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Lol. I’ve just begun that. I need to experience that more. I’m not the sit back, relax type. I need to. Plus having my own luxury items at fraction of the cost will help.
Mixing lard and tallow?!? Why didn’t I think of that, Barb! I need to try that.
My soap recipes are usually 15% Shea, 15% tallow or lard, 25% coconut, 5% castor, and the balance whatever I feel like that day. The last one I made that I’ve used was lard, Shea, coconut, castor, 20% safflower and 20% olive oil. That one feels really nice. I’ve only used rice bran in one recipe and that is one of my favorite soaps!! It was 20% tallow, 25% coconut, 10% rice bran, 20% olive oil, and 25% canola. I substituted 3 oz of distilled water for oat milk (added oat milk at trace), added silk and sodium lactate (I have the granules, not the liquid) to lye water, and used .32 oz of oat extract at trace. So silky and just yum! I use this one and another one I made with puréed cucumber to wash my face. I need to do more soap with rice bran.
Geez! I need more time in the day to make stuff! Maybe I should hire a cook and a nanny. A personal shopper to run all my shopping errands would be nice too…..
Cyn, you’ll run your recipes through soapcalc and it will give you all the numbers you need for your recipe. You just figure out what percentage of each oil/fat you want to use, plug those percentages into soapcalc, tell it how much by volume you want to make (i.e.: 500g, 1000g, etc…) according to the size of your mold, and it will pretty much give you the rest. Soapcalc is good in the beginning because it has defaults for other factors (water as % of oils, super fat, lye concentration) that you don’t need to mess with until you get some experience with the basics of soaping. I would also start with a recipe from Marie’s website. Her All In One Soap is a nice one.
I posted a couple of examples of the printouts I do when soaping. I have a binder and slip the pages in a page protector. I jot down dates, notes, etc…to try and remember what I did, ingredients I used, design notes, how it turned out, etc…
Oh! Avocado soap is lovely! Now there is an oil I notice a difference in my soaps! Have you tried avocado oil and rice bran oil in your soaps?
Does the avocado oil smell like avocado? *wrinkles nose*
Uh huh. You all are taking this in stride. Just plop in numbers. Plop in percents. I still have to figure out the dang volume of whichever mold I end up with, this week.
Which reminds me. Talked with my coworker. He can make a mold for me. He’s in a middle of a project, so it’ll be a couple of weeks. But yay! I figure I can get another mold until then to help satisfy the craving.
Use the mold you have. Didn’t you say you had a slab mold? Where’d you get it? If bought online, it will tell you how much it holds. If not, there’s places online that will give you the info on how to figure out what your mold holds. Just do a search for it.
I don’t think the avocado smells like avocado. Never paid attention really.
Play with soapcalc. That’s what I did long before I actually did my first soaping. Once you play with it a bit, you get to know what it does and how it works. Marie has a video too with instructions.
Okay, where did you get that awesome template for your soap making. I love charts. I shouldn’t, but I do.
I have a mold arriving on Friday. So I can begin soaping on next Wednesday. Today is makeup day. But yes, mold, soaping, oils, need more. My family might need to just give me gift cards all year. Lol
That’s the printout from soapcalc. You punch in your recipe, calculate it, and then hit the button that asks if you want to print, I think. Haven’t been on it in a while, so I can’t remember what is says exactly, but you get the drift.
Oooh 😲 *tiptoes to soapcalc* I will need to play. I love the idea of having a printout like that so I can note everything. So handy!
My husband will ask me what I want for whatever occasion. I just tell him “I’ll order myself a few ingredients I’ve been wanting!” Haha! Three website purchases later…..😜
Mine is like, oh another package…must be for you. Lol. Considering he benefits from my fun stuff, he does play cranky well. Plus he bought me my new diffuser, so he indulges me.
Do you recommend using distilled water for soap making? Or tap?
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