# Here are some of mine



## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

I've been dabbling in soap making for about six months now. I thought I would post some pics of what I have come up with so far.  This one is very simple, made with rendered beef tallow.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

Cinnamon and oats with cranberry spice FO.  This smells really good.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

100% pomace olive with cocoa powder.


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## Hazel (Feb 17, 2013)

They're all lovely but I especially like the cranberry spice bars. You did a great job with the swirls.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

Activated charcoal in the swirl, powdered dried sagebrush leaves (artemisia tridentata) and sagebrush tea for the liquid .  The aroma kind of got morphed by the lye and is not as strong as I wanted.  I need to try this again.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

Various experiments.


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## Scentapy (Feb 17, 2013)

Good job!


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

On the left is a crock pot rebatch of a recipe that came out with a nice swirl but smelled bad.  It has about 20% bacon fat.  For the rebatch I added Pear FO and oats; I think I saved it.  The one on the right is rose scented with dried powdered rose petals in it.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

My favorite so far... and my first attempt at a hanger swirl.  Brambleberry Kentish Rain FO and sodium lactate.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

And finally: what all my friends got for Christmas


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## Scentapy (Feb 17, 2013)

Timber said:


> My favorite so far... and my first attempt at a hanger swirl. Brambleberry Kentish Rain FO and sodium lactate.


 
Holy beautiful!  That soap really catches my eye!


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## CaliChan (Feb 17, 2013)

They are all so pretty!


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## pootsiesgirl (Feb 17, 2013)

Gorgeous soaps! I've never worked with tallow before, I might have to give it a go


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## dianne70 (Feb 17, 2013)

Beautiful hanger swirl........beautiful soaps


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## sue1965 (Feb 17, 2013)

They look heavenly!  I'm just starting out and hope I can achieve what you have in 6 months.  We'll see   All of your bars look great and I especially love your hanger swirl.


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## deb8907 (Feb 17, 2013)

Very Nice Soaps!  You did a great job!  Your favorite, the hanger swirl, is my favorite too.  All of them look wonderful though.


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## terminatortoo (Feb 17, 2013)

Good looking soaps, I love the hanger swirl, I must try that!


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## Moot (Feb 17, 2013)

I want that "hanger swirl" one!  Love all of these.


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## Hazel (Feb 17, 2013)

Wow! They all look great. The Kentish Rain is beautiful.


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## SueSoap (Feb 17, 2013)

Lovely soaps.  You've been very busy!


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## marghewitt (Feb 17, 2013)

Absolutely gorgeous! The hanger swirl is amazing and my favorite as well. I have never wanted to try that technique till now. How do you like that scent?


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## melstan775 (Feb 17, 2013)

Wow you really have been busy. You have nice stuff there. Which is your favorite?


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## hlee (Feb 17, 2013)

You have lucky friends!


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

marghewitt said:


> Absolutely gorgeous! The hanger swirl is amazing and my favorite as well. I have never wanted to try that technique till now. How do you like that scent?



The Kentish Rain smells delightful. I really like it, although if I breathe too much of it, it makes me sneeze.  I must have a slight allergy to one of the ingredients.  I intend to use it again though, it smells too good not to.  Brambleberry's FO description invokes images of rain, ocean and greenery...hence my color scheme.

Thanks for the compliments everyone, it's great encouragement to keep going.  I have had a few failures too, of course: for example a goat milk/vanilla/honey batch that turned into a soft separated weeping mess, got rebatched twice and is still not hard 7 weeks later.  I think that one is getting chalked up to the cost of education.


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

pootsiesgirl said:


> Gorgeous soaps! I've never worked with tallow before, I might have to give it a go



I think tallow is brilliant stuff, but sadly not very easy or cheap.  I paid $25 for 10 lbs of fatty scraps at the butcher, which then took over a day to render down to about 3 lbs of tallow and drove my family out of the house in the process .  But it does make a beautiful hard soap bar.


