Water discount question

[jbarad]

My grand daughter, who is 5, wants to help make soap. Obviously because of her age I don't want her around when mixing lye. I thought it would be darn near as much fun for her to rebatch with me, a bit safer AND she actually gets to destroy something first by grating up the unscented and uncolored batch of soap. I expect this will be a bonus for her yanno LOL

So my question is this, I'm going to make a batch of soap specifically for the purpose of rebatching it with my grand daughter, and I want her to be able to do more than just add some color and some smell ( she's an ingredient nutcase you should see her baking with my hubby, she wants to add everything...TWICE ) so I was thinking of making the original batch with a pretty hefty water discount so she can add something like coconut milk, and maybe some butters too. How much of a discount do you think I should do with the starter batch ?

 

[Cattleyabubbles]

I'm not sure; why not skip using the water and use the coconut milk instead for the rebatch...It'll probably make a creamily soap imho

 

[jbarad]

Well yeah, I'll probably do that too, use the milk in the original batch, but I'm still curious about an overall liquid discount, so she has more wiggle room to add goodies while doing the rebatching

 

[ChrissyB]

You can adjust the water/lye solution % settings in any soap calculator.
Depending on which oils you are using, you can go right up to 40% water discount. I know that some soapers go higher than that but I've never tried it.
I would try a modest discount, may be adjust the water/lye to 35 or 36%, that will make your soap set up fairly quickly, and when you rebatch, your grandaughter will be able to add coconut cream, and possibly a small amount of some extra oils.
Also, if this soap is purely for rebatching, and you are going to be adding extra oils, you can drop the superfat% down to zero, and then you have got a little more leeway with adding extra oils.
If you had too much oil to an already superfatted soap, you will end up with a greasy mess.

 

[jbarad]

thanks

I've been on a soap making binge for the last couple weeks, but haven't played around too much with liquid discounts so I was just curious

Appreciate the help !