New soaper needing help

[JorgeSeven]

Hello everyone,
I just got into soap making and I’ve been trial and error testing with a few recipes and I’ve gotten to a point I believe i have a decent soap, but I would like some outside input.

My recipe is 25% coconut oil, 25% extra virgin olive oil, 20% lard, 15% palm oil, 10% shea butter, 5% castor oil. With 30% water as percent of oil weight.

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[bookworm42]

Looks good to me .
What superfat are you going to do? I recommend anywhere between 3-5%.
Also have you made soap with that high of coconut oil before? Some people find above 15% to be too drying, but others are fine with it that high. You won't know what you prefer unless you make it and try it yourself.

 

[justsomeguy]

You might want to make your lye concentration 33% instead of using the water as a percent of oils

 

[Nona'sFarm]

When I first started soaping, some of the best advice I got was to learn to use a soap calculator and to start with small batches.
I put your recipe in a soap calculator and here are the results. So looks like a decent recipe to start with and then you can tweak from here, depending on how the soap feels after curing.
Happy experimenting!

 

[Zing]

WELCOME to the Forum! I don't use lard but your recipe is kind of similar to mine. I really wanted to get it to fewer than 6 oils/butters but that didn't happen. I love coconut oil and use it at 24%. We like photos too, just saying.

 

[dibbles]

I think your recipe looks fine. I also use coconut oil at 25% and my family, friends and I all are fine with that amount. I do know others find it too drying. If your end goal is selling your soap, I would suggest giving samples to lots of friends/family who have different skin types to get feedback. You can then adjust your recipe by lowering the coconut oil percentage, or think about making an 'extra gentle' bar that might not lather as well, but isn't as drying (cleansing on the so@p calculators).

With the price of olive oil these days, I would switch from EVOO to regular (not pomace) olive oil. I haven't found that EVOO adds anything to my soaps that warrants the higher cost. And I completely agree with @Nona'sFarm that if you haven't learned to use a so@p calculator, it is important that you take the time for that.