SoapCalc Update Log

March 27, 2026 — We Fixed Some Math

In the March 16 relaunch notes, we said "we didn't touch the numbers." That was true at the time. Then we dug deeper into the calculation engine and found bugs that have been in SoapCalc for years — some going back to the original codebase. We fixed them. Here's what changed and why.

Fractionated Coconut Oil now shows correct soap quality values. The old site had hardcoded overrides for this oil (Hardness: 100, Cleansing: 100, Bubbly: 100, etc.) that were missing from the rebuilt calculator. If you ran a recipe with fractionated coconut oil in the last two weeks, the soap qualities were way off — Hardness showed 3 instead of 100, for example. Fixed. If you saved a recipe with fractionated coconut oil since March 16, re-run it.

Candelilla Wax no longer corrupts Conditioning values. This is a long-standing bug from the original SoapCalc. When Candelilla Wax was in a recipe, it would silently wipe out the Conditioning contributions from every other oil in the recipe. A recipe with 90% olive oil and 10% candelilla wax would show Conditioning as if the olive oil wasn't there. If you've ever used Candelilla Wax and thought your Conditioning number looked oddly low, this is why. Fixed.

Castor Oil recipes now show correct Saturated:Unsaturated ratios. Ricinoleic acid (the fatty acid unique to castor oil) wasn't being counted in the monounsaturated fat total. This meant any recipe containing castor oil showed a slightly wrong Sat:Unsat ratio. The effect was small — a few percentage points — but it's now correct.

Weight-based recipes actually work now. If you entered oil amounts by weight (instead of percentages) in the rebuilt calculator, it silently produced zeros for everything. No error message, no warning, just wrong numbers. The old SoapCalc handled weight-based entry correctly; the rebuild had a gap. Fixed. Both percentage-based and weight-based entry now produce correct results.

Percentages that don't total 100% now give you an error. Previously, if your oil percentages added up to 90% or 110%, the calculator would silently normalize them and calculate anyway — which could produce incorrect lye amounts with no warning. Now it stops and tells you exactly how much to adjust. This matches how the original SoapCalc handled it.

New: Save as PDF on the Recipe Summary page. Click the Save as PDF button to download your recipe as a PDF file. Handy if you want a clean copy for your soap notebook without going through the browser's print dialog.

New: Reset all button in the Recipe Oil List. One click clears all oils, percentages, and weights from your recipe so you can start fresh. It's at the bottom left of section 6 on the calculator page.

If you saved recipes between March 16 and today, they're fine — the recipe data (oils, percentages, settings) is correct. The fix is in the calculation engine, not the saved data. Just re-open any saved recipe and the updated calculations will apply automatically.

We know "we didn't touch the numbers" followed by "actually we fixed the numbers" isn't a great look. We'd rather be honest about it than pretend nothing changed. The calculator is more accurate now than it was before the rebuild, and more accurate than the old SoapCalc was for the specific oils affected by these bugs.

SoapCalc Update Log — March 16, 2026 Entry

March 16, 2026 — SoapCalc Is Back. For Real This Time.

Yes, we know the old site said “NEW VERSION COMING IN SUMMER 2021” for about four years. We deserve every bit of grief we got for that.

This time it’s actually here.

SoapCalc has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. The old classic ASP codebase — the one Microsoft stopped supporting two decades ago — is gone. The new site runs on a modern framework with proper hosting, monitoring, and a team that gets notified when something breaks.

What changed:

The calculator works on phones now. The old version cut off half the fields on mobile screens. We’ve tested the new one on iPhones, Android devices, tablets, and every browser we could get our hands on.

Page load time went from 8–10 seconds on a bad day to under 2 seconds.

Every old URL redirects to its new location. Your bookmarks should still work.

We added a status page so the next time something goes wrong — and eventually something will — you’ll have a place to check instead of Googling “is soapcalc down” and landing on a forum thread from 2020.

What didn’t change:

The core math and oil database. Same SAP values, same fatty acid profiles. (See the March 27 update for a handful of calculation bug fixes we found after launch.)

What we owe you:

An apology for the July 2025 and February 2026 outages with lacking communication. The old server died and we had no way to reach you — no blog, no status page. That won’t happen again. More detail on the status page if you want the full story.

We know a lot of you switched to other calculators while we were gone. Fair enough. We’d like to earn you back, but we’re not going to pretend the competition doesn’t exist. Use what works for you.

Thanks for sticking around. Or welcome back, if you’re just finding out we’re alive again.

