# Soapee Lye Calculator Tutorial



## Susie (Dec 4, 2016)

There was a recent request for a Soapee tutorial.  Now that I have a day off, I can try to make one.  This will be a work-in-progress for at least today, so come back on Monday if you think something is unclear.

1.  Go to Soapee.com, login or signup (top toolbar).  This enables you to save your recipes, which is why I love this calculator.  Once you are a member, if you want to share your recipes, you need to go to the Soapee.com Facebook page and join there.

2.  Once you are a member, you will have a drop down menu to go to your recipes, friend's recipes, etc.  Once in a saved recipe, you have the option to edit it!  Another win!  Don't forget to rename your recipe if you want to save the first and subsequent versions!

3.  I will happily share any recipes I have on there.  I am listed there as "Susie" (complicated, huh?)  Let me know on here that you want to friend me there, and I will go add you to my friend's list.  I will try to get over there and add the sugar amount to all of them.  I always make 32 oz of oil recipes, and I always add 0.5 oz of sugar to them (in case I miss one or two).

OK, on to an actual tutorial by boxes:

1 - Liquid or Solid soap recipe?  
A.  If you are making solid (NaOH) soap, this is the default setting.  
B.  If you are making liquid (KOH) soap, just click that, and set the purity of your KOH (If you are unsure, search the supplier's site for that info, or contact them.)
C.  If you are making a hybrid soap, (such as a shaving soap, or bar soap with just a little KOH in there for bubbles) click that and set the percentages of how much NaOH to how much KOH.

2 - Select recipe units of measure
Line 1- Click whether you want your recipe to read in, "Percentages, Grams, Kilograms, Pounds, Ounces".  This line is separate from line 2.  So, if you want your recipe to to be, say, Lard 65%, Olive Oil 15%, Coconut Oil 15%, Castor Oil 5%, you need to click percentages.  

Line 2-Oils totals-If you want to set your scale on ounces to weigh, click ounces.  If you want grams, that is the default.  THEN you type the amount of ounces, grams, etc in the line that, by default, reads 500.  

Line 3-"Adjust oil weights to include water in Oils total"  If you want to just have the calculator give you the proper amounts of everything to fit the capacity of your mold, check this box.  You will need to type the capacity of your mold in either ounces or grams in the space on line 2.  For instance, I have a 3 lb mold.  I can type in 3 x 16(ounces)= *48* in line 2. 

3 - Amount of water in recipe
You can set the amount of water by either percentages (%), which is not recommended, but it is default on this calculator, or lye concentration, or ratio of water to lye.  

If you are making liquid soap, my favorite water amount is the 3:1 ratio that is the third option.

4 - Oil superfat
Here you type in the amount of superfat (more correctly should be called lye discount, however, all the calculators use the term superfat).  If you are making HP, and want to add the (correctly termed in this use) superfat after the cook, you check the box, and it will show the recipe as a 0% superfat soap, with *Fragrance Oil Weight* being the amount of oil to have as the superfat added after the cook.  I know it is misleading to call it that, however, I did not create the calculator, so I can't fix that.

Continued...


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## Susie (Dec 4, 2016)

*Soapee Lye Calculator Tutorial, continued...*

5 - Fragrances
If you want to set your fragrance amount by percentage, use the top line.  '
If you want to set it by weight/PPO, use the second line.

6 - Select Oils
This is the list of oils available to use.  Once you click once on an oil, a box with the "Selected Oil Properties" will pop up to the right, double click the name of the oil and "Recipe Oils" pops up to the far right.  You can either go type in the amount of that oil (by whatever measure you set in box 2 line 1) right away, or you can click all your oils into there, and add amounts all at once.  Once you add sufficient amounts of oils to meet the total amount of oils you set in box 2 line 2, it will give you the actual recipe below.  

Once you get the recipe, you can go back up and adjust any amounts you may like to change.  It will change the recipe below at the same time.  No going to other pages and having to go back and forth!

If you want to save your recipe, just type a name in the line provided.  I STRONGLY suggest you save your recipes!  There is space to type notes (like "added 0.5 oz sugar with Ocean Mist FO from WSP) or descriptions ("blue/green ITP swirl with white mica sprinkled on top of wavy top") there.  Once you have saved the recipe, it will give you the option to write comments when you go to your saved recipes.  This is where you can add what you thought about the recipe or process.

At the bottom, you can set recipe visibility so that you can share your recipes with your friends.  The "public" visibility has been disabled due to trolls, unfortunately.

You can choose to print your recipe from the options on the bottom of the page (font is VERY SMALL with no option to enlarge), or right click the page and select "print", which gives you a readable font for those of us that are over 40.

Again, this tutorial is a WIP for at least Sunday 12/4/16.  Maybe longer, depending on how much time I have to work on it.


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## Susie (Dec 4, 2016)

*Soapee Lye Calculator Tutorial, continued...*

Reserved in case I need this space to complete or further edit tutorial, please.


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