Substituting Oils/Butters: How to do?

[Cactuslily]

I feel silly asking, but can somebody tell me how I figure a substitution for a particular oil or butter for a recipe. I may not have all ingredients. Do I use a soap calculator? For some reason it intimidates me.
Also, am I posting my questions properly? I don't want to offend anyone by posting incorrectly. When is it proper to start a new thread, and when is it ok to post within a thread?

 

[snappyllama]

I like to use http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp . It did intimidate me at first, but it is so worth the effort and is super easy to use once you get the hang of it. You should run every recipe through it just to make sure... typos happen.

There was a really good post here on how to use it... I'll see if i can track it down...

 

[snappyllama]

Sorry, I meant to save that thread but cannot find it. Here's Kevin Devine explaining how to use SoapCalc.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNwYNQleDLs[/ame]

 

[Susie]

Here you go:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=49627

The mods were kind enough to sticky it for us.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

For me, the best way to work out which oil I can use in place of another is this -

Go to soapcalc and select the oil I don't have and set it to 100%.

Calculate the recipe.

Then when I just click on another oil in the list, I have the properties of the first oil next to the properties of the second, side by side for direct comparison

 

[Cindy2428]

Cactuslily - good for you wanting to learn more about your oils. I have an ongoing binder which I started by creating recipes in soapcalc by using 100% of each oil I wanted to learn more about. Now when I'm working on a new recipe and want to add "xx" property, I use my binder to help me find my oil. I also have a spreadsheet, but I like my binders the best.