is this recipe ok

[harvest hobby]

Is this recipe ok
125g coconut oil
125 g palm oil
450g olive oil
150g rice bran oil
109g lye
300g water

I have put it through 3 different calcultors and all have different amounts of water and lye.
Will my soaps be to slimy as I have been reading that olive oily is slimy and rice bran oil is pretty close to olive oil.
Sould I be adding more hard oils.

 

[dagmar88]

Hey,
I'd change it into this:

25% coconut oil
15% palm oil
40% olive oil
20% ricebran oil

I don't use ricebran as it is more expensive than olive oil over here; but it is supposed to be less slimy.
However, I'd prefer to add 8% castor tot the recipe (gives large bubbles) and take that amount of the ricebran or olive oil.

I use www.soapcalc.net for the right amount of lye and water.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

All the calculators vary a bit. Here is a nice recipe from Dr Kevin Dunn.

It makes a great bar of soap which has plenty of bubbles and is hard enough.

390g Olive Oil (39%)
289g Palm Oil (28%)
289g Coconut Oil (28%)
50g Castor Oil (5%)

137g Lye
347g Water

You can use this recipe and tweak it. If you want to use some Rice Bran Oil, remove some of the olive and replace with Rice Bran ... maybe use 29% of olive and 10% of Rice Bran. If you haven't got castor then don't worry about it - up your olive as I think 28% coconut is enough for starters.

You could go ahead and use your original recipe and tweak after you see the results. You might really like it the way it is. Have fun. :wink:

 

[harvest hobby]

Thanks guys
I can see from your response I dont have enough hard oils. I made the recipe and I also noticed that it was a dull yellow could that be becuse of the rice bran oil?
Can you buy castor oil from the supermarket. (which isle)?????
I've also been reading about Canola Oil should I replace rice bran oil with Canola oil.
I love soap making but now and then I find it very confusing. I have trouble understand the lye calculators!!!!! I'm not sure what percentages to use.
I so glad I found this forum I was just about pulling my hair out!!!!!
One more thing.....how much essential oil would you add to this recipe
and who is Dr Kevin Dunn?????

 

[dagmar88]

I'd wait with EO's and FO's for a while untill you're okay with your basic recipe.
I personally wouldn't use canola because of the risk of DOS (dreaded orange spots, just search haha).
You can get castor or wonder oil at your local pharmacy.

To gain some more insight, you could read:
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... php?t=6157
http://www.zensoaps.com/singleoil.htm

Also, this issue of Saponifier Magazine was really helpful to me, especially the Boot Camp Basics article. As the quality of the articles declined I wouldn't recommend a subscription though.

http://www.saponifier.net/products/Issu ... -2009.html

Good luck!

 

[harvest hobby]

Bubbles I put your recipe through the soap calc and got 145.5g of lye and
386.8g water. Now Im going to be worried I will be lye heavy.
When using the caclulator what should I be putting in if Im using copha, it says coconut oil but what degrees.
I've decided to go back to basic and just use olive, coconut and palm and
my mould only hold 1200g whats a good percentage for me to keep practicing on?

 

[Bubbles Galore]

What lye discount did you put in HH? I use SoapMaker3 which is a purchased product and I trust it completely. :wink: