Newb question I'm sure...

[AutumnBreezeSoaps]

Do you HAVE to heat up room temp oils if none are solid? And is it best to have some solid soaps to make "good" soaps or is it just a personal preference? VERY new at this and tho I did a lot of research I don't remember seeing anything about having to heat oils before mixing with lye...unless it was a solid oil. Should both oil and lye mixture be warm before I mix them? Or can I do it when they are both room temp?

 

[judymoody]

There are no hard and fast rules. Some people pour hot lye solution into solid oils. Others mix the oils and lye solution at approximately the same temperature which can be at room temperature or higher. As a beginner, I would recommend that your lye and soaping oils be approximately 100-110 degrees farenheit when you mix them together. The temperatures do not have to be identical. You can use a thermometer or just ensure that the containers are warm to the touch but not hot.

 

[Susie]

I would strongly suggest that you use a recipe with some hard oils for a beginner recipe. The only all-liquid oil soap that I can think of is Castile. And that take months and months to cure. You need some solid oils to make good soap that you can try faster than that.

 

[AutumnBreezeSoaps]

Thanks! We did get coconut oil as well so we are adding that. Hope that will be enough hard oils for our first batch. We could not find any other hard oils around here without having to order it online. So we plan on using olive, coconut (30%), and soy bean oil (only at 10%)

 

[Kansas Farm Girl]

Good luck with your first batch. I would suggest you superfat rather high if you use 30% CO oil. It does not bother everyone, but for me anything over 20% turns my skin into the Mohave dessert. I keep mine under 15%. There is a recipe using oils that typically can be found in an average grocery store that my sister started with since she lives in a small town with only basic supplies in the local store. It was something like 50% Crisco, 20% coconut oil and 30% olive oil.

 

[AutumnBreezeSoaps]

we didn't superfat at all. Forgot all about it So I'm assuming this may be harsh on the skin. Will have to use it ourselves and try it out first before giving it to anyone. Thanks for that advice! Will not it on our Recipe specs page for sure!

 

[CaraBou]

Did you use a lye calculator to figure out how much lye to add? If so, it might have had a default superfat amount that was automatically factored in. For example, SoapCalc has a default of 5%. You can manually change that, but if you don't it will calculate a 5% lye reduction for you. 5% is a good number to start with.

If you did not use a lye calculator, please use one for all of your subsequent soaps. Never trust a recipe without running it through a calculator first. You can find SoapCalc's at http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Can you post your full recipe, and we can see if it did have one? Are you zap testing to make sure it is safe to use?

With cold proccess, a superfat is not something that you add - with cold process, the better term is "Lye Discount" because you use less lye than would be required to saponify all of the oils, leaving some of the oil as oil. You can't add an oil in later on in CP, such as at trace, and not have it saponify. This is only possible in hot process.