what is trace and soap

What is trace and soap? Trace is the time when the saponification of the lye, water, and oils have become soap. It is at this stage when the soap base is thicker and doesn’t start to separate if you stop stirring. It will continue to get thicker from here on in. Now is also the time to add your scents, colorants, superfats, clays, or anything else, then you’d pour all this into the molds.

This is what trace looks like when a bead of soap can be drizzled across the top without sinking in.




When I started making soap I kept thinking What is trace in Soap Making?  It sounded complicated to me, but once I saw it, I knew what it meant. I have given you step by step instruction on how to make soap, but here is some more information to help you clearly understand TRACE. Continue reading

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what is superfatting soap

What is superfatting soap? It is about making the soap a little more moisturizing. In theory, the extra oils added at the end, at trace, will be less saponified by the lye and create free-floating oil in the soap that you can feel. I tested this by separating a soap I just made, putting half in a mold, and then adding a superfat (cocoa butter) to the other half. In the finished bars, I could feel a slightly more moisturizing ability. So yes, it does work.

You can see that the soap is at trace (on the right) and a super fat is being added




If you were to add too much superfat, two things may happen. You’ll get a soft bar that never gets hard or a bar that takes months to harden. I had a sunflower bar, scented with orange and lavender essential oils, and superfatted this bar with sunflower oil. Sunflower oil is known to make a soft bar, and this is what happened. Six months later it still wasn’t hardened, but I took these bars to a music festival and sold them all for a dollar a bar. The outside edges of the bars were hardened but that center refused too, lol, could have poked your finger through it, but the festival goers didn’t mind at all!

The superfatting rule is to not go over 5% of your oil content. So if your recipe has a total of 50 ounces of oil, do not exceed 2 1/2 ounces.

Cocoa Butter is my preferred superfat. A little of that went a long way, and I prefer it over the sunflower oil (of course), shea nut butter, and hemp oil.

you will feel the extra oils the first time you wash your hands!

Here is the hemp oil soap recipe where the superfat is hemp oil.




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Basic Soap Recipes – my 6 at a glance

I tried a lot of soap-making recipes and decided to keep it simple with one main basic soap-making recipe. Sometimes I need a backup soap recipe depending on the oils on hand, resulting in 5 basic recipes. These recipes will make about 24 – 4 oz bars, you can cut the recipe in half, or double it, just keep the proportions the same, and use the lye calculator when changing things up 

If you run out of a specific oil you may need a different base recipe – it’s always good to have backup recipes

To keep your basic soap-making recipe nice and easy, Canola oil and Olive oil have the same saponification values. This means that the lye will interact with either oil in the same manner, whereas other oils may need more or less lye to saponify. Don’t exceed 75% Canola oil or your soap will develop small brown spots, this is due to the natural proteins found in Canola oil. It’s harmless yet can blemish your pretty soap. When recipes state lye crystals, it refers to sodium hydroxide, NOT potassium hydroxide. Sometimes lye crystals are also referred to as ‘caustic soda beads’.

Below are the 6 base recipes that I use, and the first 3 recipes are the ones I use most

This is a picture of soap at trace, with no scent or color

Basic #1 with Olive, Coconut, & Palm Oil:  (more details here)
Continue reading

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#1 – Olive and Coconut, No Palm

Usually simpler is better, and an olive and coconut soap recipe, no palm, is an option. At the beginning of making soap, I started with an Olive, coconut, and palm oil soap recipe, which worked very well. Over the years and depending on supply deliveries, supplies on hand, environmentalism, and ingredient costs, I came up with 6 very tried and true soap recipes.

Soap logs ready for cutting into bars

The only oil to not use in over 50% of total oils, is canola oil. Although canola oil is the oil of every single restaurant on the planet, it isn’t the best for soap, but only because of the reaction to the lye and the oxidation of the oils. This means that a canola oil-based soap will start getting brown discolored spots on the soap bars. This is too bad really, because the cheaper cost of the canola helps keep the price of your final product lower. More about the type of oils and the pros and cons of each can be found on this basic soap-making recipe page.

The following recipe is one-fifth of what a batch was in my store. Yet it could be too large for starters, so if you like, you can divide this recipe any way you like. This makes about 25 4-ounce bars, so dividing it in half to make test batches would work well.

olive and coconut soap recipe, no palm:

Continue reading

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#2 – Olive, Coconut and Palm

In the beginning of making soap, I started with an Olive, coconut, and palm oil soap recipe, which worked very well. Over the years and depending on supply deliveries, supplies on hand, environmentalism, and ingredient costs, I came up with 6 very tried and true soap recipes.

Soap logs out of the molds before cutting into bars

The only oil to not use in over 50% of total oils, is canola oil. Although canola oil is the oil of every single restaurant on the planet, it isn’t the best for soap, but only because of the reaction to the lye and the oxidation of the oils. This means that a canola oil-based soap will start getting brown discolored spots on the soap bars. This is too bad really, because the cheaper cost of the canola helps keep the price of your final product lower.

small electronic scale to measure your oils

This makes about 25 4-ounce bars, so dividing it in half to make test batches would work well. Continue reading

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#3 – Olive, Coconut & Palm Kernel

In the beginning of making soap, I started with an Olive, coconut, and palm kernel soap recipe, which worked very well. Over the years and depending on supply deliveries, supplies on hand, environmentalism, and ingredient costs, we came up with 6 very tried and true soap recipes.

