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If this is new to you - just remember that the soap will be caustic still and maybe even very warm to the touch at these sorts of stages, so gloves (at least on the hand not actually cutting) might be an idea

If you're not able to find a fragrance oil that replicates it, basenotes have a breakdown of the scents used - Brut - Brut Special Reserve cologne It's not the 33, but the special reserve. Was the only option that they had there

I would start fairly low. Sugars in soap help to get some big bubbles going on, which isn't necessarily what we want in shaving soap (creamy lather instead of bubbly lather) I would look at 0.5% of the oil weight to start with, at most!

And the "or" is very important - making multiple changes isn't a great idea if you want to check out what the changes result in. Make one change at a time (which is why smaller batches are a good idea)

But please either dilute the solution a lot more, or use a little at a time. Too much strong solution can cause issues.

I agree. You're using a little bit of very similar oils (or even avocado oil AND avocado butter!) so while the soap itself might well be fine you aren't really "trying out" the oils in that sense. Maybe look at recipes along the lines of: 50% palm 25% coconut 25% X oil 5% castor Where X is...

But yes, you will need to cure the soap still. Possibly even longer as you added in more water in the crock pot I imagine

Not entirely sure if it's not a bit of a bot, tbh. Back the op - I use citric acid in all of my soaps. I increase the amount of sodium hydroxide that I use because it reacts with the citric acid, though

My CO comes wrapped in 250g blocks like butter does, so when a load melted this summer it made a bit of a mess!

Ah, from looking at your post in July, it seems that you mean some sort of method to catalogue your soaping progress. Sounds like it's a spreadsheet with a missing or invalid value in one field which is causing the issue

I'm finding a lot of supplies are cheaper there than from a soaping supplier, especially with the delivery

I make more of a soft salve instead of a pure oil - 40% avocado 34% Shea 14% beeswax 10% jojoba 1% scent

Ah, the wonderful magic of soaping - I use a lot of lard and have no DOS issues. It's a funny thing, the way soaps end up can vary so much from place to place and so on. I tend to use HO sunflower, as safflower isn't too easy to get hold of, and I've not had issues with DOS. I do keep it to...

Welcome from a fellow Brit (although I live in Austria)

Is it possible to make up all the other amounts and make a batch 3x the usual size? Might be a large task especially with moulds for it all, but nothing else is really jumping out. I mean, you have the right amount of lye for the oils but just far too much water and there isn't a way to take...

As a massive fan of lard, I would say it's even much better than palm. Shea butter is also similar in the pure fatty acids mix, if I recall, and yet in a soap itself many people notice it is different (bad different)

Why not? Depending on how you want to make your soap, it will need this sort of calculation and such. If you just want to follow a set recipe handed to me to the letter and not deviate from it, then I just need to weigh accurately and that's about it. Although few people here will give a lye...

Fatty acid/s and stick blender While at first it might seem annoying that a lot of acronyms are used here, it's more annoying over time to have to write everything out all the time. There is a stickied acronym thread somewhere which will cover the majority of them which helps a great deal in...

Animal fats are a good choice in general, as England has a lot of meat processing whereas locally grown oils will be mostly rapeseed and the like. But as has been said you might have to look to reduce the amounts of exotic oils used rather than removing them completely, and/or looking at other...

It's a tricky one - on one hand I think if it's food safe then no aluminium would leech out. But on the other, we also know things which are considered (or were) food "safe" are anything but, because of things leeching out.