Hi im new to soap making and have tried to make a couple but without sucess, the qustion i have concerns weight ... whenever Iput my oil amounts in soap calc it shows weights at 2.56 oz! how can i measure that ! i have now got 3 scales but not one of them will measure to that accuracy , does anyone know where I can get some as I think this is what is causing the problems

cheers  :mwaha:

Hello Terri, welcome to the forum

Will your scales weigh in grams/kilos? This may help.

Which ingredient(s) are showing amounts e.g. 2.56oz?

Your scales will probably weigh to 2.5oz and it's unlikely that 0.06oz is going to make a difference as it's less than 2g - unless you're trying to make a very, very small amount of soap - for hot or cold process 500g total oil and butter is the recommended minimum amount, especially for early attempts (there was a post stating this in the very early days of the forum.

Which SoapCalc are you using - there's more than one with similar name.

hi am using this one http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp and my scales weigh in kilos/grams it comes up
#   √   Oil/Fat   %   Pounds   Ounces   Grams
1      Babassu Oil   30.00   0.300   4.80   136.08
2      Avocado butter   20.00   0.200   3.20   90.72
3      Coconut Oil, 92 deg   40.00   0.400   6.40   181.44
4      Castor Oil   10.00   0.100   1.60   45.36
        Totals   100.00   1.000   16.00   453.59
should i just use ounces?

you can set soapcalc to weight in grams

hi thanks for this , however the same problm occurs with the lye measuremnt showing -Lye - NaOH   0.142   2.27   64.42, how do I measure 64.42 grams ?

 :mwaha: or am I just being thick

cheers

Don't worry about the .42g with the lye - it will just give you a tiny amount mor superfat.

However with that amount of lye what was your total weight of fats and percentage of superfat?

Another question - what exactly is the problem you're having with your soap?

if you set the calc in grams and put a round number of grams e.g. 800g, 1000g, you should get round numbers for the oils.

if the water and lye are an odd number just round down, a fraction of a gram doesn't matter.

Perhaps you should post your whole recipe, and method, and we can try to help with why you are not having success? As EJ said - what went wrong?

the first batch was crumbly and the recipe was coconut oil - 500 grams, cocoa butter 200 grams, safflower oil 300 grams , 380 grams of water 152.34 grams lye

the scound batch wouldnt harden - Coconut Oil   180 gr.   6.349 oz.   20%
Palm Oil   180 gr.   6.349 oz.   20%
Olive Oil   540 gr.   19.048 oz.   60%
Distilled Water   326.07 gr.   11.502 oz.   
Lye   121.145 gr.   4.273 oz.   

I am beginning to feel disheartened please help
 :mwaha:

Hi Terri. Are you HP or CP ing? I have had soap which was crumbly, and the consensus was that it did not fully gel.

I  have just run your recipe through Soapcalc, and it has lye at 125g not 121.  Water comes out at 342g at the default 38%. Also just check what you have the superfat set at and make sure you are not mixing your oz and grams?

I haven't crunched the numbers, but the first recipe is high in hard oils, and if you did CP without gel, or partial gel, it could explain the crumbling.

Why not try 30% coconut, 35% olive, 35% palm

thanks will try this and let you the outcome , by the way both recipes were hp
 :mwaha:
thanks for your help 

oh well HP is another set of answers - I don't do much HP myself but I would guess the crumble was either overcooked or too little water?

the soft one I have no idea.

you could always try CP?

I would think that overcooked could be the most likely


Difficult to say - Suzanne pointed out that the lye was a little low, it could have been undercooked (without testing for zap couldn't say).