Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Soap Making - Formulating a Soap Recipe

When I first started making soap I used a recipe out of The Everything Soapmaking Book: Recipes and Techniques for Creating Colorful and Fragrant Soaps (Everything: Sports and Hobbies) this book has many basic recipes which are good for the Beginner Soap maker.  The recipe I used was as follows
Olive Oil       9oz                                                Lye      2.4oz
Coconut Oil  4oz                                                Water  6oz
Palm Oil        3oz
Castor Oil      1 Tbsp

I made this recipe several times to get comfortable with the soap making process; then I started to formulate my own recipes using SoapCalc the first thing I did was decide what kind of oils and butters I wanted to use.  Choosing your oils and Butters according to the quality they will bring to the soap.  The book I found that has one of the most in-depth overview of soap making oils is The Soapmaker's Companion: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes, Techniques & Know-How (Natural Body Series - The Natural Way to Enhance Your Life) This book details the Benefits of the oil, the best way to use in soap making and also a recommended percentage to use in your soap recipe.

There are several factors to consider when formulating your soap recipe.

  1.  What oils/butters do you have on hand or that you will be able to get your hands on
  2.  What are the qualities you wish to have in the final soap
For example Coconut oil is know for giving soap creamy lather, so it is an oil commonly used by soap makers but if used in too high of a percentage it can make your final soap too drying to the skin.

Once you have the oils/butter that you will be using in your soap recipe, plug the oils into the soap calc template and you can either but in the percentage you want to use of the oil (example: Coconut Oil, 30%; Palm Oil 30%; Olive Oil 30%, Castor Oil 10%. 
Then enter the Superfat amount, most people use a minimum of 5% with a maximum of 10%.  What is superfat? To superfat your some is also known as a lye discount, which means you use less lye than is needed to fully saponify all the oils, some some of the oils/butters will remain in its original state and lend more conditioning quality to the soap.  A problem may occur when you have a high superfat with oils that have a short shelf life; without the use of a preservative your soap will have a higher probability of going rancid. So please take that into consideration when formulating your soap recipe.
Finally you can change the Water as % of oil number, this number will discount the water in your recipe and speed up the cure (a little) by having less water in the final soap that needs to evaporate.  Most soap makers use a percentage of 33% to 35%.  
And that's it, hit the "Calculate recipe" button and Viola! You will have your recipe ready to print. 

There is an old school way of formulate a recipe checkout this Blog Post to formulate a soap recipe from scratch. Please leave a comment if you have any other questions. 

Andrea Mack

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Oatmeal Milk and Honey Hot Process Soap Tutorial

Here is my 2nd YouTube Hot Process soap Tutorial.  This is part one of a two part series, I will be doing more tutorials and video's showcasing my products that are available on my website Helen's Hands Soap
If you would like to see more tutorials or have soap making questions please feel free to email me at andrea.mack@helenshandssoap.com

Monday, April 25, 2011

Part 1 of my Hot Process soap How-to Video.


This is my video detailing how I make Hot-Process soap using a crock-pot.  Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel as I will be posting more video's showcasing my products as well as other how-to videos.