Question about SoapCalc & aloe liquid

[Delon]

Hi all!

I plan on making a simple recipe with goat's milk & aloe liquid. I plan to freeze the goat's milk ahead of time, but I'm wondering how I should enter the aloe liquid into SoapCalc. There doesn't seem to be an aloe liquid option in the oils list.

The aloe liquid I have is from Bulk Apothecary here: https://www.bulkapothecary.com/aloe-vera/

I have the 1-gallon LIQUID, not powder.

 

[Relle]

Your not going to find aloe listed on soap calc as it's not an oil or fat. Only oils and fats are listed.

 

[ackosel]

The aloe liquid would need to be used as a replacement for water in your recipe. So would goat milk. I have not used aloe liquid in soap yet, but it seems that people who use it tend to treat it similar to milk, freezing it in cubes before adding the lye. Hopefully, someone who knows more will chime in here, but my thought is that you would have to divide the total amount of water called for in your recipe between the aloe and goat milk.

Let's say your recipe calls for 6 oz of water. You could use 3 oz of aloe and 3 oz of goat milk to replace all the water called for. You could also choose to add more or less of either liquid, as long as your total equals 6 oz, such as 2 oz of aloe and 4 oz milk, for example.

 

[Ekuzo]

If you use SMF lye calculator you can add custom additives and custom liquids there - so having your recipe say 'aloe juice' or anything else is doable. The downside is that there's still a bug currently that doesn't add the alternative liquid to your total batch weight, so you'll need to do additional math.

As for using aloe juice/liquid straight with lye - I've heard people say it doesn't burn the same as milk so even if it's just cooled down and you add the NaOH slowly and step by step, it's all good. But I haven't done it at this point and can confirm from experience if it's true