Where do you get your recipe's?

[TuxedoKat]

Where do you all get your recipe's from? Do you follow recipe's or do you make them up on your own?

I'd really like to make a mint or peppermint soap, and something festive for the holidays! I just don't know where you all are getting your fabulous soap recipe's. I just might be addicted to the photo gallery forum...lol :wink:

 

[morena_mama]

A lot of us create our own

http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

 

[Lindy]

I create my own.....

 

[Hazel]

I used other people's recipes when I first started soaping. I found out what the different oils and butters contributed to soap and found out what I liked and didn't like. Then I started to formulate my own.

 

[Lindy]

I need to add that I started out with a book which I checked my lye calcs on. I read everything I could find and it wasn't long before I was formulating my own....

Hazel thank you for reminding me that we're talking about the very beginning....

 

[Sunny]

Make my own! I don't think I've used a written recipe before, I just looked at what other soaps contained (like olive, palm, coconut) for my first bars and went into soapcalc and made my own recipes.

 

[BluebirdMama]

Make my own from soap calc, or use recipes from the teacher at our local soaping class.

 

[Soaplady22]

Here's a great place to begin --

http://millersoap.com/

also this one -
http://www.snowdriftfarm.com

and
http://www.thesage.com

Happy Hunting!!

 

[Woodi]

and if you are not happy with the recipes on other calcs,

www.soapmaker.ca has a few helpful recipes you can begin with, play with. Then once you learn to use the program, you can very easily design your own, according to whatever qualities you want your soap to have.

There is also a chart of base oils showing you the qualities each oil imparts to soap.....lots of helpful ideas.

 

[falldowngobump]

My first on my own (my mom soaped) was a goats milk I got from a friend. After that, I made up my own, using SoapCalc.

 

[Hazel]

Lindy -

I think we all tend to forget what it was like in the beginning. Especially for you soapmakers who have been doing this for years and years. I was very insecure when I first started. I didn't want to waste oils so I followed recipes for my first few batches. Once I figured out kind of what I was doing, I started changing percentages to see how it changed the quality of the soap. Then I started experimenting with oils not usually used in soap, etc.

I used Anne Watson's shea soap for my first batch. My second batch was one of Sandy Maine's recipes. I also read Kathy Miller's site for the basics (thanks for the reminder Soaplady22). My first salt bar batch was Dagmar's recipe.

Oh...and less we forget. This site might be helpful. :wink:

http://www.pureandnaturalsoaps.com/

 

[Maythorn]

I looked in soap making books and found one recipe I liked. But I didn't really learn from them. I decided to do the work myself and look everything up and figure out good proportions of oils and amounts of lye according to charts and suppliers' calculators. I think one was Pine Meadows.

 

[Lindy]

Diane I would die without my soapmaker program! Thank you so much for developing it and continuing to develop it!

Hazel - the reminder is always good! My very first batch was a castille from Susan Cavitch's book - still make it, but in smaller quantities....

 

[TuxedoKat]

Thanks for the replies and the links folks! I definitely am a beginner and everything is so brand new. After reading this, I think I best stick with actual recipe's until I get a better feel for everything. I can't wait to be working with the soap calc though! :wink:

 

[Kleine Teufel]

I stalked this forum for quite a long time. I also read as much as possible before I finally decided to order lye and make some soap. Never followed a pre-made recipe. I did the research first, and calculated out a recipe that looked good on paper with the oils I could get locally and shabam, I loved it when it was actually soaped. I did do a few with household ingredients first though, venison tallow, soybean oil, etc, just to be sure that I was actually going to end up with soap from oil.

 

[busymakinsoap!]

My very first soap I made was 1/3 CO, 1/3 OO and 1/3 Palm - I think it was on a soapqueen tutorial

I have never bought a book, and read a lot on here about dodgy recipes on the net, so after my first batch I only ever made up my own.

All recipes should be put through a lye calc before you use them anyway, and soapcalc gives really good guidelines to follow. I find the fun is in the formulation. I plugged in every oil imaginable and also did a whole lot of research on the what the oils bring to the bar and how stable they were. The rest was experimentation, with lots of failure and a little bit of success.

 

[judymoody]

My first two batches were from Cathy Miller's site. I tried one from Delores Boone's book and another from the Soap Queen site. Then after that, I've been formulating my own based on research and soap calc.

 

[fiddletree]

My first couple of recipes were from Anne Watson's book, and after that I started making up my own with SoapCalc. It is also really helpful to put recipes that you know work, after getting your feet wet so to speak, into soapcalc to see what properties a soap that you like has. And like others said, put everything (even book recipes) into soapcalc before making a recipe to make sure that the amount of lye is correct!

One thing you mentioned in your first post which no one has commented on- the scent and coloring doesn't have anything to do with the oils you use for the soap, it has to do with essential oils/fragrance oils and colors you add to the recipe. Essential oils are more natural (doesn't always mean better, though. Some are dangerous, so do your research), special properties MAY make it through the saponification process, and, in my experience, tend to cause fewer respiratory reactions in sensitive people. Fragrance oils can give you more range (they make those oils smell like just about everything), the scent fades less than with EOs, but they are chemical imitations. Personally, I use EOs because I value breathing, but if you don't have asthma you probably don't have to worry about that.

 

[alwaysme07]

I started with recipes I found online and then I started making my own. Its funny how just a few ounce of different oils can make a bar of soap so different. Im still mixing up new recipes. just make sure you write everything you do to the recipe.

 

[IrishLass]

My very first recipe was from TLC soaps. After that, I used a couple of posted recipes from a few forums (always making sure to run them through a lye calculator first), and then I started formulating my own based on what I liked or disliked about the soaps that came out of those recipes.

IrishLass