random Q's on hot/cold process and tallow/caustic soda

[greenhexa]

I have been scouring my soap making books but have not been able to find the answers i'm looking for, if the questions have already been answered before here please just point me in the direction to look, thanks

1. If a recipe calls for tallow how can you adapt it to use lye instead? Do you need to calulate the sap values of the oils to see how much lye you need or is there another way?

2. If a recipe is for cold process soap can you makeit using the hot process method or would you need to change something first?

3. If you are short of one oil can you substitute for another oil that has the same sap value without having to change anything else in the recipe?


Many thanks for the help

 

[cdwinsby]

1. Tallow is beef fat that has been rendered (melted and cleaned). There isn't any substitute for lye in cold or hot process soap making if you want solid bars. You can use potassium hydroxide if you want a liquid soap.

2. As far as I know, cold process soap recipes are the same as hot process recipes...the only thing different is the process.

3. As long as the SAP value is exactly the same....I don't see why not. You may want to make sure that the oils have similar qualities first so that your soap maintains the same structure (hardness, cleansing,etc.)

I would always recommend putting a recipe through a lye calculator anytime you make a change though. It only takes a minute to be sure.

Hope that helps.

 

[IanT]

1. Tallow is beef fat that has been rendered (melted and cleaned). There isn't any substitute for lye in cold or hot process soap making if you want solid bars. You can use potassium hydroxide if you want a liquid soap.

2. As far as I know, cold process soap recipes are the same as hot process recipes...the only thing different is the process.

3. As long as the SAP value is exactly the same....I don't see why not. You may want to make sure that the oils have similar qualities first so that your soap maintains the same structure (hardness, cleansing,etc.)

I would always recommend putting a recipe through a lye calculator anytime you make a change though. It only takes a minute to be sure.

Hope that helps.

Good advice~

 

[IrishLass]

Very good advice. The only thing I would add is that if you are going to HP a CP recipe, just make sure to use the full water amount recommended by your chosen online lye calculator so that the soap batter does not get too dry while it's cooking.

IrishLass

 

[greenhexa]

Thanks for the advice and for the fact that you replied so quickly. This site is execellent

I realised that I made a mistake in my first question and what I meant to ask was if you could subsitute a recipe which calls for tallow with CAUSTIC SODA. Would I be right in guessing that you can but that you'd just have to put all the oils through the lye calculator first? I only want to make vegatable based soaps

Thanks again!

 

[Lucy]

Caustic Soda is Lye.

You want to replace the tallow with a veg. oil. You must use lye to make soap.

 

[cdwinsby]

Palm oil, shea butter, cocoa butter are a few good choices for replacing tallow in a recipe.

Sodium hydroxide = lye = caustic soda...........all the same thing just different names.

I can't stress enough that research is the key to successful soap making. The more you know about the process the better chances you have for a great batch of soap.

Here are a few sites that offer free information, recipes and advice on soapmaking.

http://millersoap.com/ - lots of good info.
http://www.soap-making-essentials.com/index.html - this is my site.
http://www.teachsoap.com/

Good luck!