[David08848]

I should also add that Sodium Lactate suggested usage was below 130F and my soap making temperatures are above that because of the high meltpoint of the Fatty Acids.  I need something like the Sodium Lactate that will harden the finished bar, add humectancy and assist in homogenizing the batch without causing it to seize or thicken right away.  This many mean 2 or more additional ingredients…

[David08848]

Having experimented with shampoo bars in the past I have some familiarity with them.  The 30% of Decyl Glucoside is what stands out to me.  I would think it might be better in the 20% range?  Is the SLSa in powder form?

[David08848]

I heard back from Certified Lye and the calculator they have on the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild, Inc. has a section called “Step 4”  where you can add oils or fatty acids that aren’t listed in the calculator in “Step 2” and their SAP values and weight. 

Between this:
http://www.soapguild.org/Certified-Lye/lye-calculator.php
and this:
http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

I should be covered!  Thanks!

[David08848]

I spent the afternoon looking for SAP values of fatty acids then looking at lye calculators! (in-between customers) and found quite a few new sources and quite a range of SAP values!  I made lists for the four ingredients and found several in a similar range and a few really off.  I haven’t had to look at these for quite a number of years and was pleased to see some of the old ones still listed and quite a few new ones!  The one that impressed me the most was “Soapcalc”. It has a ton of regular and exotic oils and all the “standard” fatty acids and the numbers seemed consistent and worked out mathematically just perfectly so I’m going with those.  Sometimes it pays to go back and take a look at things even if they are things you work with on a daily basis!

[David08848]

I’m looking around again and checking out the online lye calculators and saw that MMS calculator offers a KOH/NaOH “blend” so that’s great but it also doesn’t offer the fatty acids as options.  All of the others I had links to don’t offer that option.

[David08848]

Thanks,

The Aussie calculator only had a small percentage of available oils on it so it doesn’t provide what I need.  Yours looks very complicated.  I believe I would have to enter whatever percentage I wanted using KOH and enter the rest of the same oil again using NaOH and do that for every ingredient to get the totals of each hydroxide rather than just selecting a ratio of KOH to NaOH as the HCSC Guild does.  Still it seems that I could get it work and get used to it although it doesn’t have an option or TEA on it so U would have to calculate that separately.

“Matching the numbers” should work but I’m thinking it would work for any other calculator as well so I am going to have to give it a try to see what I come up with!  Thanks for sharing other options!

[David08848]

Bob, You are not alone!  In reading online posts at sites like this, I have encountered many cosmetic chemists who seem to fairly free in their thinking about making sample batches with lots of comments about making as many batches as you need to get the result you are seeking.  In my circumstances, I have to be careful about acquiring samples from companies who are willing to work with small businesses or seeking a source who is an online reseller to be able to purchase something in small enough a quantity that it makes it worth my while to pursue the project I am working on!  Online resellers are not the cheapest source but sometimes that is what I need to do to get the ingredient I want for my project and hopefully the formulation for the project will succeed and hopefully the customers will buy it!

I’m considering another project at the moment and will come to ask whether the combination of ingredients I am thinking of using will work together and whether it is worth me pursuing it!  Some guys will just suggest that you try it but that is not all that is involved and cost and procurement is also a factor that I (and others) should consider in this position!  Thanks for bringing this up and although it might not be exactly what you were talking about in your post it does apply to me and small businesses like mine as we have to pay (usually) for our small quantity of raw materials to prefect our products and sometimes it can be an issue!

[David08848]

BartJ,

Thanks so much!  “the sage” is one of the older calculators out there but I’m glad to see that it has the NaOH/KOH option on it!  Good to know!

I am a member of the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetics Guild and I didn’t even know they had this calculator through Certified Lye!

The only problem with “the sage” is that it only lists “Stearic Acid” as their sole fatty acid on the calculator!

I just emailed Certified Lye and asked if they would include Stearic, Palmitic, Myristic, Lauric, Oleic and
Coconut Fatty Acid in their calculator!  I hope they can!

Thanks for your reply!  How is everything in Poland?

[David08848]

Thanks for your responses! 

I started out as a “soapmaker” and built my formulas by selecting oils by percentages then calculated the amount of sodium hydroxide and water by using either online calculators or a programmable calculator I own.  After spending time on cosmetic chemistry message boards with chemists like the late Maurice Hevey and Perry I learned to work in formulas based on 100%.  I have to admit that I still use these techniques for soapmaking but approach my liquid soap, shaving cream as a cosmetic chemist would using formulas based on 100%

I’m trying to make a “cold process” shaving soap which is no easy task because of the high and medium chain fatty acids used.  I often go back to old cosmetic formulation books (which I don’t see mentioned very often here as a source) as well as old soapmaking books to see how it was done way back then!  Because of the different ways they did things back then you’re more apt to come up with different approaches.   I suppose that if I read more in the individual books themselves I might be able to figure out how the author works these things out.

