other uses for the lye calculator

[Guest]

Ok, one of the other things that I make are bath salts as well as an oatmeal milk bath powder. But I wanted to create my receipe with weights measurements instead of measuring cup measurments, so I started thinking.

And suddenly I had a brain fart..........

How can I use a lye calculator for something other than soap making.
And since this is the lye calculator that I use, I thought I would make use it to my advantage for something other than soap!

http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

First I had to decide how much of each product i wanted in my final batch recipe in terms of a % of 100 (sorta like soap making)

So i use names of oils in the calculator to represent a certain ingredient i wish to use in my bath salt/soap product. It doesn't matter because i'm only looking for the % and the final outcome of the weights of each ingredient. And don't even look at the lye and water amounts because they are not revelent to what I need it for.


So i can now figure out if i want to make up 40 ounces of my master batch, just how much i will need of each ingredient based on the % of each ingredient in the final product. Yay, of if i only want to make up 12 ounces, it much easier !!!!

That way I can make up a bunch of my master batch and keep it in a sealed jar, and when i want to make it up with scent and the other ingredients I want to add, I can use the calculator again to figure out how much of my master batch i need to make up the 5% of dendritic salt that I use in the final product. But I don't want to add the dendritic salt to the master mix, since the scent gets added to that, then the master mix added to that.

Have I confused you yet......

Just another redneck way of looking at things.........

 

[FSowers]

Sounds perfectly fine to me. Matter of fact that is a good idea.

 

[itsmeroro]

I follow your thought perfectly! I think the SoapMaker.ca program allows for this as well - not only for soap, but for exactly what you are talking about...

roro

 

[madpiano]

oh, I thought everyone did this? I do this to all my recipes. I have the percentages written down, and if I need to make a batch, I use Soapcalc to calculate how much of each ingredient I need for a given final amount. I use it for everything, Lipbalms, Sugar Scrubs, Face Masks...easy as well to calculate the amount of Preservative needed.

 

[soapbuddy]

I do that too. It works well for just about any recipe.

 

[Hazel]

Hmm...interesting. I never thought of using soapcalc this way. I guess it's because I was used to using WSP's calculators for everything else since I didn't start soaping until early this year.

 

[ToniD]

That's cool.

 

[carebear]

good use of a resource! but what if you lose internet access or aren't at your computer?

do yourself a favor and learn to do the math - just in case.

 

[madpiano]

oh, I can do the Maths - just too lazy....and it's so much easier to think "today I will try and add a bit more of this and a bit less of this", or plugging the recipe back in after you made it and overmeasured a bit, just to keep track if it still works (Lip balms can be a pain in the neck for that)

 

[cwarren]

Great Idea

 

[eucalypta]

I do that too. It works well for just about any recipe.

+1 very convenient