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## Badger (Feb 17, 2013)

Wow Timber! Those are beautiful, and you have some very lucky friends.  I hope I can make things half that nice in six months time!


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## marghewitt (Feb 17, 2013)

Timber said:


> I think tallow is brilliant stuff, but sadly not very easy or cheap.  I paid $25 for 10 lbs of fatty scraps at the butcher, which then took over a day to render down to about 3 lbs of tallow and drove my family out of the house in the process .  But it does make a beautiful hard soap bar.


 
Wow where do you buy your scraps from? I go into the local grocery store butcher and tell them that I would like to buy the fat they cut off of their meat. I tell them I want to make soap with it and they usually just give it to me. I sometimes get charged .10 cents a pound but never more than that. I also make sure to give the butcher a bar or two ;-) I love old fashioned tallow soap and still make it for two of my Aunts regularly. 

It does smell a bit when you render it. You could always cook it in a pot of water outside on an open fire!


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## Timber (Feb 17, 2013)

marghewitt said:


> Wow where do you buy your scraps from? I go into the local grocery store butcher and tell them that I would like to buy the fat they cut off of their meat. I tell them I want to make soap with it and they usually just give it to me. I sometimes get charged .10 cents a pound but never more than that. I also make sure to give the butcher a bar or two ;-) I love old fashioned tallow soap and still make it for two of my Aunts regularly.
> 
> It does smell a bit when you render it. You could always cook it in a pot of water outside on an open fire!



I tried numerous butchers and grocery stores and only one was even willing to sell it, much less give it away, and they want $2.50/lb.


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## Rhon (Feb 18, 2013)

Hi, just a suggestion for procuring tallow. I was going to render my own also and could actually get the fat scraps for about ten cents a pound. Then I found COLUMBUSFOODS.COM. They are an oil supply place for almost anything "oil". They have a "soaper's choice" page and there it lists tallow for 86 cents/pound. I can't render it myself for that if my time is worth anything. I purchased some coconut oil at a bulk foods store that came from this company and am quite pleased with it. I'll probably order all my oils from there unless someone can give me a reason for not doing so.


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## Relle (Feb 18, 2013)

I tried numerous butchers and grocery stores and only one was even willing to sell it, much less give it away, and they want $2.50/lb.

We use to have a butcher shop and the reason its not given away is because its picked up by the bone -ies - they take the fat and bone away and you get paid a small amount for it. You pay top dollar for the meat which of course includes the fat, bone etc and at least you get something back to counteract the cost.


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## Shannon_m (Feb 18, 2013)

Rhon said:


> I'll probably order all my oils from there unless someone can give me a reason for not doing so.



That's who I just ordered all my oils from... well not the olive oil, it's cheaper to buy that from Costco (which I live right next to)... the relative cost is almost the same (about a dollar less for 7 lbs) but since I won't have to ship it and the gas cost to drive there and back is minimal I can't see ordering it online.


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## Timber (Mar 11, 2013)

Here is what I did this past weekend  Same recipe for both with equal parts coconut, lard and pomace olive, 6% castor oil and 1% sodium lactate. 

The bars on the left are scented with Bramble Berry "Baby Powder" FO.  The colors are M&P dyes I got at the hobby store on a whim.  It was weird because the blue completely vanished for the first two days and then returned, presumably as the pH dropped I guess?  This batch went in the freezer, no gel. 

The other batch has french green clay with activated charcoal and a couple pinches of Mt. St. Helens volcanic ash for good measure, and geranium and lavender essential oils.  CPOP on this one.

Both batches were layered pours with attempted hanger swirls.


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## Badger (Mar 12, 2013)

Oh, the one with the activated charcoal is gorgeous!  I like that you added some volcanic ash to it as well for a personal touch   The swirls on the Baby Powder are nice as well, but they didn't catch my eye like the charcoal does.


