BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Soapmaking what ingredients, please advice

hi to all from greece, i really feel very lucky that i found your excellent soap making forum. i am very much interested in soap making but i havent tried yet. please, i wish to know if i can use only vegetable oil like corn oil, soybean oil, cottoneed oil as base oil with vegetable fat like spry shortening. also, i have heard that i can use beer, evaporated milk with vegeatable butter instead of water with exteremely well results. please, let me have your kind advice and/or any comments you may have regarding nasic ingredients for soap making other than lye. many thanks in advance. harriet

Hi Harriet:
Glad you came to visit. Those oils you mentioned are great for soapmaking. Even the shortening is fine for making soap. The only thing I would advise you to add to that mix is coconut oil. A blend of soybean shortening, any of the soft oils and a hard oil such as coconut would be great. Coconut oil is indispensibel in the soap recipe because it provides suds. By itself it is very drying so you want only 20-30% coconut oil. So a recipe of -

olive oil 30%
soybean shortening 50%
coconut oil 20%

would make a nice sudsy gentle soap. In a basic recipe what you need is a blend of hard oils and soft oils.

In addition, soybean shortening with coconut oil exclusively makes a great bar of soap. For that formulation a good ratio would be 30% coconut:70% soybean shortening.

These are basic recipes that are not expensive. Of course expensive oils may be added to these recipes, but at the end as a superfatting oil, where the nutritive elements are preserved from being destroyed by lye.

Hi Harriet:
I realized that I did not answer the second parts of your question- Can you use beer and evaporated milk with butter as substitutions for liquid in making soap?

Beer - Beer can be used with great results. Beer makes a fantastic men's soap. The aroma (depending on the brand) can be heavenly! Here is the link to a Beer Brew Recipe. One thing to note though - is that the beer has to be flat before using it instead of water in the recipe.

Evaporated Milk - Evaporated is made from homogenized milk with
60% of the water removed. To reconstitute, add 60% water. Evaporated milk can be used instead of water in soapmaking - the results should be similar to soap made with whole milk or cream. I would imagine that a small amount of butter can be melted in with the evaporated milk which would then be counted as superfatting or to mimic half and half or cream in the recipe. Here is a recipe for milk/cream/half and half soap - How to make soap with frozen half and half.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I saw this website. It has everything and it is so FRIENDLY! I really thank you. One question, where on this wonderful site can I buy EO or FO? Iam a newbie and I could not find it on your perfume and other things. Could you help me and also I am having trouble with my goat milk recipe. I rebatched some unsented olive oil soap and it stinks! What did I do wrong. Also It turned a dark ugly orange-brown. Iam so disappointed! the E.O. I used was Lavendar and Rose Otto and Sweet orange and some Vanilla Absolute. I am determined to get this right. I have some soap (unsented) to rebatch and I need some advice on how to make it smell like Oatmeal Cookies. Any help? I feel so stupid right now. I really need help.

Hi Karen:
Olive oil can have funky results depending on the blend of oils in the olive oil. I find that the greener the oil, the more unpredictable the smell. If I am using an olive oil to make soap I like to mix it with other hard + soft oils to diffuse the olive oil (scent)effect.

Essential oils sometimes have very strong colors. That is usually not noticeable because of being sold in color glass bottles.

Bramble berry has some nice oatmeal scent or you could use a blend of almond fo with a cookie dough.

Even though we don't always get to do that but, it is always a good idea to do a sample batch to test the eo blend with your base.

I use olive oil, palm, co and castor(for bubbles). There is NO soap that lye isnt used, unless you do melt and pour. I would nt use soybean in high amts, it is prone to go rancid. watch some utubes, it helps. have fun!

I can give you lots of places that i like for fragrance. ok heres goes natures garden, buy 10-1 ouncers for 20$ peakcandles.com 10 for 20$( make sure they are body safe) bitter creek brambleberry(exp but good) elements bath and body wholesale supplies plus( no shipping!)