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Ida teaches us how to recalculate a soap recipe
I have to defer to your fellow Aussie's knowledge and concerns about obtaining certain "raw materials". But to answer your question about reducing (or increasing) recipes, the easiest way I have found is to turn the weights into percentages and then multiply them by the amount you do want to make. You will have to excuse my US fondness for ounces but, of course, the theory is the same whatever measurement you use.
So for this recipe:
- 3oz castor oil
- 8oz cocoa butter
- 11oz coconut oil
- 1oz jojoba oil
- 9oz palm oil
- 3oz palm kernel oil
- 7oz soybean shortening
- 6oz sunflower oil
The total amount of oil is 48 ounces. Then you divide each amount by the total to get the percentage of the recipe it represents.
- 3 ounces of castor oil divided by 48 = 6.2%
- 8 ounces of cocoa butter = 16.7%
- 11 ounces of coconut oil = 22.9%
- 1 ounce of jojoba = 2.1%
- 9 ounces of palm oil = 18.8%
- 3 ounces of palm kernel oil = 6.2%
- 7 ounces of soybean = 14.6%
- 6 ounces sunflower = 12.5%
The percentages total 100%---sometimes, depending on rounding up or down, you will end up a tenth of a percent over or under and will have to adjust slightly.
Now that you have the percentages, just multiply them times the size of the batch you want. So for one pound or 16 ounces, it would be:
- castor oil .062 x 16 = 1 ounce
- cocoa butter .167 x 16 = 2.7 ounces
- coconut oil .229 x 16 = 3.7 ounces
- jojoba .021 x 16 = .3 ounces
- palm .188 x 16 = 3 ounces
- palm kernel .062 x 16 = 1 ounce
- soybean .146 x 16 = 2.3 ounces
- sunflower .125 x 16 = 2 ounces
This totals 16 ounces---again you may have to adjust tenths of ounces to get exactly 16. You would then need to run the recipe through the lye calculator to get the amount of lye and water---and make decisions on superfatting and discounting water. But you get the idea.
As to the products that may not be readily available, I tend to look at Kathy Miller's site to get a feeling for the unavailable oil and then search for an available oil with similar properties. I am sure other folks have better methods but this has worked for me. Kathy's site, which is a gold mine, is http://users.silverlink.net/~timer/soapinfo.html.
The oil information is at http://users.silverlink.net/~timer/soapdesign.html.
I apologize if this is too long or pedantic. But it is handy to be able to adjust recipes and yet maintain their integrity. Anyway, I hope it is understandable and helpful.
Ida
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