How Do You Develop Cold Process Soap Recipes?
You can create cold process soaps that contain just about any essential oil, fat, fragrance or dry food ingredient. Cold process soaps do share a few common ingredients: They all contain lye, a caustic substance, liquid (usually water or milk) and at least one kind of fat. Beyond that, you can add nearly any natural material to create a soap recipe that suits your specifications. Determine what properties you’d like your soap to have. The recipe you develop will depend on what you want from your finished soap product. If you want a conditioning soap that smells like mint chocolate, for example, you need to choose the right kind of fat and determine the amount of peppermint oil and cocoa powder you’ll require. Choose your fats. On her website, “Miller’s Homemade Soap Pages,” Kathy Miller breaks soap-making oils and fats into several categories and lists the predominate properties of each. She suggests using these guidelines to customize your soap recipe. Calculate the amount of lye you