (Okay, so here I was thinking something like a warming balm or some such - it's early and I haven't had coffee yet.)

You know what - actually I'm just not sure what they're marketed for!

There is no reason not to buy your own ingredients, even straight menthol or capsicum, and add them to your recipe. In nearly every industry, DIY is less expensive than letting someone else do it for you and purchase the resulting product. One word of caution though - coffee essential oil is not a cheap oil in today's market.

On the other hand, the decaffeinating process does get a LOT of wax out of the beans and could hypothetically be used for soapmaking. The real trouble is where to find this kind of ingredient, which is currently a waste product in the roasting industry.