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## melstan775 (Mar 12, 2013)

I think they both look beautiful.  Where on earth did you find volcanic ash? Did you climb up to Mt. St. Helens and get it? ;-)


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## Timber (Mar 12, 2013)

melstan775 said:


> I think they both look beautiful.  Where on earth did you find volcanic ash? Did you climb up to Mt. St. Helens and get it? ;-)



haha, not quite.  I still have a jar of the stuff that my dad saved for me from the 1980 eruption.  They were in the ash fall zone.


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## melstan775 (Mar 12, 2013)

Timber said:


> haha, not quite.  I still have a jar of the stuff that my dad saved for me from the 1980 eruption.  They were in the ash fall zone.



That's both wow and scary, but the ash fall was a few hundred miles around. I was in the ash fall zone too, but I was barely a year old, and in Northern California. My mother told me she was pissed when that happened because they had just bought a new Mustang and had a Ford LTD (my parents could roll, yo), and the ash started falling and they had to wash those new cars so carefully to prevent scratches....


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## Marilyna (Mar 12, 2013)

Timber, 

Your soaps are lovely and I think you have quite a knack for coloring and swirling.  I wish I had that knack.  My colors have not been thrilling me.


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## SueSoap (Mar 13, 2013)

Wow!  Lovely-looking soap.  You've been busy!


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## crysvan (Mar 13, 2013)

the soaps are so pretty!!


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## Lion Of Judah (Mar 13, 2013)

lovely array of soaps , just so inviting ..... love your use of color. what type of colorants you work with the most?


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## cliff (Mar 13, 2013)

Nice. I also think the hanger swirls you have done look awesome. Great job.


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## Basia (Mar 13, 2013)

Wow, they all look great !!!


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## Timber (Mar 14, 2013)

Thanks everyone for the kind words


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## Maythorn (Mar 14, 2013)

Just when I was dazzled by the first 3 there was more!  Really nice, all of them, Timber.


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## Timber (Mar 14, 2013)

Lion Of Judah said:


> lovely array of soaps , just so inviting ..... love your use of color. what type of colorants you work with the most?



Well, I haven't been doing this long enough to have a "most", haha.  I've tried a few naturals like cocoa powder, paprika and annatto, also some oxides and FD&C dyes, green clay, activated charcoal, and even food colors which morphed but were still somewhat interesting.  I'm just a beginner experimenting and having fun   I see a lot of amazing soaps on this forum I would love to be able to replicate but I'm not there yet.


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## kellistarr (Mar 14, 2013)

You've been doing a marvelous job!  That hanger swirl is really good.  I need to try my hand at that.


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## Mommysoaper (Mar 15, 2013)

I love all of your soaps, especially the kentish rain.  Gorgeous!


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## Jerry S (Mar 17, 2013)

You've done a great job with all your soaps Timber...I especially like the swirls that you came up with an the use of all the colors...your soaps are great....I especially like the save you made with that one rebatch with the greenish tops..also that hanger swirl is first class..I don't get in the Photo gallery as much as I should and after reviewing all you great work it makes me want to contribute a few shots of some of my recent soaps...Great work..
jerry


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## Timber (Mar 17, 2013)

Jerry S said:


> I don't get in the Photo gallery as much as I should and after reviewing all you great work it makes me want to contribute a few shots of some of my recent soaps...
> jerry



Please do!


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## liafrank (Mar 18, 2013)

I love the pomace with cocoa powder, gorgeous!


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## BotanicalWitch (Mar 21, 2013)

Money was tight this year all my friends and family got soap and varies Bath products (not that soap supplies are cheap)


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## christinak (Mar 22, 2013)

Very pretty!  What do you color with, I notice your pinks and blues are so vibrant!


