Search results

Yes I think you're quite clear. I suspected it was something like that. If you order four 7 lb bottles they come perfectly packaged in the carton. I suppose that's why there wasn't much difference in the shipping when I priced 2 vs 4. But the price is also low considering a 28 lb shipment. It...

Soaper's Choice: Avocado Oil $3.96 / lb Macadamia Oil $3.77 / lb EVOO $2.95 / lb Shipping for four 7 lb bottles of oil is about $15. I suspect that compares well with your current source, and the macadamia oil is about the same price as avocado.

Those are really high prices. Soaper's Choice: 7 lb coconut oil $13.30 7 lb castor oil $17.78 Shipping to TX $15.02 Total $46.10 Their shipping is dirt cheap the more you buy: 14 lb EVOO $41.30 7 lb coconut oil $13.30 7 lb castor oil $17.78 Shipping to TX $16.23 Total $88.61

For at least the last few hundred years, coconut oil and palm kernel oil have been considered interchangeable. Those are by far the two most common and affordable lauric oils. So I would think that is the simple answer to the question. A few other oils could substitute directly, but it doesn't...

I don't think there's anyone who wasn't unclear about that at one time or another. It took me a while to sort out all the details, so I'm sharing. Yes, your palm oil is nearly all oil, so any solid bits are simply solid oil a.k.a. stearin. The liquid part is called olein. Commercially, palm...

I thought I might take this opportunity to clear up one point that can easily cause confusion -- the difference between stearic and stearin. Stearic is a fatty acid. When we use it in a free form like the white stearic acid flakes that are sometimes used in bar soap and shaving soap recipes...

Everything you asked for (except HP) is in Scientific Soapmaking by Kevin Dunn.

In considering this question, we could start with the fact that by far the biggest contribution to the properties of soap comes from the balance of fatty acids in the oil recipe. That determines what kind of soap is in your soap, accounting for most of its properties. Even a small change in the...

Being able to enter an exact percentage is not very useful, because you wouldn't typically know what it is. Suppliers aren't usually chemists and often quote the wrong specification due to misunderstanding. For instance, the purity of your KOH might be 98 to 99% if all the water could be...

It should be a little over 1.5 times the density of water. The 5 l bottle will hold 7.5 kg lye. That would be 3.75 kg water and 3.75 kg NaOH. However, the volume will be greater when the lye is hot. This calculation has a little wiggle room in it, but probably wouldn't work when the lye is...

Did they claim the color was natural? If EVAO is central to your marketing of a soap, it could be a good idea to dye it green. Except for the spirulina, all the green in this thread is the same thing: chlorophyll. You should be able to use chlorophyll extract, available as a supplement, to...

Indeed, it IS ridiculous. Betty Crocker is the way to go for that.

The problem would be with EVOO because that's the valuable stuff. Having said that, I think "adulteration" got all the attention in the media and that's the thing most people came away with. The story wasn't all or even mostly about fake oil as I remember it. Adulteration has happened, but a...

I wondered if it might be high. It's unusual but possible for the lye concentration to be too high. Maybe the combination of the lye concentration and that particular FO does something weird. The principle is the same as that of "salting out" soap. Sodium hydroxide is even more effective at...

It's considered a type of superfat, though it's not fat exactly. The most common on ingredient lists is probably coconut acid. Palm kernel acid would be very similar. You might also see palm acid or even tallow acid. These are free fatty acids created from breaking apart oil molecules from...

Just FYI... Solid oils have a microscopic crystalline structure and are known as polymorphic (meaning "many shapes" or "many forms") because each oil can exist in more than one crystal form and the crystal forms can change from one to another. This can be noticeable because the various crystal...

What was your lye concentration?

Perfume isn't out of the question in soap, but not in CP and probably not HP. The soap should be previously saponified, and if it's added to hot soap the soap should be liquid so the perfume mixes right in and doesn't evaporate. In other words, if you want to experiment you can try your favorite...

Do you have observations regarding the appearance of the soap other than shrinkage? It's hard to tell if the mottling of the orange soap in the first pic is within the soap or just surface irregularity. When melted soap crystallizes back into curd soap, the different fatty acid salts can...

Powdered vinegar isn't actually vinegar. Vinegar contains water and acetic acid, both of which are volatile liquids -- no solids to be found in it. Try evaporating a bit of white vinegar and it will disappear, apart from any impurities left behind. The sodium acetate you make by neutralizing...