Fresholi | Melting Pot Café

Hi all
Am a curious newbie considering trying out cold soap for a hobby.
Just trying to get my head around it all :)

Welcome!  It can be very addictive...  :hap2:

helloooo  :buttrf:

Hello, welcome.

Soaping as a hobby means that you have plenty to give away!

I'm trying to think what the smallest feasible batch is, anyone have an idea?

Hi and welcome to the forum  :buttrf: :buttrf:


Not with soap but other things (creams/balms) 100g is always good for test batches, I find.

So far I seem to be tying myself up into knots  :-\ No idea where to even begin to look at where to start  :o ;D

Hello and welcome to a very knowledgeable forum.

I think 250g is about the smallest as weighing tiny amounts for soap is a nightmare if you don't have special scales to do so and are working on kitchen scales, and as we all know discrepancies with lye is not a safe bet. I have made 250g test batches before no problem but not less, maybe other find differently.

Welcome.

I thought I'd posted a reply but it seems to have vanished - or maybe I've put it on the wrong thread?

My test batches are 300g of oils, and I do find it difficult to weigh in amounts that small, although I will be getting new scales soon.  I make them in a milk pan, and if I were to try to go smaller and still use a stick blender, I'd need a container with a very narrow diameter, I think.

Log into the shop (via menu bar above) then select "Resources" (top menu bar there) and then there are tutorials and recipes - some are available if you're not logged in but there's a better range if you do log in.

For lye calculating there's a free online resource which I and some others always used:
http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp (http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp)

Thank you :)

I am a bit stuck on the supplies I need to make it. I have been reading Anne Watson's Smart Soapmaking and her milk soap book but finding the 8l soup pot etc is proving to be a bit expensive here, as well as me being very unsure on how much soap it produces and what to use for a mould - our milk cartons are only 0.5l or 1l here and are cardboard - so are they big enough or sturdy enough? Guess I need to experiment?
I'd like to stick to milk and yoghurt soaps if I can to make use of the fabulous resources I have here but do I need to master "normal" soaps first?
 

I used these for soaps of about 1kg - the width is perfect and you get about 10 - 12 bars from it.

You could start as you mean to go on and experiment with milks/yogs but a good place to start is a basic soap so you can have a comparison in terms of the making process and the finished product.

You can use so many things as a mould as long as its sturdy and you line it (baking parchment/freezer paper).

I think my smallest batches were about 500g.

As Elaine has said, you will give lots away - making a few from different ingredients, giving them to the same people and asking for feedback is a great way to see which people prefer.

What pans do you use to make the soap and what size? Thats causing the most indecision at the mo - do I really need an 8l stainless steel soup pan and then a 2l saucepan or can I get away with smaller ones? I can't find any locally that aren't crazy money but I don't want to spend too much money at this point incase its not for me.

You really only need a saucepan to melt the solid oils, then mix in your liquid oils, you could then pour those into a large plastic jug and then mix in your lye and stick blend in the plastic jug and pour into your mould / container. Don't take what the book says as gospel, better to listen to what real hands on people say who are on forums. If you are mixing the lye into the oils in a saucepan this does need to be stainless steel as the lye reacts with aluminium, but you could melt your oils in an aluminium saucepan and pour that into a plastic jug or even pyrex jug big enough to take the batch you are making.

Welcome.

Do you want to make CP or HP? If you want to make Hp, you will need a crock pot. If it is CP, then a stainless (not aluminium) pot is fine. I use 6L which holds enough oils for a 4.5kg batch of soap. A couple of plastic jugs for lye and water mixing and a mould of some description. People have used pringles tubes, ice cream cartons etc.

He he I never use a crock pot for my HP as I do mine in the oven, I hate the crock pot!

CP soap

We only have non stick pans in the house which is why I was in a bit of a flutter about needing more :)
I didn't think plastic was a good idea for the lye cause of it warming up?

The strong plastic jugs can take boiling water so they are fine for lye which isn't boiling just hot, you can also use pyrex jugs but I prefer the plastic ones myself. You can use tupperware or plastic kitchen storage boxes lined with cling film or silicone paper as moulds, i used those when i first started, easy to get the soap out of and to cut into bars, or if you have flexible silicone bakeware as in cup cakes or even an rectangular cake mould, these are great for soap. Have a good old rummage around the kitchen before spending those pennies.

Pringles tubes make very good moulds too - I like my soap to be round.  I also often line the tube with a silicon fondant embossing mat - this sort of thing. (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/29-5x21cm-FLOWERS-FONDANT-EMBOSSING-SILICONE-MAT-FLORAL-IMPRINT-TEXTURED-CAKE-/190654256931?)

Plastic for the jug is fine. Mine has been going for years, though I will upgrade to a stainless steel jug when I can afford it.

I make my little batches in a stainless steel milk pan from Wilko's which cost about £4.  They can take up to about 400-450g oils, which gives you about 6 decent-sized bars of soap.

Wilko's also stocks bigger stainless steel pans for low prices.  You could get a slightly bigger pan that would take a 1k batch quite cheaply.
SoapCalc will tell you the weight of your finished batch if you input your oils.  You then need to allow for weight loss as they cure/water evaporates, which will be about 10%.  A decent-sized bar of soap is about 90-100g.

Thanks all :)

No Wilkos here sadly.. we are offshore with inflated prices and limited choices :(

I can't add much more to what was said, but belated welcome from me  :hi:

Sorry!  Should have asked you where you were.