Help
Answers to what makers ask most. If yours is not here, write to us.
Where to start
New to soap
Read about lye safety before anything else, then make a first cold process soap with the lye calculator open beside you.
Coming from another calculator
Paste a recipe from anywhere and it is matched to our ingredients, with its lye checked against ours. The switching pages show where each calculator keeps your recipes.
A batch went wrong
The troubleshooting guide starts from what you can see in the soap. Signed in, you can also ask the assistant about a batch from your batch log.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. The calculators, the ingredient pages and saving a recipe all work without one. An account keeps your recipes, batches, stock and the rest in one list, on any device you sign in from.
Where is the recipe I saved?
Recipes saved while signed in are listed on your account page. A recipe saved while signed out joins that list the next time you sign in on the same browser; until then it opens only from its own link, so keep the link.
I forgot my password.
On the account page, choose “Forgot the password? Email me a reset link”. The link goes to the address on the account and works for an hour. The 16-character recovery code you wrote down when you made the account works too.
Where do the numbers come from?
Every oil value cites a published document, and every formula is written out with its source on the formulas page. Figures we read and threw out as impossible are listed too, each with the reason.
I think a figure is wrong.
Tell us through the contact form, with a link to the document that says otherwise if you have one. A correction is checked against its source before the record changes.
Does it work without a connection?
Yes, on a device where you have opened the calculator once with a connection. After that it opens and calculates offline, and the page says when it is working from what it loaded earlier. Saving, and anything on your account, needs a connection.
Can I bring my recipes from another calculator?
Yes. Paste a recipe on the import page, or follow the switching page for the calculator you used, which shows where it keeps your recipes and how to get them out.
How do I get my data out, or delete my account?
Both are on your account page. “Download everything (JSON)” gives you everything you keep here in one file. Deleting the account is immediate, and you choose whether your recipes go with it or stay, anonymous, so the links you shared keep working.
How do plans and refunds work?
The pricing page says what is free and what each plan adds. Any payment can be refunded in full within 30 days, and the refund policy says how.
Is a recipe from here safe to sell?
The calculator tells you how much lye your oils need. That is not a safety assessment: where the law asks for one, as the EU and the UK do for soap, a qualified assessor signs it, and what this site drafts is for them to check.
Can I use your data on my own site?
Yes, with attribution. The ingredient database is licensed ODbL and the formula library MIT.
Still stuck?
Write to us and say what you were trying to do. A link to the recipe or the page helps.
If a page will not load or saving fails, the status page says whether something on our side is down.