— The SoapCalc team

Update: Tue, 20 January 2015

Additions to the oil list

• Buriti Oil
• Pataua (Patawa) Oil
• Pracaxi (Pracachy) Seed Oil - conditioning value is for hair conditioner

Update: Thu, 16 October 2014

Additions to the oil list

• Pecan Oil
• Broccoli Seed Oil, Brassica Oleracea
• Nutmeg Butter
• Salmon Oil
• Mafura butter, Trichilia emetica
• Candelilla Wax
• Japan Wax
• Carrot Seed Oil, cold pressed
• Abyssinian Oil
• Brazil Nut Oil

Update: Tue, 21 August 2012

Additions to the oil list

• Raspberry Seed Oil
• Milk Thistle Oil
• Palmolein
• Soybean, fully hydrogenated (soy wax)
• SoapQuick, conventional
• SoapQuick, organic
• Watermelon Seed Oil
• Black Currant Seed Oil

Modifications to the oil list

• Coconut Oil, 92 deg - iodine value changed from 10 to 3
• Illipe Butter - INS changed from 0 to 152

Update: Thu, 22 September 2011

Additions to the oil list

• Laurel Fruit Oil
• Pomegranate Seed Oil (Punicic acid is entered as Linolenic acid)

IE 9 fixes

Tabbing in Recipe percentage/weight columns

Easier to read main menu

Update: Tue, 26 April 2011

Additions to the oil list

• Sea Buckthorn Oil, seed and berry
• Sea Buckthorn Oil, seed
• Oat Oil
• Zapote seed oil, (Aceite de Sapuyul or Mamey)
• Loofa Seed Oil, Luffa cylinderica
• Papaya seed oil, Carica papaya
• Neatsfoot Oil
• Sacha Inchi, Plukenetia volubilis
• Tallow Goat
• Macadamia Nut Butter
• Lauric Acid
• Palm Kernel Oil Flakes, hydrogenated

Name changes

• From "Jojoba Liquid Wax Ester" to "Jojoba Oil (a Liquid Wax Ester)"
• From "Lard, Pig Tallow" to "Lard, Pig Tallow (Manteca)"
• From "Jatropha Oil" to "Jatropha Oil, soapnut seed oil"
• From "Walmart GV Shortening" to "Walmart GV Shortening, beef tallow, palm"

Value changes

Update: Thu, 25 Feb 2010

Additions to the oil list

• Almond Butter
• Palm Stearin

Update: Sat, 13 Feb 2010

Additions to the oil list

• Jatropha Oil
• Moringa Oil
• Saw Palmetto Oil
• Saw Palmetto Extract
• Tallow Bear *

* The SAP, Iodine and INS for Bear Tallow are accurate. The fatty acid profile is roughly estimated based on total saturated and unsaturated percentages (about 10% and 79% respectively).

Update: Fri, 18 Dec 2009

Many thanks to those who made comments, suggestions, and pointed out errors over the past few months.

Additions to the oil list

• Andiroba Oil, Karaba, Crabwood
• Cherry Kern1 Oil, p. avium
• Cherry Kern2 Oil, p. cesarus
• Coffee Bean Oil, green
• Cohune Oil
• Crisco, new (soybean, hydrogenated palm, partially hydrogenated palm and soybean, mono and diglycerides)
• Cranberry Seed Oil
• Cupuacu Butter
• Ghee, any Bovine
• Horse Oil
• Marula Oil
• Mustard Oil
• Rabbit Fat
• Shea Oil fractionated
• Tucuma Seed Butter
• Ucuuba Butter
• Walmart GV Shortening (beef tallow, palm, vegetable mono and diglycerides)
• Yangu, cape chestnut

Changes to oils already on the list

SoapCalcWP changes

• Information bar above the calculator modified
• Addition of Google Search
• Addition of SoapCalc notice space
• Reset button now resets entire calculator to default values
• New checkbox, Bold, sets bold print values on View/Print recipe
• Mousing over an oil in the list will display the full name of oils with longer names
• Added mouseover popup help on ranges (Hardness, Cleansing, etc.)
• Modified some popup help text
• Modified style of water amount selection, section 3
• Fixed missing values in Saving and Loading recipes
• Corrected some anomalies when rounding numbers
• Changed text on Calculate and View Recipe buttons
• Fixed Sat/Unsat typos in Fatty Acid popup information
• Miscellaneous cosmetic changes

View/Print Recipe changes

• The water concentration method you chose is now in bold
• Ingredient values can be in bold print (option set on SoapCalcWP)
• A caution for lye concentrations greater than 40%
• Corrected minor error in display of Lye Concentration
• Corrected anomalies with some low numbers not showing in values
• All values set to 3 decimal places

Sort Oil changes

• Made changing items more efficient
• Addition of Google Search

General changes

• Corrections of minor menu errors
• Added this Updates page under SoapCalc and Learn