castor oil

I was gifted 3 bottles of Black Castor Oil. I've read up on the diff between regular Castor Oil and Black Castor Oil, but haven't seen anything to tell me how to use it in soap. I don't see it in the lye calculator list (soapcalc.net). Can I use this in CP Soapmaking? Thank you for your help.

Hello everyone... Seeing that a lot of people use castor oil in their soaps, I have some questions. How significant is the effect of 5% castor oil in CP soap? What is the main reason to include castor oil? Is it the lather or the benefits for the skin or something else? I'm using only palm...

I’d like to start a practical discussion about what certain oils that are common to soapers (on this forum atleast), but not common to all kitchens, should smell or look like so we can judge the quality of things we’re using but aren’t familiar with. I hope this isn’t too vague a topic to start...

With more intense colours this time. I used chrome oxide + activated charcoal for green, aquamarine mica + activated charcoal for blue, wine red mica for red and uncoloured batter for white.

HP liquid soap made with 40% dairy butter. Experimental dual-stage process with intermediate addition of citric acid to liberate volatile (stinky) fatty acids from the clarified butter. Satisfactory deodorising, good clarity, optimal viscosity: bubbles rise very slowly when flipped upside down.

I made tiny batches of 1 or 2 small test bars. In total, I did 6 iterations; two 25% brine (and four 60% crystalline), all using oils from the same bottles. All done within a 24-hour period. Both brine soaps were done within 2 hours of each other. However, one iteration (#2 below) reeks of...

Hey everybody! I'm trying to concoct an exfoliating lemon poppyseed soap for my second batch ever!! My first batch used the same oils in the same amounts and turned out pretty great (all I added to that batch was rose fragrance). I was wondering if I could apply the same percentages to this...

I have a jar of duck fat and two bottles of oil, one almond and one castor, that I'd like to use in a shave-soap-making experiment. Never having made soap of any kind, however, I'm running into a wall when it comes to finding suitable recipes. Does anyone know of any or where I might find them?

I made this yesterday night. I put it in molds at about 7 PM last night. I do not have a stick blender & used my whisk, sometimes attaching it to a hand-held blender, sometimes doing it by hand. I think I did about 10 minutes of blending but it never got to trace. I lost faith and looked up on...

Hi. I'm new here. I made soap years ago and just started again around this time last year. Tonight, I did something Ive never done before. I used up a a partial bottle of olive oil and opened a new one to finish the amount. Later when I was cleaning up, I realized, I'd opened a new bottle of...

I'd like to make an authentic castile and would really like it to be "authentic" but I would also like the lather from some castor oil and if I'm SF'ing (or lye discount by 5%), then is the 5% castor actually making it not fully castile soap? here is a print out of the 4 different recipes...

I was reading an article about castor oil and they named at least 5 different types of oil and they were all used for something different. They all seemed to be produced or processed differently, some labeled "hexane free" (so maybe hexane is a problem in this oil??), which may lead to it...

I've been playing around with creating my own recipes recently and when making today's batch realised I didn't have enough sweet almond oil for what my recipe needed so I subbed in some castor oil. I've been trying to avoid using castor oil as even though I'm only doing small batches and using...