Good place for good recipes?

[PatrickH]

I've seen recipes all over the internet, but have no idea if they are good recipes or just something someone made up once, took a picture of it and then posted it.
I been messing around with making my own and not sure if they are good or just maybe not that good for me.
What I'm looking for is a really good home made hand and body soap recipe with no goats milk or yoghurt. I'm just not into putting dairy into something that may be sitting on a shelf for months.
Not looking for the easy basic, even though it may be good. I would like to find a recipe with more then just 3 oils, like a recipe that is more on the luxury side making your skin feel nice durring the dry winter weather.
Does anyone know of any good places to look?
Brambleberry seem to have a bunch, but are thier recipes really good or just basic boring? Figured I would ask since I have no idea.
I like to do HP soap, but would like a recipe I could do CP also as my girlfriend wants to try CP because of the fancy swirls.
Would really just like a good recipe I can use as a guide to compare my future soaps to. One I know is good and not just wondering.
Hope that makes sense?
I really like making my own recipes, but having at least 1 to compare to would be very helpful.
Something with Colloidal Oatmeal sounds nice.

I might be taking a trip up to brambleberry soon to get some Essential oils for scent. Lemongrass being one of them.

 

[Kittish]

I'm happy to share with you the 'best' recipes I've made so far (best being a subjective term). They're all quite nice as soap, though I do still want to tweak just a bit, see if I can make them even better. The two I like best so far I'm now using fully cured bars of at the sink and I'm pleased enough with them that I'm going to make enough of both to send as gifts for Christmas. A ringing endorsement, I know.

 

[Susie]

We need more information before helping.

Are you opposed to using animal fats?

Any allergies?

Do you have hard or soft water?

 

[PatrickH]

We need more information before helping.

Are you opposed to using animal fats?

Any allergies?

Do you have hard or soft water?

I have no problem with animal fat. I plan on getting Tallow in the future for shaving soap, but I don't have any at this time, but I do have Palm Oil.
No allergies
Last time I checked, my water was in the PH range of 7.4 to 7.8, don't remember for sure, but that is all I know about my water. No idea what the mineral content might be.

 

[CTAnton]

Millersoap.com is where I'd start. There's some very good recipes on there that I've been happy with and other members of this forum have chimed in over time that they like some of them as well. I think the canolive recipe is a good place to start. Document well what you make and do a series of one pound batches and then you can decide what pleases you..

 

[PatrickH]

I'm happy to share with you the 'best' recipes I've made so far (best being a subjective term). They're all quite nice as soap, though I do still want to tweak just a bit, see if I can make them even better. The two I like best so far I'm now using fully cured bars of at the sink and I'm pleased enough with them that I'm going to make enough of both to send as gifts for Christmas. A ringing endorsement, I know.

Sounds interesting, thank you.

 

[lionprincess00]

Well, BB uses (usually) the trinity of 33% each of CO, palm/animal fats (usually palm), and olive oil. Sometimes they switch it up with specialty oils (that they sell lol).
Personally I've eliminated olive oil and replaced it with sweet almond oil, and recently tried a substitute of avocado oil. It is more pricey than sweet almond, but I prefer both to olive. I like their fatty acid profiles better than olive too. I used to render tallow and bought it from soapers choice, but lard @ walmart is so cheap I've gone to lard now. 33% CO is way too high for many soapers. I typically use 18-20%, though recently I used high cleansing (co and pko flake blend) @ appx 27% for my daughter (who doesn't care about drying out, she wants bubbles lol). It isn't bad for me, personally. I used it for hands and face and was surprised it wasn't too cleansing.
So for a 1st simple recipe, I'd recommend
5% castor (to sustain, not create, bubbles)
20% Coconut oil
15-20% soft oil like olive, sweet almond my fave, avocado, HO sunflower etc
And the remainder lard, or a blend of lard and tallow, or lard, tallow and lard, or palm if you must lol

Go from there

I personally use
5% castor
15% of either sweet almond or avocado
A split of CO and pko flakes, co usually 8% pko 12%
Remaining is lard @60%

I have hard water which can cause soap scum on surfaces and skin. It makes you dry out, and it makes you feel like you're flaking your skin off, but it's just soap scum. So I've added 2% sodium citrate PPO to combat that. I know people use EDTA which I have never used, but from what I've read I think it actually works better than sodium citrate. So that's why we were asking about your water. If you have hard water with a lot of minerals in it, you really want to consider buying sodium citrate. If you're in the states I have a good site on eBay I use. Since then, I think more people have been selling it even cheaper rates than what I was buying at. I bought approximately 5 lb at 20 or $25 and it's lasted me well over a year.

Ahh! Edit to add
I use 2-3% sf and 40% lye concentration unless I use an A fo, in which case I use 33% lye concentration

 

[artemis]

My question is, what do you mean by recipe? To me a "soap recipe" is 30% this oil and 70% that oil and 5% superfat etc. To my sister-in-law, "soap recipe" gives the actual amount of grams for each oil and lye and additives, like a cookie recipe only for soap. Is that what you're looking for? I ask because there are a lot of recipes right here on the forum, but they will be in percentages.

