# these are the oils i have.



## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

The oils I have on hand are: olive, coconut, palm. Can you share a recipe with those?
I'd like to do oat & cinnamon and a tea tree and a honey.


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

The soapmakers trilogy.
Have you made soap before?

Olive 30%
Coconut 30%
Palm 40%

Are you aware that cinnamon can give you soap on a stick?


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## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

I have not made soap before. I used these three soaps prior to posting here, but the bars are very soft still and I cut them last night.


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## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

Soap on a stick?


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

*soap on a stick*: When the soap seizes up from added fragrance into a solid ball that adheres to your stick blender!  You can then pick up the stick blender with the entire soap batch attached to it! NOT something that you really want to experience!

I've had this happen with 20 pounds of oils....NOT FUN.

What was your formula with weights?


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## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

8oz each of those three oils.
4.0 oz lye
9.00 water


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

Where did you come up with this formula? At those posted amounts you are going to end up with a very lye heavy soap. At the very most you should be using 3.5 oz of lye for a 5% lye discount. It could be a little soft because you are using quite a bit of water. For 4 oz. of lye I would use about 6-7 oz. of water.


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## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

Yeah, its still soft.. what do I do with it now LOL?
Can you give me the exact weights? I can't find a recipe anyplace with just those oils...


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## shellmar (Apr 4, 2008)

I have made up my own recipe with the oils that I want to use. There are lye calculators on the internet. The one I use is "the sage.com" 

If you want to use 8 oz of each of those specific oils, the lye calculator will tell you how much liquid and lye to use.

Another lye calculator is "soapcalc.net" I think that Brambleberry also has one. 

Soaping is so much fun. Good luck!

I just went to The Sage, it says to use 6-9 fluid oz of liquid, I usually go with the lesser amount. For 5% lye discount, the lye amount would be 3.51 oz.


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## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

I also have some lard I can throw in. But its from the meat mkt and smells a bit like pork... should it have a scent?


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## shellmar (Apr 4, 2008)

I've had lard that had a smell to it and I used it to make soap. The soap did have an off scent, but that dissipated in time.


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

House faerie said:


> Yeah, its still soft.. what do I do with it now LOL?
> Can you give me the exact weights? I can't find a recipe anyplace with just those oils...


I gave you exact percentages. 30% olive, 30% Coconut, 40% Palm. If you are going to be doing a lot of soaping it would behoove you to brush up on your math skills. Everything having to do with soapmaking is working in percentages. Once you figure out the percentage angle you can make whatever size of batch that you want.

Do you have an accurate scale? Digital that weighs down to .1 oz. is the best to use for soapmaking. To test your scale, 5 US quarters should weigh 1.0 oz. I'm wondering if you measured correctly, because normally lye heavy soap is very hard, almost brittle. It usually breaks into pieces, instead of being able to be cut like a block of cheese.

To fix the messed up soap you'll have to rebatch it.
Grate it down as fine as you can get it. Throw it in a crockpot set on high to start it melting. *ADD an ADDITIONAL 4 oz. of Olive oil*. (this will bring your lye discount up to 5%) Let the soap cook until it goes into a gel stage that looks like old vaseline. (if it looks like applesauce, it still needs to cook a little longer) Mix it up really well to incorporate the additional oil. Glop into a mold, tap on the counter to drive out the air bubbles, then let it cool. Cut into bars then let it dry out for a couple weeks.


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## House faerie (Apr 29, 2007)

The scale was new, I assumed its accuracy... I gave up until warmer weather due to my house not having a very warm spot, having only a wood stove for heat. I'm guessing the challenge was indeed my math skills... going to try again soon. Thank you... ill be back.


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## Tinker (Apr 5, 2004)

I would take it easy on the cinnamon, as cinnamon can be a skin irritant for some folks. A little bit should be ok, but measure with a measuring spoon, and probably keep it at about 1/2 teaspoon for that size batch. And you will NOT get any scent from it, no matter how much you add.


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

Fragrances need to be weighed on a scale, just like the base oils and lye. I would steer completely away from cinnamon until you have many, many more batches under your belt. Cinnamon is a problem child no matter how you look at it.


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