For those of you who use Soapmaker 3...

[Hermanam]

How do you account for very small amounts of colorant used in a batch? For example, I might use 1/4 tsp of a powder, or a few drops of a liquid. I have no idea of the weight in ounces for such small amounts. How do you deal with this when calculating the cost of a recipe or when tracking inventory? Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[reinbeau]

Provided you've entered the specific gravity of the item, you can tell SM3 you've used a quarter teaspoon, etc. I've resorted to putting in .001 oz for tussah silk - I have absolutely no idea how heavy that little poof is I put in there!

So the key to it is to use the specific gravity feature. I've googled all over to find the sg for most everything I've put into SM3 - if I can't find anything I go with 1 and we'll see how it turns out.

 

[Hermanam]

Darn, that's what I was afraid of. I have just been entering 1 as the specific gravitation for everything. Have you found a good source for the specific gravity of most things, or do you just google it? I started googling it, but it was getting a bit cumbersome so I just went with 1 instead. Ugh.

 

[reinbeau]

I google everything I put in. What I wish was that there was an easy way to export lists so I could share all the info I've gleaned easily.

 

[coffeetime]

Newdirectionsaromatics has an MSDS for their EOs at least, which says the SG near the end.

 

[Hermanam]

My google searches are turning out okay, but can anyone help me with powdered colorants, such as oxides and micas? I'm having trouble finding the sg of these. Thank you for the help

 

[lsg]

I too try to add all the information about each ingredient supply. It saves a lot of time later on.

 

[coffeetime]

Actually, I've been having trouble with my clays. The SG I found for kaolin was 2.42. Which makes no sense. So my quantities are always way out. Anyone have a better SG for clays?

 

[lsg]

I google Kaolin clay and specific gravity and am seeing SG of about 2.6 for Kaolin clay.

 

[coffeetime]

I google Kaolin clay and specific gravity and am seeing SG of about 2.6 for Kaolin clay.

Yeah, but that doesn't make sense does it? Doesn't that mean it is 2.6 times denser than water? But it's not. It's volume in 1g is way bigger than 1g of water so it is much less dense right? In Soapmaker, when I use the 2.4 or 2.6 SG, if I put 1tbsp of clay in a recipe, it calculates that that equals something like an ounce and a half but it actually weighs only 5g. ?!?!

 

[coffeetime]

Bump

 

[coffeetime]

Ok, now I'm wondering if it's actually an error in Soapmaker. I will contact them to see if they can check it.

 

[Jeanea]

Out of curiosity since I was just using kaolin and was about to clean up I checked it out. One tbsp of clay was 6 grams or .2 ounces. Sometimes is definitely off. I would like to know what they say about it. I was thinking of getting sm.

 

[reinbeau]

Jeanea, don't not get SM3 because the SG of clays are off (if they are). It's a great program, the developer is very quick to fix problems and responsive if new features are suggested.

Kaolin clay most definitely has a specific gravity of 2.6 (see page 2 of the pdf), that is not an SM3 error. See the link I just posted and read up on kaolin clay. Now, is what we use in soap actually kaolin clay? That's the question.

 

[elmtree]

I use grams when entering powder colorants and really anything powdered that is a small amount. I've found it to be pretty accurate and it works well.