5 nice-looking soaps from the mold!

The only oil to not use in over 50% of total oils, is canola oil. Although canola oil is the oil of every single restaurant on the planet, it isn’t the best for soap, but only because of the reaction to the lye and the oxidation of the oils. This means that a canola oil-based soap will start getting brown discolored spots on the soap bars. This is too bad really, because the cheaper cost of the canola helps keep the price of your final product lower. more about the type of oils and the pros and cons of each can be found on this basic soap-making recipe page.

This makes about 25 4-ounce bars, so dividing it in half to make test batches would work well.

Olive, Coconut, and Palm Kernel soap recipe:

Continue reading

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#4 Olive, Coconut, Palm & Less Water

This particular olive, coconut, palm & less water recipe came about because of the Blackberry and Orange soap recipe. The finished bars were a little soft – usable,  but a little softer compared to the other bars. It was concluded this was because of the huge amount of orange essential oil needed to obtain and decent lasting scent. The solution was to add a palm or palm kernel oil PLUS add a little less water, but not too much. The palm oils help to make a harder bar and the less water due to the more liquid of the orange essential oil. And this worked perfectly!

a nice assortment of natural soap logs

The only oil to not use in over 50% of total oils, is canola oil. Although canola oil is the oil of every single restaurant on the planet, it isn’t the best for soap, but only because of the reaction to the lye and the oxidation of the oils. This means that a canola oil-based soap will start getting brown discolored spots on the soap bars. This is too bad really, because the cheaper cost of the canola helps keep the price of your final product lower. more about the type of oils and the pros and cons of each can be found on this basic soap-making recipe page.

This makes about 25 4-ounce bars, so dividing it in half to make test batches would work well. Continue reading

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#5 Olive, Coconut, Palm Kernel & Less Water

This particular olive, coconut, palm kernel & less water recipe came about because of the Blackberry and Orange soap recipe. The finished bars were a little soft – usable, but a little softer compared to the other bars. It was concluded this was because of the huge amount of orange essential oil needed to obtain and decent long-lasting scent. The solution was to add a palm or palm kernel oil PLUS add a little less water, but not too much. The palm kernel oils help to make a harder bar and the less water due to the more liquid of the orange essential oil. And this worked perfectly!

as a soapmaker, you will sometimes need to adjust recipes for specific essential oils or fragrances

The only oil to not use in over 50% of total oils, is canola oil. Although canola oil is the oil of every single restaurant on the planet, it isn’t the best for soap, but only because of the reaction to the lye and the oxidation of the oils. This means that a canola oil-based soap will start getting brown discolored spots on the soap bars. This is too bad really, because the cheaper cost of the canola helps keep the price of your final product lower. more about the type of oils and the pros and cons of each can be found on this basic soap-making recipe page.

This makes about 25 4-ounce bars, so dividing it in half to make test batches would work well.

Palm oil vs Palm Kernel, same tree and fruit

 

olive, coconut, palm kernel & less water :

Continue reading

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#6 Castile, Just Olive

In the beginning of making soap, I started with an Olive, coconut, and palm oil soap recipe, which worked very well. Over the years and depending on supply deliveries, supplies on hand, environmentalism, and ingredient costs, we came up with 6 very tried and true soap recipes, well, except maybe this pure castile soap recipe one.

Plain and simple, you would think it would be a big seller – but no it’s not!

Traditionally, Castile soap was a 100% olive oil based soap. Yet the recipes of today seem to vary – same as the history of Castile soap’s history. As wonderful as a pure olive oil soap will be, it can be temperamental to make. I’ve made Castile a few times and this is what I’ve discovered:

  • people say they want a plain unscented soap, yet buy the scented one, and the plain soaps ended up in the ‘sale’ basket
  • all my castile olive oil bars tended to have soda ash, from high pH, from water/lye/oil saponification process, in the corners and edges of the soap logs
  • the finished bar does not bubble very much, it is the coconut that creates large bubbles
  • people think that if the bar doesn’t bubble lots then something is wrong with it
  • multiple oil soap bases make better bars
  • last I heard from whatever-powers-that-be, is that up to 15% coconut oil can be used and still be considered a pure ‘castile’ bar

Here is an example of Castile Soap that is NOT Castile Soap, the coconut and palm oil amounts are larger than the Olive Oil!

This makes about 25 4-ounce bars, so dividing it in half to make test batches would work well. Continue reading

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Vanilla Soap Recipe

You can make vanilla soap only with a fragrance, as there is no vanilla essential oil.  Although soap supply companies go to great lengths to make their synthetic fragrance sound like a true essential oil.  They’ll use terms like “nature identical”.  Most people love the scent of vanilla, and often this scent is added to other scents, such as raspberry, sandalwood, lavender, and orange.  This is a great selling bar and I have also made a lotion scented with Vanilla that sells well also.

A very nice bar of vanilla soap

make vanilla soap:

Basic #1 with Canola/Olive, and Coconut oils (no palm oils): Continue reading

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