Questions

[Royal]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and also new to soapmaking
I've only made soaps using the hot process method so far, with a double boiler. I'm going to be trying cold process in the next few days, but I just have a couple questions for both methods.

How do you know, when you have a recipe, what oils you can subsitute for other oils? Can you substitute safflower oil for olive oil? Or coconut oil for vegetable shortening (crisco)? How does this work?
I wanted to go by this recipe for my first batch of cold process, but I haven't any hemp oil: http://www.teachsoap.com/smallcp.html
(the bottom recipe, with the coconut oil) Can I sub anything for the hemp?

Also, can you do swirling or make your soaps coloured, with the hot process method? How?

Thanks a lot

 

[Guest]

When I first started soaping, I did think that oil was an oil, and they could all be interchanged. But I also got some soft bars of soap that didn't seem to clean well.

Not all oils can be interchanged.

For example the purpose of coconut oil in the recipe is to give lather to your soap. To little and you don't have good lather and to much can be harsh on your skin.

So you need to find a good balance of ingredients.

I suggest to look at this lye calculator
http://www.soapcalc.com/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

and play with it a little looking at the left side where it says "Soap Qualities" and on the right side of the page work with % instead of units of each ingredient. That way you can customize your recipe just for you and your needs. Then later you can go back and size your recipe according to how much or little you need.

But under the soap qualities tweak those % until your numbers are in the ranges of the following. (as a general guideline)
36-50 Hardness
14-22 Cleansing
45-80 Conditioning
14-33 Bubbly (lather)
16-35 Creamy (lather)

it's a great guide to make sure all your oils are in balance. But by no means is it written in blood, you can tweak the numbers to get exactly what you want.

Good Luck and welcome to the addiction.

If you haven't tried RTCP soap yet I highly suggest it. I'm new to do RTCP soap but I have been making HP and CP soap form a long time now. And let me tell ya the room temp version is much easier and quicker.

 

[NEASoapWorks]

Nope

You can't just substitute one oil, for another — oils have different SAP values, which determines the amount of lye needed to saponify the oil. So, if you substitute an oil for the hemp, and not recalculate your lye, your soap may not turn out right — lye sparse, or lye heavy.

Run your recipe thru SoapCalc, and then exchange out the oils, and see what numbers/qualities you come up with. That's what I'd do. Also, you can search online, for oils that have similar properties to one another.

For instance, Rice Bran and Olive Oil have similar properties. So do Sweet Almond and Apricot Kernel Oils.

Not sure about hemp, cuz I haven't used it yet.

 

[Royal]

Thanks guys

What's RTCP? How does is work? And can you swirl with the hot process method?

Thanks again

 

[Soapmaker Man]

Thanks guys

What's RTCP? How does is work? And can you swirl with the hot process method?

Thanks again

RTCP stands for "Room Temperature Cold Process" a form of CP soap making. Your oils are not heated up to the usual 100 to 110 degree area. I have been doing RTCP using premixed 50% lye solution and RT master-batched recipe for a year now. Others have tried my method of RTCP and love it also!
I don't do Hot Process or HP. But you can get swirls using this method. I think it would be a little harder and the swirls are not as defined, but is doable!

Paul

 

[Royal]

Thank you! I've been browsing this forum all morning and I loooovee it!!
I also just discovered the lye calculater
I can't wait to get off of work and go make soap

Thanks everyone!
xx.

[/i]

 

[Barb]

you can use your current hp soap formula for making cp soap.

hp like cp is just a method. it is not necessary to have a specific recipe for each kind of soap method you choose to use. it is also good to know how to hp in case your cp batch goes haywire and rices or seizes, sometimes by going ahead and hp it, it can be saved without having to re-batch it later on.

rtcp is having every thing ( oils and lye liquid ) at room temp for mixing. this works well for milk soaps, those finicky floral fo and may help to keep your soap from gelling if that is your preference.

or for some they melt the really hard oils ( like cocoa butter or palm kernel, add the softer and or liquid oils and then mix up their lye liquid, stir till clear and pour the hot lye liquid into the remaining oils to finish melting them, and proceed soaping like usual.

this is also good for master batching your oils and using them at a later date. since the oils are already pre-measured and mixed, ( time saver ), you can just mix up the lye, stir till clear and add to soaping oils and continue.

here's a link with tutorials on hp swirling,
http://lovenaonline.com/soapmaking/index.html

here's a link for oil properties
http://www.jsoule-webdesign.com/soapcalc/oils.htm

google and there's tons more.



barb

 

[Guest]

my very first soaping experiences were with hot process method. after I had trace I would pop it into the oven to complete the process before adding my fragrance and putting it into my mold.

But I only do CP or more accurate RTCP now.

One thing about HP soap is the coloring. It's usually a tan color or at least from what I experienced. So i'm not sure if swirling colors would look so hot in this type of soaping.

Also the texture. It's a little softer in texture than CP soap. Even when it has been left on the shelf for a long time, the texture still doesn't harden up like a good bar of CP soap.

Just my 2 cents......

Good Luck !!!