Does this recipe seem alright?

[mflo3812]

This will be my first batch of soap, but I want to ask you experts before I waste materials on any silly things I may have overlooked.

When I compare this recipe to other ones online, the percentages look way different and the ounces seem off, but I realize I'm working with different oils, so that's bound to happen. Just want to get a new set of eyes of it to see if there's anything glaringly obvious I need to change.

Milk - 25.46g
Lye - 9g
Olive oil - 30g
Babassu oil - 25g
Jojoba oil - 8g
Castor oil - 4g

 

[AliensrReal]

I don’t see anything wrong with your calculations, but the batch is so small and in grams instead of the ounces you wanted. It may be a bit drying due to the amount of babassu oil and may take longer than 4-6 weeks to fully cure. It will also not last very long. You have no hard oils/butters in the recipe. It isn’t a recipe I would use as jojoba oil does not saponify and can make a very soft soap and the recipe would dry me out. What are the qualities you’re looking for in your soap?

 

[Relle]

This will be my first batch of soap, but I want to ask you experts before I waste materials on any silly things I may have overlooked.

When I compare this recipe to other ones online, the percentages look way different and the ounces seem off, but I realize I'm working with different oils, so that's bound to happen. Just want to get a new set of eyes of it to see if there's anything glaringly obvious I need to change.

Milk - 25.46g
Lye - 9g
Olive oil - 30g
Babassu oil - 25g
Jojoba oil - 8g
Castor oil - 4g

You said the ounces seem off. You have put in grams not ounces, if you wanted it in ounces the quantity will be a lot larger. I thought it was such a small amount, you only have 68 grams of oil in the recipe. Did you want to work in ounces or grams ?

 

[DeeAnna]

If you meant to write ounces rather than grams, this is a huge batch of soap for an untested recipe -- 67 ounces total fat. Even if you were an experienced soap maker, it might be wise to make a smaller batch -- say 16 oz or 500 g total fat -- for testing and evaluation.

If you did mean to write grams, it's a teeny recipe. Do you have a high precision scale to measure the ingredients? If not, you should get one to ensure the soap is safe for use on the skin. You can't afford much error in your measurements if you want to make a recipe this small.

Also, do you mean to use sodium hydroxide as your "lye"? If so, might want to say that, because the word "lye" can mean any of several alkali chemicals -- sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, etc. When the context isn't clear, it's good to say the official chemical name.

As far as the recipe itself --

You might find this soap to be overly drying and harsh to your skin, since babassu is 37% of the total fats. This is going to be a strongly cleansing soap.

Typically jojoba isn't used in soap; it's more for leave-on products like lotions. Jojoba doesn't saponify as fully as typical soap making fats, so little of it actually turns into soap. At 12% of the total fats, it's possible the unsaponifiable content contributed by the jojoba may reduce the lather of the soap and may make the soap softer than you would prefer.

The fats in this recipe will all create soap that is very soluble in water, so it won't last long in the bath.

At the risk of hurting your feelings, it's not a recipe I would care to make. Maybe you have reasons for designing the recipe like this? If so, more context would be helpful to understand your logic.

 

[akseattle]

@mflo3812 ,
I'm pretty new to cold process soap making myself but your recipe looks like it's missing something- like it maybe needs a hard oil. The oils in % should equal 100% . I would encourage you to either use a tried and true recipe that is available online OR run the recipe you are creating through a lye calculator that will give you all the soap properties. (It's a good idea to run EVERY recipe through a lye calculator if you are changing the amount being made from a prior recipe, too.) There are a couple good lye calculators on the internet. You can use them for free. I use soapcalc which is at the following link.
http://soapcalc.net/
I find the above lye calculator to be really easy to use. The site also has ALOT of good, easy to read information that you'll find helpful. Good luck! Let us know what recipe you settle on and how it turns out!!

 

[akseattle]

@mflo3812, I ran your recipe through soapcalc's lye calculator and I've attached it.
It seemed to be missing something -- either by g you meant percentages, but then typed one of the percentages wrong, or you just straight up left an oil off your recipe. Anyway, I used 60% olive oil, 25% babassu oil, 8 % jojoba oil (or a liquid wax esther???) and 7% castor oil (I needed 1 more % to total 100%).
I don't have enough experience to know how this recipe (with the extra olive oil) might behave other than what is on the lye calculator.
If you look at the column that says "soap bar quality", you can see that it will be very conditioning. That's good. It's cleansing enough. But, most of the other properties are on the low side. To find out the longevity of the soap bar, you can subtract the cleansing # from the hardness #. According to soapcalc, your bar would be at 13. So, that is really low. You can also look at the right column and add "stearic" plus "palmitic". Same thing, your bar would be pretty low.

 

[akseattle]

@mflo3812 One more thing, then I'm going to put my hand down. I promise!
Below is a link to an FAQ on soalcalc.net I only just saw this a couple weeks ago even though I started using their lye calculator after my first batch (that I made with a giant question mark over my head...)
It has really straightforward easy to understand questions and answers that I wish I had run into early on. The information on it is still helpful to me. Good luck and I hope you enjoy your soap journey!!!!

http://www.soapcalc.net/info/FAQ.asp#google_vignette