Adding Fragrance to Homemade Soap

nospam@example.com (David DeLauro) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:54:44 -0400

In a lot of my soap making videos, I simply show myself adding a particular fragrance to the soap without explaining much about the different options there are to making your soap smell like it just came out of a designer spa but at a far cheaper price. In this article I hope to explain some of the basics to adding fragrance to your soap so that you can feel more confident to experiment with your own scents as you join the wonderful community of soapmakers.

There are basically two chances you will have to add fragrance to your soap. The most common way is to add either a fragrance oil or a pure essential oil to your soap. The second way in which to add scent to your soap is to use various aromatic liquids like tea or coffee. There is a third way that is sometimes suggested by adding herbs or flowers to your soap but I have never had much luck with this method and if the cuttings are not heat safe, you will find most of the time they end up being burned by the saponification process.

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SAP Table

nospam@example.com (David DeLauro) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:37:29 -0400

If you want to figure out--on your own--the amount of lye to use in your soap, you will want to use the SAP a values. A much easier way is to use the Lye Calculator.

To calculate the SAP value for a combination of oils first you need to convert all your measurements into a single unit of measure. For example. A mixture of oils consisting of 2 Lb Olive Oil, 1Lb 4oz Coconut Oil, 12oz Palm Oil will be: 32oz Olive Oil, 20oz Coconut Oil, 12oz Palm Oil.

Next you multiply each weight by the Value in the table for each oil and add them all together. This will be: 32 (0.134) + 20 (0.183) + 12 (0.144) = 9.676

Because SAP values are for sodium hydroxide in this sap table we have to make an adjustment if we are using potassuim hydroxide. To convert simply multiply the figure by 1.4.

Therefore, to produce a fully saponified soap using 2Lb (32oz) Olive Oil: 1Lb 4oz (20oz) Coconut Oil and 12oz of Palm Oil you will need 9.68oz of Sodium Hydroxide.

To superfat your soap, simply discount this figure. To create a 5% discount you multiply the amount of lye by 0.95 (95%).

For most batches of soap you will want to have between 27% and 38% of the total weight as the figure you use to determine the amount of water you are adding. So, in the above case we would figure that the minimum amount of water we want to add would be 64oz * 0.27 = 17.28 oz of water.
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Metaphysical Farms - Soap

Adding Fragrance to Homemade Soap

SAP Table