You could probably melt down 3 pounds of melt and pour soap and stir in the essential oils before pouring it into your molds.

My scale doesn’t register 4.39 oz of lye….could you convert that for me please

Pure olive oil soap won’t make a good lather. It will most likely be thin and slimy.
If you add about 15% coconut, and 5% castor oil, you’ll have a bar with much better and stable lather. But, yes, adding sugar or honey to your recipe will also improve the lather but not as much as changing the oil content.
Happy soaping!

Almost every, if not EVERY, cold process soap does much better if left to CURE for at least 6 weeks. Unmolding, if making regular soap and not salt bars, should be possible in about 24 hrs, but some high soft oil soaps, like olive oil or almond, can take several days. Or if you used full water.
It’s not about how much lye you used that determines how much and/or how stable your lather will be but the total kinds of oils you used.
Run that recipe through a lye calculator and notice the levels of suds you might get from your recipe. Change up the oils, or change the percentages used to get the kind of lather you want. Also try looking up “properties of oils used in soap making” (w/out the quotes) to geta better idea of which oils will give you better results.
Note: most veteran soapers will use a combo of coconut (usually no more than 30%, but I use 15-20% in mine), and castor oil at no more than 8% for good, stable, lather.
Good luck!

Maybe she did intend to say parchment, but I KNOW you don’t use wax paper for lining soap molds because the wax from the paper melts and allows the soap batter to permeate it. If you’re not able to use parchment, use a grocery shopping bag with the ink side out. Cheap and easily available. Plus it can be reused in the same mold.
Note: I don’t reline my molds every time I make soap. If I don’t tear it, I just leave it for the next batch after giving it a good cleaning with an almost dry damp microfiber cloth.

If I shop around and buy in bulk I can make a bar that cost me about $0.44 an ounce. I try to use oils that I can buy in large quantities at Sams club, Costco or Walmart at a cheap price, like coconut, lard and olive oil. Olive oil can be pricey per ounce, you can replace part of it with a less expensive oil like canola oil to reduce cost. I avoid Shea and other expensive butters and oils. I use 5% aloe juice for extra bubbles, and about 5% almond for nourishment. I wouldn’t use more almond because it drives the price up. Putting in about 0.5% clay makes a bar better for shaving. Bees wax is expensive as well, you can leave it out. Look for a good lye calculator online and run the recipe through it before making it. I use a site called http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp The really great thing about this site is it gives you the individual oils properties of each oil, which makes it so you know what can be substituted with what. (how much bubbly, cleansing, conditioning, hardness, creamy, Iodine and INS#). It makes it so a beginner can change the oils around and still get a good soap. Also see if you can buy the Essential oils in larger quantity for less. buying 3 x .5 oz bottles of oil is going to add up. The oils in this recipe are not to expensive. Use caution with citrus since as they are known to fade. That might be why this recipe calls for so much citrus, you can look up how to fix oils in soap . Check out your local natural grocers for pricing or look online for good deals. I find whole foods to be expensive, see if there is another provider in your area. Make sure to do a background check on who you are buying from as not all oils are of the same quality. I have found NOW oils to be of good quality for a good price. Artificial fragrances can be much less expensive than some essential oils, they are worth checking out. Check out Brambelberry. There oils are at a competitive price and of good quality and they do a test batch for you so you can see how there oil behaves in soap.. Brambelberry also is one of the few sites with a cent calculator telling you how much to use. This is super nice because you can get the right amount of smell from the get go. Good luck.

Yes! Thank you. Just made some and not only does it smell amazing, but Christmas gifts this year are gonna rock!! This was my first time making soap, and your post was not only clear but covered all the bases! Thanks!

I have made this soap and sold it with some of my other soaps at a craft fair recently so I had to figure my costs up. I bought all high quality ingredients – most from mountain rose herbs, so I tried to include all costs in my configuration, including online shipping, etc. I cut one batch of this soap recipe into about 10 good sized bars, so came up with each bar costing me about $5.75. Hope this helps.

THANK YOU for your help! I love your site and go to it as a major health resource…yay self-advocacy! You empower your readers by giving us research-based insights, so it makes it easy to find answers to our problems or at least spark ideas to give us a great starting place for our own research.

Well done Katie.

Could you do something on homemade air fresheners please?

Try cedarwood – smells amazing!

Hello Lori! Do you have a recommendation for a woody-smelling essential oil that could be added?