1st m&p soaps

[coast soaps]

So I made my first melt and pour soap yesterday and now I have a few questions regarding my recipe and ingredients. In the white bar of soap I used coconut glycerin base with clear glycerin as well, I melted it using a double boiler method once melted i than put in a little bit of the acai butter so it could melt as well, once that was melted i took it off the double boiler and put in a few pinches of green Australian clay and lavender EO. after this i poured into my mold and sprinkled it with dead sea salt.. unfortunately this one doesn't lather as well as i was hoping.. any input on how i could make it do this?

In my second batch I used just clear glycerin base, I melted it down using the same method than I poured in a little bit of liquid vegetable glycerin as well as the acai butter. once everything melted I took it off the double boiler and than took a few pinches from the green Australian clay as well as the lavender.. for this one I didn't add the dead sea salt.. this one turned out great and lathers up the way i was expecting, I'm wondering if that's due to liquid vegetable glycerin I added?


also i bought a natural soap making book but all the recipes call for lye and i was wondering if i can just swap out the lye with glycerin and still use all the same ingredients and to how much glycerin i would need in order to replace the amount of lye..

thanks in advance for the replies

 

[Hazel]

Your soaps look nice. I'd say the problem for the first soap was the dead sea salt. DDS doesn't work in soap and causes the soap to weep and be soft. You can try using sea salt or table salt. I've heard these have worked in MP. Although, too much butter can also decrease lather.

Glycerin is a humectant and isn't going to increase lather. I think the lather was just from the base.

No lye, no soap. You must use lye to covert oils to soap.

Why did you add extra glycerin to the bases? I wouldn't think it would be necessary since bases already contain glycerin.

 

[coast soaps]

Thanks for the advice.
I added the extra liquid vegetable glycerin just to see if it would increase the lather but didn't seem to do much. I think my lather problem may be because the butter like you were saying and dead sea salt. The soap itself is kinda like a moisturizer it makes your hand feel really nice after but I just can't get it to lather like I would like.. And suggestions or recipes as to how it lather.. I've heard coconut oil works good??

As far as the lye is concerned do you use it for melt and pour as well cause I got the impression you don't need lye when using this method only for cold process soaps? Also isn't their a way I believe it's called saponification where ou use the lye but it's not actually in the final product of our soap

 

[Hazel]

You don't need any additives for a MP base to lather. It's already soap and should create lather. Of course, some bases are better than others in producing lather. It all depends upon the ingredients in the base. I haven't heard of the base you used so I can't comment on the ingredients or tell you how well it should lather. MP bases are already soap so you don't need to add lye. All you have to do is melt them, add color and scent, pour and let them cool. That's it.

No, coconut oil will not increase lather in MP bases. You need lye to create the chemical reaction to convert CO to soap before it will lather. You mentioned you had a book on soapmaking. The saponification process should be explained in the book. The combination of lye (dissolved in water) and oils creates a chemical reaction (heat) and the oils are converted to soap. The lye is "used up" during this and will not be in your finished soap. I should explain if you use too much lye for the oil amount then you could have lye in the finished soap. This is referred to as being lye heavy and you don't want extra lye in the soap. The soap would be harsh and drying. This is why a lye discount is recommended to ensure all the lye is used during saponification.

What's the title of the soapmaking book you have?

 

[coast soaps]

Thanks Hazel,

that was really helpful information. The base I got was from the Local craft store but I thi my next purchase will from online. There's so many more choices for bases than I thought, for reason I was under the impression you need glycerin as the base. It seems like if I want to use the butter and clay it may be a better idea to use the cold process??

After I posted this question I read the first chapter in the book which explained the same thing. I still have so much to learn and the book is specifically for cold process soap making. It's called the natural soap book (making herbal and vegetable based soaps by Susan miller cravitch. What's a lye discount?

 

[Hazel]

I know there has been some MP base supplier recommendations. Here's a link to a discussion about where to find some bases. viewtopic.php?f=32&t=7806 There probably is more info if you check through the MP section.

A lye discount is when you use less lye than is needed to completely saponify all the oils. For example if you use a 5% discount, you'd only use enough lye to completely saponify 95% of the oils. Sometimes it's called superfat. It helps to ensure that you don't have a lye heavy batch. The unsaponified oils add a little to the emollient properties of the batch.

I have Susan Miller Cavitch's other book "Soapmaker's Companion" and its been so long since I've read it that I can't even give an opinion about it.

 

[semplice]

Before you start buying lye and a bunch of oils, I'd recommend reading that book from cover to cover. Watch youtube videos on soap making (there are hundreds), and scour this forum. By the time you actually try making cold process or hot process soap, you should have a pretty good handle on what you're doing.

I don't really add too many additives to melt & pour soap. Too much oil or butter, and your lather decreases significantly. Adding clays are beneficial for shaving soaps, but I don't really see much benefit to adding a bunch of stuff to them just for the sake of adding them. You can add things like orange peel, oatmeal or shredded luffa to make them exfoliating, though.

 

[Hazel]

semplice made some good points. I recommend watching soapqueentv's cold process series on youtube.

 

[coast soaps]

Thanks for all the advice a hazel and semplice

I deffinitly have some more reading to do before I start doing the cold process, and working with lye. They lye discount seems like a brillant idea. That was the one thing i was concerned about cause i didnt want my finished product to have lye in it. When working with lye does the butter still decrease the lather, even if you have other oils like coconut and avocado?

I was just so excited to start making soap that I didn't really do all the reading before starting..kinda jumped the gun on that one. Working with lye seems like a better route for me since I want to add things that will be beneficial for the skin but melt and pour was just simple and fun, I think I'll try it again with out all the additives this time though..

 

[Hazel]

When working with lye does the butter still decrease the lather, even if you have other oils like coconut and avocado?

I can't say I've noticed less lather when including butters but I only use about 5%. I did have one batch where I used 30% shea and it had nice lather.

Below are some links to sites to read about oil properties in soap

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soapm ... ngoils.htm
http://summerbeemeadow.com/content/prop ... aking-oils
http://www.lovinsoap.com/oils-chart/

For a brief overview - Oil Characteristics in Soap