# Cleaning newly purchased supplies



## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

OK I have all of my soap supplies and am wondering if I should put all of it in the dishwasher with or without detergent? Sorta like doing a sterilization on them. And to get a hot dry, I will use my heat dry cycle.

I will be making my first batch of castile soap tomorrow for use in my homemade laundry detergent and for my liquid foam soaps at the sinks.

And of course this will be my first ever experience at making bar soap instead of purchasing it. :shock:


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## shunt2011 (Feb 15, 2015)

I think for your laundry you are going to want a high/all CO soap.  I don't think a castile would work well.  It's not very cleansing which is what you want for laundry.  Castile would be fine for by the sink.  I still like CO in my handsoap too.

As for washing your supplies just soap and water will work fine.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

shunt2011 said:


> I think for your laundry you are going to want a high/all CO soap.  I don't think a castile would work well.  It's not very cleansing which is what you want for laundry.  Castile would be fine for by the sink.  I still like CO in my handsoap too.
> 
> As for washing your supplies just soap and water will work fine.



OK I have CO on hand as well that I was going to use in our bath soap. So, I will need to rerun my ingredients in the soap calc or can I just simply swap the CO for the OO?


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## Dorymae (Feb 15, 2015)

Run it through the lye calculator. Always do that if you switch out ingredients.


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## Susie (Feb 15, 2015)

You don't have to sterilize soaping supplies, germs are not going to survive the lye. Simply clean is good enough.

I agree with the CO for laundry, and CO/OO for hand soap.  Even better,  Lard/CO/OO for hand soap.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

OK have everything washed and spread out everywhere! Good thing it's only me here to eat tonight because there is no counter space :mrgreen:


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

Susie said:


> I agree with the CO for laundry, and CO/OO for hand soap.  Even better,  Lard/CO/OO for hand soap.



Depending on what type of lard, I can't use it in my products. I am also making for a second household that is vegan.


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## KristaY (Feb 15, 2015)

Sislea said:


> Depending on what type of lard, I can't use it in my products. I am also making for a second household that is vegan.


 
I avoid lard and tallow also, Sislea. I have many family members that are vegetarian and a few that avoid pork for religious reasons. My primary hard oils are coconut and palm with butters (shea, mango & cocoa) as a smaller percentage. So don't think you're unusual by using only vegetable oils!


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## Susie (Feb 15, 2015)

Sorry, I did not know that.  But you do need palm if you can't use lard or tallow.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

NP Susie, I never mentioned in any of my posts that I am making vegan friendly products. I only mentioned for health reasons.

I purchased several oils and butters. Palm is not one I purchased. Will check around to see where to order some of that from. I was able to get most of my products local.

I purchased in small batches to start off with because I wanted to see what would work best for the skin in my family. Once I figure that out I will order more bulk sized products.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

While we are mentioning Palm...what is the best one to get?


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

OK what does this look like? Would this work?


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## Susie (Feb 15, 2015)

If you don't mind using some tallow(beef fat) for yourself, you can buy Great Value shortening from Walmart that is a blend of palm and tallow.  I also found some pure palm at a local bakery, they were kind enough to sell me a pound to try once I explained I was making soap.(I brought the owner a couple of bars of soap when I went to buy it to foster good relations in the future.)

If that is for hand washing, it will not be nice.  If it is for laundry, why do you have OO in there?  You really need separate soaps for those two tasks.  

100% CO with 0% SF for laundry
OO/CO 1:1 with 5% SF for hands.(maybe with 5% castor oil for bubbles-available in pharmacy area of Walmart)


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

actually forgot to figure out how many ounces my mold holds  This should be more accurate.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

Something isn't right. My mold will only hold 46.8 ounces. Never used a calc before. What am I doing wrong? Off to brainstorm this one!!


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

whoo my brain hurts now!! OK the second one is accurate since I have roughly a 4# mold !! HEHE that whole calc thing threw my brain off. But it is glued back in place and all is good.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Feb 15, 2015)

Why the change from 80:20 to 70:30?

As for mould size, you can reduce your oil amount until the total weight is more like what you're aiming for. That said, it might still not be spot on so have some spare moulds to hand - exact mould size is partly experience. 

There is also a sticky in the cp section about mould size calculation based on the measurements of the inside dimensions.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

Susie said:


> If you don't mind using some tallow(beef fat) for yourself, you can buy Great Value shortening from Walmart that is a blend of palm and tallow.  I also found some pure palm at a local bakery, they were kind enough to sell me a pound to try once I explained I was making soap.(I brought the owner a couple of bars of soap when I went to buy it to foster good relations in the future.)
> 
> If that is for hand washing, it will not be nice.  If it is for laundry, why do you have OO in there?  You really need separate soaps for those two tasks.
> 
> ...



