Re: Answer for Maggie

[Guest guest]

Maggie:

You didn't indicate in your original email the batch size or the exact ounces,

pounds, etc., for each oil. Percentages are hard to work with for me. So this,

again, is for example purposes only. If I had your exact recipe, I would run it

through the calculator for you, but since I use ounces, that's what I'll show

here.

Okay, you have:

Castor 4% - 4 ounces

Coconut 8% - 8 ounces

Hemp 2% - 2 ounces

Jojoba 2% - 2 ounces

Olive 56% - 56 ounces

Palm Kernel Oil 8% - 8 ounces

Equals 80 ounces of oils/butters, etc. I ran that through the MMS lye

calculator.

Fat Amount

(oz wt) % in

recipe Castor Oil4 5.00 Coconut Oil8 10.00 Hemp

Oil2 2.50 Jojoba Oil2 2.50 Olive Oil56 70.00 Palm Kernel Oil8 10.00 Total

Weight80

You see how it throws the % off. If I use 56 ounces of OO for this recipe it's

70% of the batch, not your original 56%. I find that when I make the total oils

equal 100 % it is easier to work with. The CosmeticGroup suggested this, as you

are using a " formula " , that can be turned into a ratio, up or down, and it will

be precise every time. [Has anyone else found this to be true?]

Anyway, so the lye for this batch, would be:

Lye Table (NaOH) %

excess fat Lye Amount

(oz wt) 0 11.33 1 11.22 2 11.11 3

10.99 4 10.88 5 10.77 6 10.65 7 10.54 8 10.43 9 10.31 10 10.20

At a discount of 7 % would be 10.54 ounces of lye. That's how much lye you will

use for this recipe for your total oils.

If you change any oil, up or down, you will have to run it through the

calculator again, because for any one oil or another, the lye amount changes

when the amount of one particular oil changes in the recipe.

And PS: from the CosmeticGroup suggest we use the word formula, not

recipe. That's another story.

You liquid [recipe] for this formula would be, according to MMS, 20 to

30 fluid ounces of liquid, I would use 25 ounces [the middle number].

So getting back to your question, if I wanted to use 100% OO, according to MMS,

I would use:

100 ounces of OO. Chose what discount you want. I use 7%.

Fats & Oils Fat Amount

(oz wt) % in

recipe Olive Oil100100.00 Total Weight100

Lye Table (NaOH) %

excess fat Lye Amount

(oz wt) 0 13.55 1 13.41 2 13.27 3

13.14 4 13.00 5 12.87 6 12.73 7 12.60 8 12.46 9 12.33 10 12.19

The amount of lye for this formula would be at a 7% discount, 12.60 ounces of

lye, with 25 to 38 fluid ounces of liquid (use the middle number)...

and I would use 31.5 ounces of liquid.

Does this make any sense? Have I totally confused you and myself? LOL!

I hope this helps. For any and every recipe, use a lye calculator to help you

figure out the lye amounts.

And PS, PS: Not all formulas are good ones, even if they are calculated with a

lye calculator, that's why we experiment with many formulas.

If you need further confusing/unconfusing let me know. We'll try to figure it

out together.

Marisol in Brooklyn

Maggie <bundaflicka@...> wrote:

Could you please tell me how much lye you use for how much olive oil in your

castile soap? I would very much appreciate it! It would be nice to be able to

pick up everything I need for soapmaking from the grocery store.

Cheers,

Maggie

Maggie , Shepherd

Central New York, USA

www.maggiesfarminc.com