Soap-making software is a very useful tool. Especially if you want to create your own soap recipes. The software takes care of all of the calculations for you!
And those calculations can become quite complicated if you want a mix of oils and fats in your base. Each one of the oils has different characteristics. If you alter an existing recipe and substitute different oils or fats, you need to adjust the amount of water and caustic soda you use to make sure that the batch will trace.
My Choice of Soap-Making Software
The software I use is Soapmaker from Woodman Designs. The software does the lye (caustic soda) calculations for me. Then stores all of my recipes in a database for easy access.
By using the software to create new recipes I am able to cut down on the trial-and-error process. As a result, and have yet to face a complete recipe disaster. And let’s face it although soap making is a relatively inexpensive hobby. No one wants to waste all of the oils and fats it takes to make a batch of soap. If it can be avoided!
This particular soap-making software package comes in two versions, Lite and Pro. I have the Pro version. If you are not planning on starting a soap-making business, the lite version would probably be a reasonable choice. The Lite Edition is designed for use by hobbyists. It includes all of the recipe features of the Professional Edition, including recipe calculation and ingredient lists consisting of 80 standard oils.
Recipes can be resized and the software will calculate the cost per batch, bar, or portion for you.
You can save all of your recipes and record notes on each one. The extras included in the Pro Edition include:
- inventory tracking,
- customer invoicing (including sales tax calculations) and
- maintaining your sales and purchasing history.
If you start as a hobbyist and want to go ‘Pro’ the Lite Edition can be upgraded to ‘Pro’ at a later date.
