Review my recipes please :)

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This is the batch made yesterday. I used recipe 2 but dropped the Shea, added cocoa butter. I lowered the butters # and added it the castor and OO. Sorry, the recipe is on my tablet.

This one was a little less fluid than the other soap I made. It also allowed me to attempt an ITP swirl which was really cool. I'm going to try a water discount tonight. What is a recommended percentage?

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I think there is some confusion here. If I'm reading this correctly I think that you believe that a good oil with benefits to your skin will make good soap. Also that a fat you would never put on your skin ( lard or tallow ) would make a gross soap.

This is fundamentally incorrect. There is a chemical process that happens to turn oil to soap and the oil loses it's oil properties and gains soap properties.
I want you to understand this because if you don't you will think your making a great soap and then when you try it you won't know what went wrong. ( and your probably wondering why people are telling you to reduce your 'skin loving' oils and want you to add in something like lard!)

So here is a small rundown for you- oils in soap:

Palm - one of the main oils used, makes a hard bar, average lather, used in higher percentages

Coconut oil - a main oil, very cleansing, can be very drying in high amounts can strip skin of natural oils, the main lathering oil, lots of fluffy lather. Very quick to trace in high amounts.

Palm kernel oil - Not a substitute for Palm oil - behaves like coconut oil, commonly used when someone has a coconut allergy.

Lard- one of the main oils, very moisturizing ( conditioning), lathers well, makes a hard bar, slower to trace, makes a white bar of soap.

Tallow- see lard, but is slightly quicker to trace and the bar is just slightly off white.

Olive oil- can be main or secondary oil, very moisturizing, very soft bar, very long to trace, as a main oil can be slimy feeling and take over 6 months to cure, can give a yellowing color to soap. Excellent as a secondary oil (up to 30% with harder oils, 20% with soft). Does not lather well on its own.

Rice bran oil- use as a secondary oil. Substitute for olive, very similar qualities.

Castor oil- mainly used to stabilize lather, does not lather well on its own but will increase ( thicken) lather of other oils. Very soft, use between 3-6% in a normal soap, a bit higher in shampoo bars.

Sunflower oil and grape seed oil, soft oil, very light, adds some moisturizing - a short lived oil, use in small amounts up to 10 percent- DOS prone.

Sweet almond oil, avocado oil, other liquid oils - secondary oils usually used for their conditioning value. Each soaper usually has their favorite use up to 30 percent under normal circumstances.

All butters, add hardness, moisturizing, to get the real benefits they would need to be used in higher percentages, not recommended as they greatly decrease lather. Use a total of up to 20 percent making compensations for lather. Great label appeal.

These descriptions are from my notes and have held true for me. They are a guide and not written in stone. There are compensations that can be made and there are exceptions ( like salt bars) but this should give you a starting point.

Remember that the oil does not = the soap. Just because I won't eat a raw egg, doesn't mean I won't eat the cake!
 
There's no confusion. People that do not consume pork do not incorporate things related to pork into their lives. I won't be using lard in anything in life if it can be avoided. It really has nothing to do with soapmaking.

Palm oil is an oil I literally never heard of before I first looked up this craft. I've been soaping a year and I feel more knowledgeable about it. I probably still won't use them.

I've seen plenty of people create beautiful soaps without the inclusion of certain oils.

I think it's great that everyone puts whatever they want in the products that they make.

Thank you again for the people that reviewed my recipe.
 
There's no confusion. People that do not consume pork do not incorporate things related to pork into their lives. I won't be using lard in anything in life if it can be avoided. It really has nothing to do with soapmaking.

Palm oil is an oil I literally never heard of before I first looked up this craft. I've been soaping a year and I feel more knowledgeable about it. I probably still won't use them.

I've seen plenty of people create beautiful soaps without the inclusion of certain oils.

I think it's great that everyone puts whatever they want in the products that they make.

Thank you again for the people that reviewed my recipe.

I'm sorry if you mistook my intention. You don't need to use any oil you don't want to but you should know what each oil will do to your soap. What made me write this was not that you don't want to use lard but that you thought palm kernel oil was the same as palm oil. From your post
I used PKF once to test it out and I loved the lather but it was a pain to work with. It took forever to melt but then cooled faster than I was able to work with.
Don't know if I'm doing something wrong but it's irritating. I assume palm oil is the same. No interest in using lard.
I thought by PKF you meant Palm Kernal flakes but I could be wrong. If so I apologize.
 
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Also bear in mind that people will give you feedback on what they love about soaping - if they like lard, they will suggest lard. If they like butters, they will suggest butters. Unless people know the reason for not using a certain oil, they won't know whether or not to suggest it. It's really nothing personal, it's just that people know what they know (and a lot of people here know that sodium lardate is super)

Lard aside, I do think that the idea of not using oils that you haven't heard of is a little bit narrow and preventing you from exploring things that may well be helpful for soaping. People will often suggest these and it might well be an idea to think hard about trying some of these oils that you haven't heard of but that are none the less mainstays of the soaping world.
 
Palm oil is an oil I literally never heard of before I first looked up this craft. I've been soaping a year and I feel more knowledgeable about it. I probably still won't use them.

I'm so puzzled by this. Why would it matter whether you've heard of it or not? I know some people have reasons why they don't use certain ingredients (allergies, sustainability, GMOs, objections to particular animal products, etc.) but "I never heard of it before" sounds totally arbitrary. Explain?

I'd never heard of Meadowfoam oil before I started soaping, and it doesn't have the most attractive-sounding name, but then I tried it, and OH MY is that a gorgeous oil!
 

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