Cattleyabubbles said:
Her bar soaps give me inspiration of what I would like for my finish bars too resemble. Even this person's soap gives me inspiration http://www.chagrinvalleysoapandcraft.com/soapbars.htm#SOAP SELECTIONS The answer I'm seeking is what make one particular oil complement another oil? And how do I decide what % of which oil I want to use in my formula w/o the bar coming out too greasy, drying, or down right urrgggly & not wanting to even bother using it? Some of the basic recipes have common oils (e.g. Jojoba, Coconut, Olive) in the ingredients. Maybe it's me, I'm just over thinking things too much. I want my first batch to have that "Bam"
Research, research, research. Go to the sites mentioned. Here's another:
http://www.tlcsoaps.com/soapinst.htm
There are many good books that are extremely helpful like The Soapmaker's Companion.
Once you know what you need to get started, find a simple 3 oil recipe & go from there. You can begin adding to & tweaking the recipe once you've done a simple batch & done it successfully.
There are so many oils available to us soapmakers, that we can't list them all or what their properties are, but the sites we gave you have that info.
Once you have a base recipe that you're comfortable with, & have a few successful batches under your belt, you can begin formulating your own recipes.
Whatever recipe you decide to use, & this is true of any & all recipes no matter who's they are or where they came from, you'll need to enter the oils into a
lye calculator. There are several on-line. Here's the one I like best:
http://www.soapcalc.com
We'll all be here when you're ready to do that first batch. We're all really good at hand-holding, cajoling, cheering, troubleshooting, celebrating, etc.
The soaps you saw are the result of lots of batches, maybe some failures. It's takes time to formulate recipes & have them look as good as those do, so, be patient while your on this journey.
Here are some basic recipes:
http://www.tlcsoaps.com/3oil.htm
We also LOVE pics!!
