Pomace olive - castor oil recipe/ help!

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steliyana

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It is my third batch of soap- first two pure olive oil, turned out alright. I want to try and substitute EVOO with Pomace as it is cheaper and also add some castor to make it more interesting. I read that pomace and extra virgin have different saponification number. I found this website http://www.skinandsoulcompany.com/castile_soap_recipes.html
with a recipe for pure pomace or EVOO with castor but not the combination I want. Any suggestions of a recipe? I still don't know how to calculate my own recipes:( but maths and numbers scare me:((((
 
I agree with running your recipes through a soap calculator before making it even if it's someone's posted recipe. Errors can be made. If you are looking for just pomace olive oil and Castor I would do 95% Olive and 5% Castor. I have gone as high as 15% Castor but with just olive it would make a really soft bar and would take quite awhile to harden up. Again, be sure to run it through the calculator for correct water/lye measurements.
 
I read about the 95/ 5 % ratio but even transforming that into actual grams sounds complicated for me, but I guess soap making requires sacrifice. I want to make something like 900 gram soap.
 
The beautiful thing about soapcalc.net is that you can enter 900 grams at the top, click the NaOH button. And then double click on olive oil, pomace and enter 95 in the % column, then double click on castor oil and type 5 in that % column. Then scroll down to the bottom and click calculate recipe, then view/print recipe, and it does all the hard work and math for you. Then you click print, and you are ready to go.
 
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Quick update: I made some soap with the recipe I posted above and the Castor oil really helps out a lot with the lather while the soap is still really mild. I hot processed it. Next time I would add salt or sodium lactate to help make the bars harder and have better consistency when molding. Hopefully that also helps with the soap feeling a bit slimy when it sits in the soap dish between uses. Overall it's a recipe I would make again.
 
Quick update: I made some soap with the recipe I posted above and the Castor oil really helps out a lot with the lather while the soap is still really mild. I hot processed it. Next time I would add salt or sodium lactate to help make the bars harder and have better consistency when molding. Hopefully that also helps with the soap feeling a bit slimy when it sits in the soap dish between uses. Overall it's a recipe I would make again.

Your soap is soft and slimy because it is not cured. Even HP soap needs 4-6 weeks to cure.
 
Mmh, I thought hp was pretty much ready to use after the cook but gets better if you give it another week. This was my first time hot processing so I am curious how the soap ages. Thanks Susie, I'll reassess the soap in a couple weeks.
 
Quick update: I made some soap with the recipe I posted above and the Castor oil really helps out a lot with the lather while the soap is still really mild. I hot processed it. Next time I would add salt or sodium lactate to help make the bars harder and have better consistency when molding. Hopefully that also helps with the soap feeling a bit slimy when it sits in the soap dish between uses. Overall it's a recipe I would make again.

I agree with Susie...especially soap with that much olive oil will take at least 4 weeks. I cure my 95% OO soaps at least 6 months or longer as they are kind of slimy to me.
 
I wish I could pull those videos off of YouTube. Seriously. That person has misled more new soapmakers than should be allowed. You are not the first, nor are you going to be the last. I was actually coming back to add more to that post to make it sound less blunt. But, thankfully, you took it in the way it was intended; just information with no condemnation. I am a nurse, and raised in a family of nurses, so I tend to give just the facts without any words to soften the effect.
 
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