Newbie Additive and Colorant Questions

[hobson]

New to Soapmaking!
I've done one batch of tallow and coconut oil HP soap.
I want to try adding EO and colorant to HP next to my base HP receipe, but I have the follwoing questions:

When do you add EO to HP soap? after you have cooked and reached that mashed potato consistency?
How do you know how much EO to add? Is there a rule of thumb?
When do you add colorant to HP soap? Once you reach trace? or after you add the lye and distilled water but BEFORE you start to blend for trace? and do you mix your colourant in batch oil (taken from your existing volume) to create a "carrier" for the colorant?

Soap Calculators make my mind spin as i feel like you need a base knowledge in percentages and different types of oils.
I'm looking to grow that base knowledge as well so I can actually use a soap calculatoreffectively.

Would really love any direction as I'm falling in love with soap making but feel i'm missing some basic understanding

thanks!

 

[bookworm42]

I don't do HP but there are some questions I can answer.

How do you know how much EO to add? Is there a rule of thumb?

Most people do about 3-5% fragrance/EO. But this is dependent on the safe usage rate and how strong the scent is.
For EOs there is a website called EO Calc. You can look up your EO to find the safe usage rate, if it's not listed on the suppliers website. Or if you want to be sure/safe.

When do you add colorant to HP soap?

I think you can add it whenever you want. Depending on what you are using for a colorant. Micas should be fine no matter when you add. Natural colorant I'd suggest after trace just based off some of the stories I've seen in here. If you're doing 1 color you don't need to premix, just mix it in well. But it never hurts to premix. I actually don't know if you can do multiple colors/swirls with HP?

For soap calculators it can take a while to get used to. Basically you just take your recipe and convert to percentages, as it makes it easier to scale if you want to do different batch sizes. There are some great resources to learn about the different oils/butters/waxes/fatty acids and what they can bring to the table. Below are 2 I've used.

https://classicbells.com/soap/soapyStuff.asp

https://www.brambleberry.com/cold-p...ol1wp321lwH4arHgAcq3wP9M_24_SMj_9M_6oCHC3v4bh