OK now I see what your saying. I have some castor oil in the cabinet. Not sure why I have it.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Why the change from 80:20 to 70:30?
> 
> As for mould size, you can reduce your oil amount until the total weight is more like what you're aiming for. That said, it might still not be spot on so have some spare moulds to hand - exact mould size is partly experience.
> 
> There is also a sticky in the cp section about mould size calculation based on the measurements of the inside dimensions.


 
I was thinking maybe a little less CO so it wouldn't be so drying.


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

For my hand soap, where would I put the vitamin E? Is that considered part of the SF? Or  add it in after trace?


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Feb 15, 2015)

For cold process, adding things in at trace has no impact on the superfat at all - you are better off adding all oils in together. It is impossible to selectively superfat cp - the superfat will be a mix of all oils regardless of when they were added. 

As for vit e, what is it that you are adding that in for?

As Was said before, for laundry/dishes you want pure co really, and gloves for washing up! For hands, you need to lower the co a lot and up the superfat


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## Sislea (Feb 15, 2015)

Extra protection for DD's hands. She gets severely dry and cracked skin.


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## Susie (Feb 16, 2015)

The benefits of Vit E are not going to survive the lye.  Saponification pretty much kills most benefits of certain special oils.  And if she washes her hands with a 70% CO soap with no superfat, I can guarantee she will have dry skin.  You need the CO to drop to 20% or less.  

This is why you need palm oil to be a large portion of your hand soap.  It gives the soap enough hardness to be able to cut down on the CO, without having to wait 6 months for a high OO soap to cure.   

I would suggest a recipe that looks more like this:

Palm 50%
CO 20%
OO 25%
Castor Oil 5%
Superfat 5-8%

Enter exactly that into SoapCalc and see how the cleansing number drops.  This should give her a non-drying soap that she will love using in 6-8 weeks.  

I don't know what part of Mississippi you live in(and I am not asking), but if you live near Memphis or Jackson, you should be able to call around and find palm oil somewhere.   Even if you have to order some online, it is worth waiting for the right ingredient to make a good soap that will serve the purpose you need it to.  I promise your daughter will not be happy with a CO 70% soap.  Period.

Here is ED's palm oil link.  I have not looked at all the prices, but 1 qt is a good size to try out.  Be sure you melt the whole bottle and stir very well before scooping out what you need as the stearic tends to not spread through the whole bottle.(something I avoid by using animal fats)

http://www.essentialdepot.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SRCH


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## Sislea (Feb 16, 2015)

Thank you Susie, I will just make my laundry bar today and order palm online. I live in the middle of trees, ms. I am actually smack in the middle of Jackson and Hattiesburg. I drove to Jackson Friday and don't plan on leaving my wooded area this week. For me, sometimes ordering online is much more cheaper than the gas it costs me in my truck.


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## Susie (Feb 16, 2015)

Hehe, I lived "in the middle of trees" MS also when I lived there.  Matter of fact, I live "in the middle of trees" LA now.  And it is 22 miles one way to town.  Needless to say, we go to town as little as possible.  I can definitely relate.


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## Sislea (Feb 16, 2015)

DH drives to and from Jackson daily for work. But thank goodness he has a company car. I wouldn't want the wear/tear on my person vehicle.

So, how do these numbers look for a bar for DD.


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## Sislea (Feb 16, 2015)

OK DH and I played around in the soap calc and was able to lower the cleansing so it wouldn't be as drying to the skin.

So, what about these figures?


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Feb 17, 2015)

To be honest it's also handy to share the recipe itself because the numbers are only half of the story. There might be something in the recipe that means you need to be aware of something, but without the recipe we won't know


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## Sislea (Feb 17, 2015)

I was trying to do that but my images were coming out blurry for some reason even doing a screen capture. Let me try again. It would be nice if I could find a free soap calc for my ipad. The images would be much better than this century old computer.


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## Susie (Feb 17, 2015)

I aim for a cleansing number less than 12.   Even a soap with 0 for cleansing will still clean.


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## Sislea (Feb 17, 2015)

Trying to use some ingredients we had around the house. Don't ask why I have babassu oil. Probably something DS #1 picked up in making one of his homemade concoctions.


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## Sislea (Feb 17, 2015)

While playing in soap calc, one of the mixtures gave us an 8 on the cleansing and we were not sure if that should be that low. Some of the other numbers would fall out of the ranges. Some low some high.


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