Advice on having sufficient raw stock to aid experimenting?

[Natalie]

I don't know, but I'm sort of with Greg on this-I got lots of oils, shea and coco butter. But he gets better results than I do!

Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way, the way I make soap is I go to soapcalc, since I'm new I'm not making more than 1 lb at a time, and because I have more coconut oil than anything else I type in 8 oz coconut, then.... this was my last batch, which worked out perfect!

1 oz almond oil
3oz canola
8 oz coconut
1 oz grapeseed
8oz lard (I had a lot of that, too)
2oz safforn
1oz shea
9.12 water
3.48 lye

So I start with the 8oz coconut, then add or decrease oils that will put it into the correct soap qualities range for hardness, cleansing, condition, ect. It takes a bit of playing around with the oils, but I feel like it's an insurance policy against making a bad batch. Yes, I made a few batches that were carp, but that was me, not insualting, not covering it, temps too high, too much FO, ect. I've tried rebatching one so far, no comment about that.

I forgot where I was going with this.........I guess we all have our methods of learning.

 

[Guest]

Hi Natalie! I don't know how you can say I get better results. I've got my 'carp' too. I just don't take pictures of them and post them on SMF.

I think the question isn't whether your batch worked out--and I'm glad it did work out--but the question is whether you could have made just as good a batch with fewer oils. If so you're just wasting a lot of time weighing out ingredient after ingredient.

Actually although I'm making lots of different recipes I wonder really how different the soaps are. That's one reason I've set out to make a series of one-oil soaps, to try and understand exactly what each oil contributes in a practical sense. You can look at SoapCalc's numbers all you want but you'll never understand your oils better than by simply washing your hands with soap made from each single oil. (IMO)

I think you're making your soap the way I make my lunch. I open the fridge and see what's in there. Left over steak? Beef sandwich. Left over chicken? Chicken sandwich.

What I was trying to accomplish by laying in a supply was to be able to choose from recipes in books and on the Internet, and when I see one I want to try I had hoped to have all or most of the ingredients on hand so that I wouldn't have to wait a typical week or longer for the supplies to arrive via FedEx/UPS/USPS. How would you like to decide to have a tuna sandwich for lunch and then have to wait a week for them to ship you the tuna?

In reality I have most of the major oils and fats--or they are close at hand e.g. lard at the market--and I've been able to make substitutions in other cases, so to a greater degree now I have a wider latitude in which recipes I can make.

You know it's even logical, as long as you have the room to store the stuff, that you're going to use up these supplies anyway so you might as well have 'em on hand from the beginning. It doesn't cost any more to buy them now than to buy them later, and having them on hand you can use them anytime you like.