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hungryhawaiian

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Joined
Feb 4, 2019
Messages
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Location
San Jose
As the title says, Aloha! =) Relatively new soap maker, looking to learn as much as I can from you wonderful people. In addition to soap making, I also sew, crochet, make pens, do woodworking and about a thousand other random crafts and projects.

To date I’ve done about 5 batches of soap. The first was a failure in terms of end quantity and fragrance strength. The second was much better on fragrance strength but end quantity was still too much for my mold. Third through fifth batches I feel like I perfected my intended outcome, in terms of what I planned for the recipe to do and what it actually did. Now I plan to branch out and learn different recipes and effects that each oil has to offer and how they blend with each other.

Attached is a pic of batches 2-5. Rear right is batch 2 (50/50 coconut and olive oil), middle is batch 3 (70/30 OO and coconut oil), left is batch 4 and front right is batch 5 (both 50/30/20 OO, coconut, shea butter).

I’ve since learned that I probably shouldn’t use more than 15% shea butter and too much coconut can be harsh on the skin, so I’m trying to develop a recipe with a little more balance. I currently have olive oil, rice bran oil, coconut oil, Shea butter, cocoa butter and beeswax to experiment with.

Anyone have a recipe suggestion with the ingredients I have available?

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Welcome, we are glad to have you! Your soaps look great, and I admire your methodologies!
I tend to have a lot of hobbies and interests, also. :)
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Welcome HH :). If you have any questions it's best to post them in the relevant forum to get your answers as this is the Intro thread.
 
As a newbie I'd avoid beeswax till I am confident handling fast tracing soap.

You can go to any percentage with Olive oil - you may need longer cure time if you have higher percentage of Olive oil.

Olive oil - 50%
Rice bran oil - 20%
Coconut oil - 15% (Or you can lower it up to 10% and increase olive oil)
Shea butter 7%
cocoa butter - 8%

Make smaller batch , maybe upto 500 gm / 1 pound soap and see if you like the soap.
 
Hi @hungryhawaiian,

They look like lovely soaps!

Welcome aboard (I'll look out for your next thread :)). In the meantime - please pop a thick cotton cloth (which is reusable and lye resistant) or some matting under your soaps - chromed metal is likely to trigger DOS in your soaps (I hope you don't mind the warning, but perhaps better warned now than to lose a bunch of soaps weeks or months down the track :)).
 
Hi @hungryhawaiian,

They look like lovely soaps!

Welcome aboard (I'll look out for your next thread :)). In the meantime - please pop a thick cotton cloth (which is reusable and lye resistant) or some matting under your soaps - chromed metal is likely to trigger DOS in your soaps (I hope you don't mind the warning, but perhaps better warned now than to lose a bunch of soaps weeks or months down the track :)).

Oh no!!! Thanks for the heads up. Coincidentally odd timing but I’m switching to HDPE racks today! I scored a bunch of stackable soda racks from a vendor at work. I’ve read about the dreaded DOS but haven’t experienced them yet. Hopefully I never will =)
 
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