Selecting oils and balancing oils/fats question for HP soap

[Marina Making Art]

Hello!

I've been making beeswax HP soap for my church for the past year, and at least a decade ago my husband and I played around with making our own soaps. I have a scant bit of experience, but not a whole lot and definitely not devising my own recipes.

We already had enough stuff leftover and on hand for me to make my first batch of HP of my own creation, BUT, I only have red palm butter and didn't order palm oil because I hadn't read the full label, I saw palm oil and thought ok I'm good. I'm waiting to place another bulk order because the shipping costs so much. As you probably already know, red palm butter has a lovely and distinctive saffron color to it that, while beautiful, is limiting when it comes to other additives (EG; spirulina for green, mica powders for other colors, and you ain't gettin' white soaps with this stuff I don't think).

I don't want to try to replace the palm with coconut because I'd like the soaps to be emollient and leave skin feeling conditioned.

My question is this: Is there a site, a calculator, or something similar that might help me decide what oils to use based on what I have on hand? Similar to one of those 'find a recipe based on what I have in my pantry' kinda things?

I don't know if I should post up the first recipe since it's done, but I'm going to list what I have on hand in the hopes I might find some suggestions. I find that when I search on a specific oil I wind up going in a million different directions and I need focus. FOCUS.

On hand:
Avocado oil
Castor oil
Coconut oil
Crisco (new, soybean & palm incl. hydrogenated)
Hemp oil
Lard/manteca
Olive oil and olive oil pomace
Red palm butter
Shea butter
Sweet almond oil

I also found two unopened blocks of glycerin but I'm not quite ready to head down that particular rabbit hole.

Thanks for all the help and I'm including the years of previous posts that have helped me so greatly thus far!

 

[bookworm42]

Here is one of my favorite recipes courtesy of the wonderful @AliOop. Looks like you have all the ingredients to make it. It is a CP recipe so you'll have to modify it to be HP.
I don't think there is a create a recipe type thing like what you are looking for. There are as many soap recipes as there are people. Everyone has their own preference and even the recipe above I've made my own modifications to better suit me and mine.
There are some links that talk about fatty acid profiles and what they bring to your soap. Link below is to a great website by the wonderful @DeeAnna. She is a wonderful resource as is her website.
https://classicbells.com/soap/soapyStuff.asp#fats

 

[KiwiMoose]

https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/blog/the-most-popular-fatty-acid-profiles-in-soapmaking/

 

[Marina Making Art]

Thank you both so much, this is IMMENSELY helpful. I'm excited to see how they perform in a couple of months.

TIL soap can go rancid. Now I understand why no tap.

Leads to a question about colorants like mica powders and earth pigments, more reading is called for. My goodness!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The types of metals that can be problematic in soap are chemically bound or otherwise non-reactive in soap-safe micas, oxides, ultramarines and clays. It’s not like adding reactive metal ions from tap water.

 

[Marina Making Art]

Here is one of my favorite recipes courtesy of the wonderful @AliOop. Looks like you have all the ingredients to make it. It is a CP recipe so you'll have to modify it to be HP.
I don't think there is a create a recipe type thing like what you are looking for. There are as many soap recipes as there are people. Everyone has their own preference and even the recipe above I've made my own modifications to better suit me and mine.
There are some links that talk about fatty acid profiles and what they bring to your soap. Link below is to a great website by the wonderful @DeeAnna. She is a wonderful resource as is her website.
https://classicbells.com/soap/soapyStuff.asp#fats

So, I made the lard soap yesterday. Of course me being me and I being I, I HAD to spill part of the mix after I'd poured into the molds. I recovered some and that's going to be some household soap. But the rest!

At first I thought it wasn't going to work out, mostly because of the smell. The lard I used is something I bought for making tortillas but the pork smell & flavor were just too much (also, it just didn't make good tortillas), but I figured it'd be fine to make soap with. Most of the day the house had this weird soap-porky smell. I thought I'd ruined the whole thing. Then, last night, as it hardened up so nicely, I noticed.. heeeyyy.. I don't smell pork! It smells like the fragrance oil i used!

It also behaved differently from any other soap I've made to date in that it turned an amber-ish color while stirring to trace, and it kept that color when pouring into the mold. But after an hour or so it got really dark in the center. I decided to wait and that went away. Smells terrific, pretty nice looking pour beyond the absolute MESS I made but that'll clean up!

All this to say thank you! I'm finally using up that lard I don't like AND making soap I really like at the same time. What could be better?

 

[bookworm42]

@Marina Making Art hurray! I love lard soap, it behaves wonderfuly and for me when doing CP gives lots of working time for designs. I'm glad the porky smell went away.
It getting dark in the center might mean that it went through gel you can either encourage that by putting it on a heating pad or stop it by pointing a fan on your mold after pouring.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Congratulations on making soap you like! Have you added ROE to any of your oils? It will initially cause the batter to turn an amber color, but the color doesn’t persist.

 

[Marina Making Art]

Congratulations on making soap you like! Have you added ROE to any of your oils? It will initially cause the batter to turn an amber color, but the color doesn’t persist.

No, not specifically that EO/FO. Yet!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

ROE is short for Rosemary Oleoresin Extract. It’s an antioxidant we put in oils to help keep them from going rancid. You can learn more about it at the Soapy Stuff website.