Notes, notes and more notes

[MarnieSoapien]

As I try to find the perfect soap recipe (hahaha! I know it's totally subjective), I've been doing a lot of experimentation. I have a notebook where I keep the recipes, date made, batch number, unmolding time, any oddities with FO oils (acceleration, etc), hardness of the bar, look and fragrance after 1 month, 3 months, 6 months...

Am I missing anything? Should I also make a spreadsheet so I have my data backed up on my laptop?

 

[Dawni]

Pictures

To remember what they initially looked like, or to record changes, replicate a design, etc.

 

[artemis]

I would say your missing your own opinion. Whatever the numbers say, some soap recipes your are going to just like more than others. You might not be able to pinpoint why that is, but you'll want to make it again.

 

[Meena]

I also note down all the properties, the Sat:Unsat ratio, fatty acid profiles, etc., plus my additives and what color the batch is (so I can tell them apart in the cure box). Then, when I wanted to see how much I was actually varying these first recipes in search of my Holy Grail, I entered all that data into a spreadsheet so I could see at a glance, more or less.

Every recipe has its own page in my notebook, and i use the back of that page for observations, qualitative notes, etc.

 

[atiz]

I do not have too many of them yet, but I do mostly what Meena does except on my computer (lesser chance to lose it!). I have a notebook for each recipe, containing the recipe pdf from soapcalc with all the numbers, and then noting all the additives, any notes about the process (acceleration? anything unexpected?), pictures of the soaps after unmolding, and also noting my impressions about the soap after 1, 2, 3 etc. weeks.

 

[midnightsoaper]

I keep track of everything in OneNote. I have tabs for each recipe and under each tab, I have one page per batch. I add everything there....scanned in pieces of paper I took notes on while making the batch, sketching design ideas, photos of the soap, and dated entries with observations. I also have tabs for FO wishlists, techniques, colorant usage rates, etc. I keep a spreadsheet too, but just for calculating costs.

 

[Micchi]

I keep a spreadsheet of all of my notes. I have one tab that has notes on each batch (recipe, coloring and fragrances, design type, initial impressions of how the making went, and I update it as I test the resulting soap), one with notes on FOs, one with notes on colorants, one with notes on my recipe (including any tweaks I made and why I made them), and a tab for my daily soap journal, to keep track of what I did on what day and how I felt about it.

It also helps me keep track of my expenses, now that I'm ramping up to actually start selling - which is super helpful in helping me determine price point and sales goals.

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

I have a binder notebook of all my recipes and batch making sheets that have my notes and I take pics of my soaps as well. Just last year I scanned all my papers digitally and printed a back up copy to keep offsite just in case. My spreadsheets are for taxes, costs and inventory.

 

[Zing]

Old school here. Just an increasingly thick folder filled with printouts of my soap from a lye calculator website. The recipes usually end up with oil and water and mica stains. I hand write my observations on it. I do keep a Google calendar for dates of creation, test, and curing.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I have nothing on paper - it's all on my laptop. Each folder has the PDF from soap calc, and a word document with other notes on additives, and quantities etc. I'm a prolific photo taker, so whilst these are not kept in these files too, they are all backed up to my computer.
I also have an excel spreadsheet I am building with cost calculations for each batch I make
And a few other word documents where i cut and paste into about soap performance, from websites, or fragrance behaviour, etc.

 

[earlene]

I would add making note of how long before you cut the soap into bars. Some recipes need longer in the mold and that's good information, as well.

Also, if you CPOP, tracking the temperature used & how long in the heated oven would be helpful to you in future.

If you have different types of molds that you use, noting which ones used for a particular batch can help identify issues you may have with certain types of molds with some recipes. For example, some people report a bubbly outer surface on the soaps they make in some silicone molds.

Also size and weight of bars once cut is useful information. Unless they are always the same, you might not care to continue the size, but weight loss over time can vary with different recipes.