# How does this look or a base recipe



## cheesemoose (Jun 23, 2010)

Makes 12 lb. batch. 3 lbs Distilled Water

17 ozs Lye (Sodium Hydroxide)
4 lbs Olive Oil
2 lbs, 8 ozs Coconut Oil
1 lb, 8 ozs Palm Oil
1 oz. Grapefruit Seed Extract (optional)
4 -6 ozs of essential or fragrance oil

Temperature 90°-110° - 4 week cure time

To Superfat: add 3.2 ozs of shea butter to the oils.

To Make a Oatmeal/Honey Soap: at saponification add --1 cup ground oats, 4 tablespoons slightly warm honey,
4-6 ozs fragrance or essential oils (optional).


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

First, when referring to batch sizes, soapers are generally referring only to the weight in oils, not oils plus lye plus liquids. Your soap is already "superfatted" in that you have more oils than needed to completely react with the lye. Adding some shea butter at trace will not mean that shea is what is left alone by the lye. With the shea butter in there, this calculates out to a superfat of 14%. If at some point you switch to using goat milk, that will bump up even more, as the milk has fat in it. IMO, that is too high. Have you run this through a lye calculator? You need to, if you haven't, and you need to factor the shea in when you do, though at just over 2% of your recipe, I'm not sure what the point is of having it in there. Leave out the GSE, it serves no purpose in soap. Some people tout it as a natural preservative (and put it in things like lotions) but I'm pretty sure it fails to do that, as well. When adding honey, be prepared for things to heat up and move faster. Other than that, if it was me, I'd probably reverse the amounts of coconut and palm, and maybe put in more shea in place of a little of the olive (and calculate again, of course), but it's not a bad start.


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## jdranch (Jan 31, 2010)

Like Stacy, I would leave out the GSE, run through a lye calculator, and think 14 superfat is high. Honey can be a little tricky.

When I am playing with new recipes or new fragrances, I make smaller batches (use this mold http://suppliesbystar.com/guretr.html or the wsp green loaf). Also, you might consider getting a strainer to strain your lye in (recommended to me awhile back from the many wonderful experienced people on here).


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Superfatting is a marketing tool. Run any recipe you find through thesage.com and never add any more butters or oils without it being in the original recipe, the lye doesn't pick and choose what oils or butters to saponify with, and if you had a true superfatted soap than that free floating oil or butter would be weeping on the outside of the bar. 

IF you use the walmart recipe as a base recipe and put it through the soap calculator it will show you hardness, lather, moisturising properties....see if this new recipe matches some of those numbers.

The optional Grape Seed Extract isn't going to add any label appeal at all, label appeal like shea, like olive oil, sunflower oil, hemp, coconut oil and cocoa butter....are butters and oils talked about. Than yes put an ounce of them into your batches for label appeal. I don't use palm because along with lard and soybean oil, corn, peanut, cottonseed oils, that cause me the most greif when shleping my soap into stores, they are too controversial...answering about sustainability, allergies, GMO etc... is not something you want to have to do with a buyer. Vicki


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## Jenny M (Nov 21, 2009)

I started with the Walmart recipe 7 or so years ago (can that be right?!). Anyway, right after Vicki posted while we were still on Diana's forum. It has morphed over the years & I fiddled with it many times till I'm pretty well ok with what I have. And, yes, I use a small amount of olive & shea for label appeal & it works. Never discount the benefit of good marketing. I use soy since there is no sunflower to be found on this side of the Rockies but I just call it vegetable oil since that's what the label says. Veg anything has a good vibe with most people. 

But what I really want to know is what is a good sub for palm?? I use it & so far I've had no bad response but if there is something better/cheaper I sure could use a clue. I'm thinking I've missed something along the way. Dang my old brain!


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

Vegetable shortening/soybean shortening works just fine as a substitute for palm oil. Their SAP values are very similar.

Caroline


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Tallow. :biggrin


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## Jenny M (Nov 21, 2009)

Wow! Why did I think veg shortening was not good? Does it make a hard bar? I already use soybean oil so is that soy overload? I really need to get my soap cost down & even more important, need to find as much stuff as I can locally. Shipping costs way out here are killing me.

Tallow's cool if I had access. I'm going to do a lard bar & package in a muslin bag for some of my shows. Of course, I'll never get any repeat biz since lard soap never goes away.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Tallow is the same way. Many of my bars are primarily tallow and lard (though I do some veggie bars, too) and they last a loooooong time.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Vegetable shortening is simply hydrogenated soybean oil, it is not a hard butter. If you can't sell lard, use tallow.

By playing with the calculator you can find a hardness, moisturising and lather similar to the Walmart recipe, more expensive to make of course.

Yep Jenny, in trying to find and old thread on dairygoatsplus.com today, the walmart recipe is from 8 years ago! 

I do think it's simply harder when you do stores, them damn buyers are so smart, they have been doing the health food thing for longer than me...so trying to spin Palm, Tallow or Lard isn't a fight I want to have. Vicki


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Some stores, definitely a problem, and I imagine in some places more than others. OTOH, I can honestly tell people that the tallow and lard I use is local, small family farm, rendered by me on my stove, etc, etc. Very green, to be honest.


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## Jenny M (Nov 21, 2009)

Thanks for the info. I do use Soap Calc when I tweak my recipe. I have it at a good balance now, I think. 

When I changed the Walmart recipe to suit my customers preferences (so many vegitarians & vegans at my markets) I changed the lard to palm & have just stayed with it over the years. I don't think I've had any fuss over the palm but do get reactions to soy so I just say veg oil. 

Yep, I got most of my stores because my soap does not contain animal fats. Goat milk is hot right now so that ups the cool factor to all customers. And shea is so popular. The other day I found a bar of Burt's Bees Milk & Shea soap at Walmart. It was junk but probably sells well. The cashier was gaga about Burt's Bees products. I'm taking her a bar of my soap next trip to town.

If I can get my hands on some tallow I'll give it a try.


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