Soap Making with Exotic Oils and Butters - calculator and tips.

  There are a lot of sites teaching the art of soap making. And with a little practice and creativity it is not hard to forget the basic coconut, olive and palm oil recipe and start customizing your soaps, incorporating different, more exotic, ingredients.

 First you need to figure out the properties you want your soap to have, you want a soap for sensitive skin? Eczema? Hair? Dogs? Guys? Clothes?

 Then you need to find the mix of oils and butters that will offer that property and will be the right balance to meet all the Soap Qualities: hardness, cleansing, bubbly lather, creamy lather and conditioning.

 To read more about fatty acids and soap qualities visit this site. 

 If you know the Physical-Chemical Data of each oil and butter you should be able to incorporate any oil into a recipe, but calculating the lye amount and the fatty acids and their properties requires more math than I am feel comfortable suggesting you do...

 Many sites offer lye calculators, not many include the more exotic rainforest oils and butters. But I found a few that do have some of them.

1. Majestic Mountain Sage has Babassu, Cupuacu and Passion Fruit.

2. Soap Calc has Andiroba, Babassu, Cupuacu, Muru Muru, Tucuma and Ucuuba.

3. From Nature With Love gives you Acai, Andiroba, Babassu, Brazil Nut, Buriti, Cupuacu (refined though) and Passion Fruit.

 Then, of course the few tips, all based on common sense, but we all know that common sense just isn't! So before playing Mad Scientist:

• Get gloves and protective eyewear, all is fun and games until we go blind!

•  You will be playing with lye! Use bowls that won't react to it: strong plastic, stainless steel, glass, enamel. No that bowl you mix your pancakes just won't do!

• Same go for mixing spoons, measuring spoons and spatulas. Get at least one heat resistant mixing spoon for water/lye mix and another to combine the elements. Many people use electric stick blender, it saves you time and energy. 

• An accurate scale for measuring liquids.

• Two accurate candy or meat thermometers for determining the temperature of your liquids.

• If you use wood or cardboard molds, line it with waxed or greased paper.

• Have plenty of rags or paper towels to wipe up spills.

 

 Also don't forget that making soap for yourself or for sale should be a fun and creative process, which according to my soap making friends, comes when you get a little more experienced. Maybe start experiencing with smaller batches before you go full blown industrial scale!!

 Good luck and if you want to make a soap that is a bit more exotic and expensive, you can find fresh, self sustainable, fair trade Rainforest Oils and Butters at my Etsy shop - RainforestChica.