Soap Calculator Review:
(Are you thinking about making your own soap?)
There are quite a few different soap calculators out there, some are free and some you have to pay to use. Choosing the best one for your specific business needs is important. We chose ours based on recommendations by some influential soap makers, and stuck with it for its quality details and simplicity to use.
Our #1 favorite soap calculator is Soapcalc.net. Their soap calculator is free to use and gives you a lot of insightful information on your soap formula. Some calculators simply just show you how much lye to use (which is extremely important), but SoapCalc.net will show you how your other ingredients will affect your soap. Determining how much lye to use in your formula is crucial, because too much lye can be dangerous and not enough lye can result in an ineffective soap. There are several different effective water to lye ratios that can be used in your soap. The optimal ratio to use is between 30 to 38 % lye to water ratio, but it can vary higher or lower than this range depending on many factors.
SoapCalc.net:
This soap calculator has tons of great information and can give you very detailed insight into your formula. You want to know how cleansing, conditioning, bubbly, and creamy your bar will be? They've got you! You want to make sure you balance your fatty acids correctly? They've got you! Each ingredient you put in the calculator, it will show you exactly what it does for your final soap bar quality.
1. Your first step is to figure out what type of soap you are making whether it be bar or liquid.
- NaOH is sodium hydroxide used in making bar soap, KOH is potassium hydroxide which is used in making liquid soap.
2. The second step is to figure out how much soap you want to make in your batch, and choose your lye to water ratio.
- The less water you use in your recipe the faster the soap batter will thicken and lessen the cure time.
3. You would then choose your super fat percentage, and your fragrance or essential oil amount.
- The most commonly used percentage when it comes to super fat is 5%. When it comes to the fragrance or essential oil each one can have a different usage rate so it is very important to check the usage on whichever one you plan to use. Your essential oil or fragrance supplier should be able to provide you with IFRA data sheets that list the safe usage rates of that specific essential oil or fragrance.
4. One of the last, but still very important, steps is to choose the butters, oils, and additives you plan on putting in your soap and choosing their percentages.
- There are quite a few free recipes out there if you are wondering where to start. There are also recipes that you can buy. When we first started out we made a few free recipes that we found online, but in the end we decided to just formulate our own.
5. Step five is ensuring your soap qualities are where you want them to be.
- This step can take some further research in finding out what numbers you want your soap to at. For each ingredient that you add you should notice that the numbers change. Most of them you will notice the information icons that can help you better understand what each one means. Overall, you would just want to ensure that your numbers are in the normal range. (I recommend testing a small batch of your recipe just to see if you like it, and you can tweak the recipe from there).
6. The sixth and final step is to click on calculate, then view or print the recipe.
- When you view your recipe you will be able to see your soap bar quality. It will show you the numbers on where your soap should range. This feature is very handy to ensure that your formula will produce a great and solid bar of soap.
So, if you are ready to dive into soap making, Soapcalc.net is an extremely useful tool. Even if you choose to not use our recommended soap calc, it is best practice to use some sort of calulator to ensure your recipe is formulated properly.
