My first batch of soap

[JCsuds]

after months of reading research books and buying equipment oil etc.... my first batch of soap this batch made 2 pans like this already pretty hard used bulgarian lavender.EO clary sage eo and Egyptian musk FO as fragrance

my
first soap
A
SOLID
soap, measured in
GRAMS
superfatted by
6%
Castor Oil
32.00g
52.0%
Coconut Oil (76 Degrees)
454.00g
737.2%
Olive Oil
78.00g
126.6%
Palm Oil
58.00g
94.2%
Safflower Oil
52.00g
84.4%
Shea Butter (Unrefined)
26.00g
42.2%
Tallow (Beef)
1046.00g
1698.4%
6% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount
246.113g
Ounces of liquid recommended
576.18g
Yields
883.88g

 

[newbie]

Beautiful! DId you decorate the tops only or are there colors inside?

 

[KristaY]

Your soap is very pretty and I bet it smells amazing with that blend! The %'s listed don't really make sense though, lol. It says your tallow is 1698.4% which I'm guessing isn't right! Do you want any advice on tweaking the recipe or are you happy the way it is? I'm only asking because you posted the whole of it which is a good thing! Is this what it looked like to you?

 

[Cactuslily]

Firstly. Welcome! I agree with KristaY. The only thing I can add is. What type of pan did you use? From pic( which is lovely by the way), it looks metal.

 

[Dorymae]

Firstly. Welcome! I agree with KristaY. The only thing I can add is. What type of pan did you use? From pic( which is lovely by the way), it looks metal.

To me it looks like one of those silicone baking dishes, I could be wrong. . .

 

[jules92207]

Beautiful soap!

 

[shunt2011]

Hello and welcome! Pretty soap. Congratulations on your fist batch. Your percentages listed aren't making a lot of sense, can you clarify them.

 

[JCsuds]

Hello and welcome! Pretty soap. Congratulations on your fist batch. Your percentages listed aren't making a lot of sense, can you clarify them.

sorry I used the bramble-berry calculator and copy and pasted the recipe. The grams of each are the recipe . Not sure why the percentages went crazy . the colour does go all the way through I will post a picture after I cut it today . It is a silicone baking pan (these work great) I guess I wont know if I like the recipe until I can use it .... Today we ( my three girls and I ) are going to make hot process shampoo bars(see my other thread I am a Newbie) and this soap recipe only hot not cold process . Thanks for your encouragement James

 

[Sonya-m]

Well done and welcome to the addiction!

If my first soap had looked like that I would have been a very happy bunny!

I'm a newbie too - only started in November - this forum is brilliant a d full of helpful info and people

 

[JCsuds]

32g Black castor oil
454g coconut
78g olive oil
58g red palm oil
52g safflower oil
28g unrefined shea butter
1046g beef tallow
6% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount 246.113g
Ounces of liquid recommended 576.18g

I basically made up this recipe according to what I had to work with, and what understanding I have gained from this forum and the books I have about the properties of the oils . If anyone sees any obvious flaws with the recipe please feel free to tell me before I make this batch again (hot process ) tomorrow
I put approx 1 1/4 oz of vit.e oil after saponification with the fragrances
I am unclear about superfatting : term itself and the process . I superfatted at 6% through the calculator. Does this mean that the lack of lye will leave 6% of the ingredients unprocessed? Or shoul 6% of the total be put in at the end with the fragrance ? also how much fragrance would 883.88g of soap need? It smells very fragrant I probably put 2 1/2 oz of oil including the vit E (I did not measure the oils ) thanks for your help and input James

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I would keep all units the same - so if your recipe is grams, talk about your scents and so on in grams or % of oils. It helps to keep things clean, especially when measuring.

As for the recipe, it's a bit of a big batch for a first one. I would keep between 500g and 1000g for early batches, depending on how accurately you can measure. It means you don't have too much soap to use up between tweaking things! Regarding the ingredients, in generally it looks good - I do think that too many of the ingredients are at too low a level to really bring anything to the soap. I would suggest trying 20% Coconut, 50% tallow, 25% oo and 5% castor. This will give you a great basis from which to build up with the extra oils to appreciate what (if anything) they are adding to your mix.

Lovely colours, too - the cream and yellows work so well

 

[JCsuds]

Thank you you are a gentleman , I usually do not use grams etc kilos so my understanding is in ounces as I did not measure the essential and vit. e oil. I dont have a clue how many grams that would be . I have a lot of tallow available to me so it is a larger percentage of my soap . I would like to know also how much vit. E would be appropriate to stabilize the tallow to preserve it . as far as the size I live in a community with 40 people it would get used up pretty fast

 

[Sonya-m]

Another good recipe with an abundance of tallow would be

75% tallow
20% coconut
5% castor

Makes a really nice hard bar - with the added benefit of being pretty slow moving.

I'm not sure about vit e but I'm sure someone who does will be along soon

Regarding SF - this is the % of your oils for which there isn't enough lye to saponify. Soapcalc gives you the total oils you need in order to be left with this % of excess oil. In CP there is no way to control the SF oil - lye doesn't discriminate, it takes what it likes

Edit to add: love your colours and again well done on such a successful first batch

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

With a modest superfat, you shouldn't need to do anything for the tallow - when it is soap, it is not really tallow anymore. As far as I know, it's not prone to going DOSsy on it's own.

 

[Susie]

Tallow has a very long shelf life. And when you make soap out of it, it continues to have that long shelf life. Vitamin E is unnecessary for tallow.

As for the size of the batch, you need to stick to smaller batches until you get a recipe and process that you know will produce good, consistent soap. Otherwise, you risk wasting your ingredients on bad batches. It happens to all of us occasionally.

You must measure how much essential oils or fragrance oils you use. Some can be extremely irritating(even in soap), and must be used in smaller amounts. You need to at least weigh it. Soapcalc recommends 0.5 oz essential oil per pound of oil. Some EOs can't even be used in that high of an amount, cinnamon, peppermint, and clove among others.

 

[gabi12980]

For the first batch, this looks great!!

 

[Rowan]

Beautiful first soap, you must be so pleased.

 

[JCsuds]

first soap a success !

I used this today for the first time it seems a little drying still very cleansing nice large bubbles wonder what it will be like in another month ... very nice soap now