 

[toxikon]

My fave right now:

• 50% Lard
• 20% Coconut Oil
• 15% Olive Oil
• 10% Avocado Oil
• 5% Castor Oil

• 35% Lye Concentration
• 3% Superfat

I just picked up some tallow, so I'm going to try replacing half the lard with tallow for a slightly harder bar. The recipe as written is great, produces lots of lather and bubbles and isn't drying. But I find it gets a bit sloppy in the humidity of the shower. At the bathroom sink, it's perfect. But I want a harder bar for the shower.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Right now for general purposes I'm using:

25% Great Value Shortening (mix of palm and tallow)
25% Armor lard
20% white coconut oil 76F
20% LouAna brand high-oleic safflower
5% castor
5% Avocado

I will vary the percentages of the lard and shortening depending on how much working time I need for swirls. More lard equals more time to work, slower trace and a very slightly softer bar when all is said and done. More GV shortening is faster and makes for a harder, whiter bar. (To be clear, even full 50% lard is still plenty hard...)

You can also definitely use olive oil in place of the safflower. I did use olive for the first couple of years with this recipe and only recently switched to safflower because it's cheaper and I found I like it better. But olive is great, too.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

As you look at these recipes, you're going to see they have a lot in common:

About 50% of "hard oils" which are palm,lard, tallow
About 25-25% "brittle oils" which are coconut, palm kernel
About 20-25% "soft oils" like olive, HO safflower - often with some portion of specialty soft oils like avocado or sweet almond
5% Castor, which IMO is in a class by itself for bubbles.

As long as you keep relatively close to the 50/20/25/5 Hard/Brittle/Soft/Castor ratio, your soap will be very good.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Not looking for the easy basic, even though it may be good. I would like to find a recipe with more then just 3 oils, like a recipe that is more on the luxury side making your skin feel nice durring the dry winter weather...."

Keep your mind open about those "easy basic" recipes while you have fun with all those "luxury" ingredients. You may, like many of us, find yourself eating your words as you gain more experience.

 

[dixiedragon]

Generally I have found BB's recipes to be good.

You may also want to try www.millersoap.com

A good starting recipe is this:
40% lard, tallow or palm
20% coconut
5% castor
35% olive
(5% superfat)

Now, to make a more advanced recipe, use this as a guideline. For example, you may want to add some cocoa butter for more conditioning. So take 5 or 10% from the lard and make that cocoa butter. In other words, replace SOME of the lard with a hard butter. But not all, because too much of a butter (cocoa, shea, mango) will really kill lather.
Coconut you can move up or down a bit. So if you want it be very mild and gentle for winter, try 15% or 10% coconut.
Olive - you can replace some (or all) of the olive with other conditioning liquid oils. I really like rice bran and sunflower. My base recipe uses 15% olive, 10% rice bran and 10% sunflower.

You could also take 5 or 10% from the olive and replace it with something like sweet almond or avocado.

The 5% castor - leave that one alone.

 

[Cellador]

Soap Queen/Brambleberry has 3 "favorite" recipes posted online, 2 which are noted as being moisturizing & nourishing. They utilize some unique/luxury ingredients. I have tried them & they are nice soaps, IMHO.

 

[SoapTrey]

Soap Queen/Brambleberry has 3 "favorite" recipes posted online, 2 which are noted as being moisturizing & nourishing. They utilize some unique/luxury ingredients. I have tried them & they are nice soaps, IMHO.

I find the moisturizing recipe actually very good...

Moisturizing
4 oz. Avocado oil
8 oz. Coconut Oil
1 oz. Jojoba Oil
16 oz. Olive Oil
8 oz. Palm Oil
4 oz. Shea Butter
11 – 15 oz. water
5.6 oz. lye
​

 

[Kittish]

Sounds interesting, thank you.

Here's one of my two current favorites. http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=64179.

The other one is the recipe I used for my first attempt at the mermaid tail challenge from July.

Castor oil 5%
Coconut oil 25% (this will be lowered in future batches)
Olive oil 40%
Rice bran oil 10% (probably shift what I take out of coconut to here)
Shea butter 15% (I'm loving shea butter in soap)
Meadowfoam oil 5%

I started using a bar of that after only a month of curing and it's lovely already. It will probably edge out the first recipe as my favorite when I get to the fully cured bars.

 

[Susie]

We have all tried using multiple "luxury" oils, and many of us find ourselves using the basic four:

Lard/Tallow/Palm
Coconut Oil
Olive/Sweet Almond Oil
Castor Oil

 

[IrishLass]

Here's one from me:

37% Olive oil
27% lard
28% coconut oil
8% castor oil

33% lye concentration
6% superfat

It makes for a wonderfully bubbly/creamy bar. Some on the forum might find the coconut % to be too high, but it works nicely for me and mine.


IrishLass

 

[dixiedragon]

As you look at these recipes, you're going to see they have a lot in common:

About 50% of "hard oils" which are palm,lard, tallow
About 25-25% "brittle oils" which are coconut, palm kernel
About 20-25% "soft oils" like olive, HO safflower - often with some portion of specialty soft oils like avocado or sweet almond
5% Castor, which IMO is in a class by itself for bubbles.

As long as you keep relatively close to the 50/20/25/5 Hard/Brittle/Soft/Castor ratio, your soap will be very good.

Yup, this! Except instead of "brittle oils" I'd call them lathering oils. Coconut (cheap and easy to find), palm kernel (NOT palm - this one is a bit gentler than coconut) and babassu (most expensive of the 3).

 

[BattleGnome]

Adding in my variation of soap recipe:

15-20% coconut
15-20% Shea
Up to 30% canola
30-40% olive (or the remainder if not using canola)

The only number I look at is cleansing and only to keep it low. I'm still playing with my percentages to find the absolutely perfect for me bar. I have the skin feel I like but I'm also working with my sister's preference for a non-goopy bar (oleic slime) and my mom's request for a cleansing bar (she complains about skin feel of the recipes where I don't use coconut). My playing right now is just figuring out a good coconut number and balancing the rest accordingly