Soap recipes with veg shortening in them

[VivaLeBeaver]

I've made cold and por soap in the past but fancy doing some proper cold process soap.

I've ordered a nice book from Amazon and have been looking at lots of websites. I've find that lots of the recipes tend to be American and talk about veg shortening and Crisco (which I think is the same). Now what is the equivilent over here as the only thing I can think of is Stork margerine but I can't imagine the soap would be good with that in it?

Viva,
I'm a soap maker and you can use just about any oil to make soap, though that doesn;t mean it wil be nice to use. YOu need to be careful that you get the right amount of hard and soft oils so your soap will be hard but not like a brick, soft but not mushy. You can use Olive (check it's pure) rice bran, avocado, sunflower, coconut, all of which can be found in the supermarkets, and hundreds of other oils.

But you also need to know what you're doing so you get the right amount of lye (too much and the soap will burn your skin, not enough and your soap won;t be soap).

And you MUST MUST MUST wear saftey googles and rubber gloves and keep you nose well out of the bowl when mixing the lye (if you don;t, you'll only make that mistake once )

Thanks for the advice. Yes I'm a bit nervous of the lye. Put the lye into the water and not the other way round or it explodes! Must rememebr that as well.

Sounds like you've beendoing your homework before you start, that is great.

Word of warning- soap making is addictive and very soon your every waking thought will be soapy related. All part of the fun though