Another Brit

ade · Sep 28, 2009

I've been looking at this forum for few weeks, a watched the film Fight Club years ago and it put the soap making in to my mind.
So yesterday after about a month of sourcing all the stuff, i made my first
batch of soap.

I found the soap making calculator,and played around with it for a while.
I finally came up with some thing i could make,with the things i had.

50% lard
30% coconut 76deg solid
20% olive oil
I got a lot of advice from a this forum,and saw similar recipes.
Well i sliced it up into bars today,and have wrapped it up in an old tea towel.
Hope fully i can keep my hands off it for 4 weeks.
So far so good,i washed up my chopping board and the little flakes left over really foamed and bubbled.

I don't know if I've got the soap making bug,but these were the cheapest ingredients i could get.
If the soaps ok i might invest in some fancy oils.
OK I've got question to ask but this probably the wrong part forum.
In England you can buy concentrates for pop(soda) that you dilute to taste.Could i put these in the lye water to add colour and flavour.

Thanks

Ade

MikeInPdx · Sep 28, 2009

Hello and welcome!

Sounds like you had a lot of fun on your first excursion into soapmaking, and that combination of oils should make quite the nice soap!

Can I suggest that you unwrap your soap and let it be exposed to open air for the first four weeks. You want to cure any extra water out of your soap before you wrap it in anything.

I seriously doubt that the soda pop concentrates are going to hold up to the lye solution. The colors will most likely change, and I doubt you get any scents at all. May I suggest that you look for some soap suppliers and buy some skin safe colors and fragrance oils.

Or, if you want to use stuff on hand, try turmeric for pretty yellow, paprika for a peach color, cinnamon for brown. They're all very nice!