---
title: Soap Lab
emoji: 🧼
colorFrom: yellow
colorTo: green
sdk: gradio
app_file: app.py
pinned: false
tags:
  - gradio
  - chemistry
  - soap
  - small-models
  - backyard-ai
  - tiny-titan
  - off-brand
  - codex
  - field-notes
  - sharing-is-caring
  - track:backyard
  - sponsor:openai
  - achievement:offgrid
  - achievement:offbrand
  - achievement:sharing
  - achievement:fieldnotes
---

# 🧼 Soap Lab

Plain English soap chemistry for home makers — recipes, substitutions, troubleshooting.

## The idea

I was asking in a soap making community what people do when they can't find an oil for 
a recipe. Someone asked about palm oil. The answer? *"Tallow maybe?"*

SoapCalc and Soapmaking Friend have been the only options for years. Both are form-based 
tools — dropdowns, number fields, ten steps before you get an answer. Neither explains 
anything. Soap Lab fixes that.

## Track

🏡 **Chapter One: Backyard AI** — built for a real home soap maker who needed 
explanations, not just numbers.

## Badges targeting

- 🐜 Tiny Titan — Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct (3B parameters)
- 🎨 Off-Brand — custom warm cream UI, visual progress bars
- 💻 Codex — agentic optimiser and UI built with Codex
- 📓 Field Notes — blog post linked below
- 📡 Sharing is Caring — agent traces linked below

## What it does

Five modes, all plain English input:

* **Recipe** — lye calculation from verified SAP values + quality scores + AI explanation
* **Substitute** — fatty acid matching to find the closest oil replacement
* **Goal** — skin-targeted recipe suggestions from a description
* **Diagnose** — batch failure analysis and fix
* **Pantry** — best recipe from whatever oils you have
* **Optimise** — agentic 3-iteration recipe improvement loop with before/after comparison

Plus: superfat slider, vegan filter, water hardness recommendations with sodium citrate amounts.

## Architecture

The lye calculation is **deterministic Python — not AI**. SAP values from the HSCG 
professional standard, verified against known recipes, 33 tests passing. The model only 
explains numbers the code already calculated correctly.

## Model

`Qwen/Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct` via Featherless AI — 3B parameters, Tiny Titan eligible.

## Links

- 📝 Blog post: https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/soap-lab-tallow-maybe
- 🎬 Demo video: https://youtu.be/10OhPgMqAKo 
- 📱 Social post: https://x.com/flower56778/status/2066095227429961777
- 💻 GitHub: https://github.com/tammy357/soap-lab
- 📡 Agent Traces: https://huggingface.co/datasets/tammy357/soap-lab-traces

## Built with

- Codex for UI redesign, agentic recipe optimiser, and water hardness mode
- Deterministic chemistry engine (SAP values from HSCG)
- Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct via Featherless AI

# 🧼 Soap Lab

Plain English soap chemistry for home makers — recipes, substitutions, troubleshooting.

## The idea

I was asking in a soap making community what people do when they can't find an oil for 
a recipe. Someone asked about palm oil. The answer? *"Tallow maybe?"*

SoapCalc and Soapmaking Friend have been the only options for years. Both are form-based 
tools — dropdowns, number fields, ten steps before you get an answer. Neither explains 
anything. Soap Lab fixes that.

## Track

🏡 **Chapter One: Backyard AI** — built for a real home soap maker who needed 
explanations, not just numbers.

## Badges targeting

- 🐜 Tiny Titan — Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct (3B parameters)
- 🎨 Off-Brand — custom warm cream UI, visual progress bars
- 💻 Codex — agentic optimiser and UI built with Codex
- 📓 Field Notes — blog post linked below
- 📡 Sharing is Caring — agent traces linked below

## What it does

Five modes, all plain English input:

* **Recipe** — lye calculation from verified SAP values + quality scores + AI explanation
* **Substitute** — fatty acid matching to find the closest oil replacement
* **Goal** — skin-targeted recipe suggestions from a description
* **Diagnose** — batch failure analysis and fix
* **Pantry** — best recipe from whatever oils you have
* **Optimise** — agentic 3-iteration recipe improvement loop with before/after comparison

Plus: superfat slider, vegan filter, water hardness recommendations with sodium citrate amounts.

## Architecture

The lye calculation is **deterministic Python — not AI**. SAP values from the HSCG 
professional standard, verified against known recipes, 33 tests passing. The model only 
explains numbers the code already calculated correctly.

## Model

`Qwen/Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct` via Featherless AI — 3B parameters, Tiny Titan eligible.

## Links

- 📝 Blog post: https://huggingface.co/blog/build-small-hackathon/soap-lab-tallow-maybe
- 🎬 Demo video: https://youtu.be/10OhPgMqAKo 
- 📱 Social post: https://x.com/flower56778/status/2066095227429961777
- 💻 GitHub: https://github.com/tammy357/soap-lab
- 📡 Agent Traces: https://huggingface.co/datasets/tammy357/soap-lab-traces

## Built with

- Codex for UI redesign, agentic recipe optimiser, and water hardness mode
- Deterministic chemistry engine (SAP values from HSCG)
- Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct via Featherless AI