Accounting for essential oils

[Jsacc106]

Hello all,
I am new to cold process soap making but have been at it for a few weeks. I have a brief question maybe someone can help with. How do you guys account for your fragrance or essential oils. I find that if I use roughly 1oz per pound of oil most batches contain 2oz for me. Now with that being said I use a soap calculator that accounts for all of my other oils except my EO. Now this calculator let’s you pick the amount of super fat and now I’m confused to using this as I always used 5%. But then I started thinking that I use roughly 5% of my recipe in EO as well so would that mean that my 5% super fat recipe I’ve made not including EO will actually turn out to be 10% super fat after I add the EO? It’s confusing because I am finding my soaps to be a bit on the stickier side and this it’s due to too much super fat. Should I start calculating my EO in the recipe? (Ex: create recipe at 1% super fat then when the EO are added at 5% then I will have a total of 6% super fat). Hope someone can understand what I am saying! Thanks for your time

 

[cmzaha]

No, you do not figure the EO into your oils and there is no choices in soap calculators. I am sure EO's do not have a sap value. If you post your full recipe we may be able you determine what is causing your sticky soap. High castor for one can cause stickiness and in my opinion so can olive oil.

 

[Jsacc106]

No, you do not figure the EO into your oils and there is no choices in soap calculators. I am sure EO's do not have a sap value. If you post your full recipe we may be able you determine what is causing your sticky soap. High castor for one can cause stickiness and in my opinion so can olive oil.

Thank you for your response! I will post that recipe soon. I don’t use castor more than 5%. My sunflower oil was at 60% which may have caused it...I found a lot of recipes actually tend to use a bit more soft oils than hard which is weird because I learned that there should be a touch more hard oils in the recipe like a 60/40

 

[Soapprentice]

No... EO is considered as fragrance..you don’t have to consider it a Superfat... if I understand you right, try reducing superfat to 2-3% if you think your soap is getting sticky because of superfat...
fragrance (EO)-5% and superfat -2% to 3%

 

[Jsacc106]

No... EO is considered as fragrance..you don’t have to consider it a Superfat... if I understand you right, try reducing superfat to 2-3% if you think your soap is getting sticky because of superfat...
fragrance (EO)-5% and superfat -2% to 3%

Ok that is rather clear thank you for that. I’ll try reducing the super fat percentage. Will that affect it coming to trace quicker or slower?

 

[Soapprentice]

Ok that is rather clear thank you for that. I’ll try reducing the super fat percentage. Will that affect it coming to trace quicker or slower?

I don’t think superfat effects trace.. I never personally tried same recipe with different superfat.. so, not very confident in that front.

 

[Jeanea]

Superfats will not effect your trace. Your overall recipe, temp you are soaping at, and FO/EO will determine your overall trace. If you want a thin trace, you need a recipe that is high in soft oils. For a thicker trace, vice versa. If you search the reviews for the fragrance you are buying, other soapers will mention if the FO accelerates the trace. This are the FO you want to stay away from starting out.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Superfat shouldn't noticeably affect trace unless you have set it unusually high AND you're soaping unusually cold. In that corner case, it might increase the odds of false trace or thicker trace. But that should not be an issue for anything using best practices processes.

 

[earlene]

I believe there is an exception to the rule about hard oils speeding trace, and that is lard. It's a bit lower in saturated fats and doesn't raise the saturated to unsaturated profile as much as the other hard oils do.

For some more information on how to predict trace based on your recipe, try these two references:

https://aquariansoap.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/anatomy-of-a-soap-recipe/

https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/controlling-trace-in-cold-process-soapmaking/

Both have some pretty good information in them about how the oils in your recipe contribute to trace, but also about other ways trace is impacted. Neither mentions superfat as a factor.