Recipe for Raspberry and almond soap please??

[Victoria]

Hello,

I am new to soap making and I would like to make some raspberry and almond soap for my wedding favours using the cold process method.

I have the following ingredients:

Coconut oil, palm oil, apricot kernel oil, sweet almond oil, distilled water, sodium hydroxide, raspberry fragrance oil and almond fragrance oil, red colouring and glitter.

Can anyone recommend a recipe with quantities please? I have seen a recipe for cran-raspberry soap on the internet but it uses palm kernel oil. Is this necessary and would you recommend any other ingredients?

Many thanks for your help!

Victoria

[Green Aura]

Hello and welcome Victoria.

You need to go here http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

or somewhere similar, to get the exact proportions of oils/lye. Otherwise you could make a caustic soap - not a good way to get a marriage started IMHO

[Victoria]

Hello and thank you!

I have typed in my ingredients but I still can't make sense of this. I'm not too great with numbers!

I have this recipe here for cran raspberry soap:

Cran-Raspberry Soap

Ingredients:
2 oz wt Sweet Almond Oil
4 oz wt Apricot Kernel Oil
4 oz wt Coconut Oil
3 oz wt Palm Oil
3 oz wt Palm Kernel Oil
2.33 oz wt Sodium Hydroxide
6 oz Distilled water

Optional: use between .2 and .5 oz of Cran-Raspberry Fragrance Oil

***Recipe yields 1 lb of soap.

I would like to remove the palm kernel oil, do I need to substitute with something else or do I need to alter the amount to sodium hydroxide and water? I would also like to replace the cran-raspberry oil with almond and raspberry oils. shoud I use the same amount or is it up to how much I put in?

Many thanks!

Victoria

[Green Aura]

According to the lye calculator, if you make all your oils 4 oz(omitting the palm kernel oil) and use 6 oz of water you'll need 2.25 oz of sodium hydroxide.

if you want to play about with the oils just put the quantity of each in the list on the site above and put "water" in the box asking what liquid. Click on "calculate lye" button and it will tell you how much NaOH you'll need (choose from the green section) and how much water to use.

And remember to sprinkle your lye into the water - not the other way round. Or you could have an explosion. And always wear safety goggles, gloves etc and keep a bottle of vinegar immediately on hand to neutralise any spillages.

Soap-making can be really dangerous so read all the instructions carefully - no accidents before your wedding. When is it, by the way? You'll have to cure your soaps for about 4-6 weeks (depending on conditions) minimum, to let them cure.

The other option is hot processing, bit of a pain, but they come out pretty much ready cured.

[Victoria]

Thank you Maggie, I really appreciate this. I've got my head around the whole process, it was just getting the recipe correct that was confusing me so this really helps.

Our wedding is on the 1st May so I think we have time. If it doesn't work out we will have to find a plan B! We decided to do this as Kirstie Allsop made it look so easy but I think it's going to a bit trickier than what she made it look.

Thank you again!

Victoria