Another issue that this brings up is the use of cosmetic chemistry books, soapmaking books, and going to places like the U.S. Patent Office and other World Patent Offices to find sample formulations to work with.  I see mention of formulations from chemical supplier sites but no mention of these books from the last 100 years.  With things like “brilliantine” and “pomade” becoming popular again why not look at those sources since many of them have several of these formulas listed!?!?

Thanks for everyone’s responses, I appreciate when everyone gives their time to share things and things in detail!  I pretty much do what Belassi suggested and do it that way.  It would be so much easier when reading a formula to know whether the author is working with the percentages of the oils or the percentages of the hydroxides when they write about shaving soap formulas!

Thank you!

[David08848]

Bob, I use Potassium Oleate myself and lather isn’t a problem for us!  Castor Oil and Coconut Oil work together nicely to make a good product with good lather.  Check it out on my website…

[David08848]

Bob,  I go higher than 10% in Castor oil as one of the oils.  I would think 20% should fine for you.  Trust me, Castor Oil makes a great liquid soap and I use it in mine with great results! 

[David08848]

PharmaSpain, that helps to clear things up a bit, thanks!  It appears that there are several options to choose from and limiting it to one may not be your best choice.

Now to throw another aspect into changing a formulation, I want to add a larger amount of the humectant to one of my formulas that has three bases which are saponifying fatty acids and oils but I don’t want to change the water amount because I am concerned about speeding up the saponification process because using less water makes a stronger base solution.

If I am upping the humectant by a small percentage it may not make much of a difference so it makes sense to me that I have to use “Try-chemistry” and just try a sample batch to see how it turns out!

Thanks Perry for your replies and clarifications and PharmaSpain for your post proving the old adage that the first day you learn the rules and the second day you learn the exceptions to the rules and there appear to be several acceptions in this case!

[David08848]

????

[David08848]

Essential Oils have been my most expensive raw material!  Absolutes too!  Several of them never made it to a final product and I just kept them for myself!  Anything that is over $100 a bottle isn’t something I would think of buying now!

[David08848]

I think I understand but it appears from what you said that you have different “cases” dependent upon the ingredients and their purposes?

If you are starting “from scratch” you would do it as it was done using your Excel file in the video, in that you kept the water as a “constant” at the top which then would reduce percentage as each new ingredient is added?

If you have a formula you have already made, decide to add something to the batch thereby increasing the total amount you would do as I suggest above in my post where I recalculated it back to 100%

Am I understanding this correctly?

[David08848]

Now if I wanted to change one of my formulas to increase the amount of one ingredient which is currently at 10% by say another 10%. (Doubling it)   Wouldn’t I take the current formula minus the ingredient and recalculate it  down using 80% as my total so all the current ingredients keep their proper percentages and relationship to one another and now equal 80% of the formula and the other 20% is the ingredient that I doubled is then added to the 80% to equal 100%?

[David08848]

So Perry,

In the last paragraph you are saying that your formula now equals 101%

Don’t you have to recalculate to get your actual new formula that is 100%?

If so wouldn’t it be:
water=98.02
citric acid = .99009
EDTA = .99009

now totally 100%???

[David08848]

DavidW,

This is a board that Perry created to share his and other people’s knowledge with those who need help. Someone will ask a question and another person will answer to the best of his or her ability. The person who has answered that question may at some time come back and pose a question him or herself and be helped by someone else and thus the world goes ’round and everyone shares with each other. It’s all about sharing knowledge…

[David08848]

Perry, thanks so much for posting this! I think I can work with this Excel sheet! It looks friendly!

[David08848]

Any search on the Internet for a calculator should work if you know the specific name of the thing you are seeking. This many mean trying many combinations of words you think will give you what you are seeking. In this instance I could only describe the functions of the calculator I seek and fortunately came up with “recipe to formula calculator” and I found this one right away. Further search should produce an Excel version and one that can recalculate the addition of ingredients into a formula to recalculate it back to 100%!

[David08848]

So I’m not looking for an HLB calculator but I did find this:

http://www.ingredientstodiefor.com/item/Amount_to_Percentage_Calculator/873?category=115

[David08848]

Though experience and research, the lowest pH that you would be able to have with a saponified oil (with KOH, TEA or other bases) would be about 8. Any more would produce the snotty mess as Belassi describes.

[David08848]

Excel and I aren’t the best of friends! I just want to change a few “recipes” into proper formulas without having to use a calculator and be able to add more ingredients to a formula and recalculate the percentages properly without doing the old “Oh just take it out of the water phase” which is not the best way to do things! Other than that not much else! I’ll check for a calculator here in previous posts.! Thanks, Bob!

[David08848]

ph of 7?????

[David08848]

Thanks, Bob! I’ve been to a couple of NYSCC Suppliers Day events but many years ago! Also, I wasn’t looking for fragrance back then so I didn’t remember! Should be a piece of cake since I also live in Tribeca in N.Y.C.! Thanks for your suggestion!