How to Formulate Soap Recipes from Scratch

Although formulating soap recipes can feel a little daunting at first, there are several benefits to learning how to formulate your own soap recipes from scratch. Here are my top 3 reasons why formulating is a better bet than following random soap recipes:

• The soapmaking space is gradually getting crowded and to be able to stand out from the crowd you need to be able to create unique soap recipes 

• To help you make custom soaps for your users whether that be for your family or customers based on individual needs & preferences

• To be able to tweak & constantly improve your soap recipes
  

So here are some tips to help you get started with formulating & creating your ideal & best soap recipe yet!

Often times formulating a *perfect* soap recipe is all about a simple balance of hard & soft oils.  It is important to understand what property each of the oils & butters you use brings to the soap. Here are some examples below:

Hard Oils

Quick lathering & Cleansing - Ex: Coconut, Babassu, Palm Kernel Conditioning - Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter, Mango Butter, Lard, Tallow Hardness - Palm Oil, Cocoa Butter, Kokum Butter, Shea Butter

Soft Oils

Lather booster - Castor oil Conditioning/Nourishing - Olive, Avocado, Almond, Apricot Kernel, Sunflower, Safflower, Sesame Specialty Oils - Argan, Jojoba, Neem, Tamanu, Hempseed

According to my personal preference, I aim to formulate a recipe with 50% hard oils & 50% soft oils.  I find that this combination gives an ideal mix of hardness, conditioning, lather & a good shelf life too. Putting two-and-two together here’s what a rough soap recipe template can look like:

Using this template, here are examples of 3 recipes that you can come up with:

Recipe 1

Coconut oil - 30% Shea Butter - 10% Cocoa Butter - 10%

Olive - 35% Almond Oil - 10% Castor Oil - 5%

Recipe 2

Coconut Oil - 25% Shea Butter - 15% Kokum Butter - 10% Olive - 40% Avocado - 5% Castor Oil - 5%

Recipe 3

Coconut Oil - 20% Shea Butter - 15% Palm Oil - 15% Olive - 30% Avocado - 10% Castor Oil - 5% Argan Oil - 5%

Now that you have the base recipe, all you have to do is plug it into a lye calculator such as Soap Calc.

See? Easy Peasy right?? And if you are looking for more ready-to-use recipes you can find them here. Now, if you are thinking, I need to go all in to formulation mode and learn how to use a lye calculator to formulate my own soap recipes with my own preferred oils and butters to formulate customised & gorgeous bars of soap, Soapmaking Made Simple is for you.

A self paced online course with 5 comprehensive modules, supported by a video library with 13 videos to help you get started with soapmaking and start formulating your own unique soap recipes. The course also gives you lifetime access to a student exclusive Facebook Support Group for personalized support even after you finish the course. Taken by over 200+ students around the world, this course is your gateway to a soapmaking satisfaction and success. Find out more details here.

Now over to you! What recipes can you think of using this template? If you use this template, feel free to leave them in the comments below.  I would love to see what you come up with 🧡