Making Soaping Easier: Meet FormuMate's Soap Calculator and My Big Plans

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If you make soap, you know that math isn't optional. Getting your oils, water, and lye amounts right makes the difference between a good batch and a ruined one.

The Problem That Started Everything

A few weeks ago, I was ready to make a batch of soap. As usual I opened SoapCalc to enter my recipe, after calculating when I pressed on 'view recipe' I got redirected to an empty page. After several tries I realized,

SoapCalc was down.

I waited a few days. Still down. That's when I decided to finally build what I'd been thinking about for months: FormuMate.

What FormuMate Does

FormuMate is your digital workspace for soap, skincare, and cosmetic formulation, a platform where you create, organize, and manage all your recipes.

The Lye Calculator (Live Now)

I started with the tool every soap maker needs most: a reliable lye calculator built for real formulation work.

What makes it different:

  • Precision chemistry: Calculates exact lye amounts (NaOH or KOH) based on your oils and batch size
  • Instant unit conversion: Switch your entire recipe between grams, kilograms, ounces, and pounds with one click
  • Smart percentage balancing: Enter oils by weight or percentage. If percentages don't total 100%, fix them automatically
  • Built-in safety checks: Clear warnings for lye purity issues and superfat percentages outside safe ranges
  • Save and export: Store recipes locally and export them for your records

What's Coming Next

The soap calculator is phase one. Here's what's being built:

Recipe Management

  • Central library for all your formulas: soaps, lotions, serums, balms
  • Version tracking so you never lose a working formula
  • Organized categories and tags

More Calculation Tools

  • Batch scalers for resizing recipes
  • Unit converters
  • pH calculators
  • All integrated to work together seamlessly

Ingredient Intelligence

  • Comprehensive database of oils, butters, waxes, emulsifiers, and preservatives
  • Usage rates and properties for each ingredient
  • Substitution suggestions when you're out of something

AI-Powered Assistance

  • Smart ingredient recommendations
  • Formula error detection before you start mixing
  • Optimization suggestions based on formulation chemistry

Try It Now

The soap calculator is live and free to use at FormuMateSoapCalc

Whether you're making your first bar or your thousandth batch, it's designed to make the process smoother and your results more reliable.

I'm building FormuMate for makers like you.

What tool or feature would help you most when creating your recipes? Email me at skinaesthetecs@gmail.com

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