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## Timber (Mar 22, 2013)

Thanks!  I've used a lot of things and keep experimenting.  For the pictures in this thread:
Most of the blues are different strengths of FD&C Green #5 dye.
The greens are mostly green oxide.
The bright pink is FD&C Red #33
Browns are mostly cocoa powder or cinnamon.
The salmon color is Kroger brand red food coloring, which morphs with the high pH, but I like what it morphs into and use it intentionally.  I have heard that food colors fade, but some of the bars are over 6 months old at this point and still look fine.
Activated charcoal and french green clay for black/gray/gray-greens.
The Baby Powder bars had red and blue M&P dyes I got at Michaels, which also morphed.
For yellows and yellow-orange I have used annatto or paprika infused OO.

Still looking for a "Blue" blue that holds up with lye.


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## Marilyna (Mar 22, 2013)

Timber said:


> The salmon color is Kroger brand red food coloring, which morphs with the high pH, but I like what it morphs into and use it intentionally.  I have heard that food colors fade, but some of the bars are over 6 months old at this point and still look fine.


 
If your red food coloring is Red 40 it won't fade.  Red 3 will fade almost instantly.  The yellow and orange won't fade.  The Blue 1 will turn pink/purple in CP and will fade in very intense sunlight over a few hours.  

Love your coloring.  Where did you get the Green #5?


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## Timber (Mar 22, 2013)

I got it at *Greencastle Soap*, which is just a couple miles from me.  I get a lot of my supplies there.


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## Timber (Apr 15, 2013)

So this pic represents a couple of "firsts":  my first try at a tiger stripe, and also the first use of my new wire cutter.  The wire cutter cost me $0 since I made it with some scrap wood, a broken guitar tuner and an old mandolin string.  It worked great though!

I made some boo-boos with the soap but overall I'm happy with it.


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## Ancel (Apr 15, 2013)

That is one gorgeous soap! So you found a blue that worked after all? And do you play mandolin and guitar as well:crazy:


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## Badger (Apr 16, 2013)

Wow, that is a beautiful soap!  I love the stripes and the colors are gorgeous!  Is it scented?  As for making the wire cutter for free, that is way more talent then I have... I failed at making a soap mold, hehehe


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## Marilyna (Apr 16, 2013)

That soap is fabulous!!! Great job!!  Can you post a picture of your wire cutter?  I also have a homemade one that works great.


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## WallFlower (Apr 16, 2013)

So many pretty soaps! I just kept "oohing" and "awing" at them all.


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## Timber (Apr 16, 2013)

Thanks everyone :grin: I'm calling this color combo "Morning Sky". I'm trying for the effect of that time just before dawn when the highest clouds are turning orange but the lower ones are still dark. 

Marilyna: I will try to take a pic of the cutter and post it when I get home tonight.

Badger: It's Juniper Breeze FO.

Ancel: The blue is Green #5 at a higher concentration than I have tried before.  It came out mottled, though; I think because I also added TD but not enough.  Re: playing...I used to, a bit, but I have also done instrument building and repair and still have a lot of parts and stuff hanging around.


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## Timber (Apr 16, 2013)

*for Marilyna as requested*



Marilyna said:


> Can you post a picture of your wire cutter?  I also have a homemade one that works great.



Here are a couple pics for you.  It is an über-simple, no-better-than-it-needs-to-be tool: just a piece of oak, a tuner and a 0.014 plain mandolin string.  There is a screw on the other side that holds the loop end.  As you can see, the tuner is missing the key so I just use pliers to tighten it, but it works perfectly.  The key to success was putting the groove in the base of the cutting jig, so the wire can finish the full depth of cut.  The end of the raised base section is exactly 1 inch from the cut, so it's easy to align the loaf for the next slice.

Would love to see your homemade one too :grin:


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## Badger (Apr 17, 2013)

Nicely done, that is still more difficult then I can do, lol!


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## Marilyna (Apr 17, 2013)

Very cool!  Love it!  I will post mine as soon as I can.  Recovering from major dental work.


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## Timber (Apr 17, 2013)

Marilyna said:


> Very cool!  Love it!  I will post mine as soon as I can.  Recovering from major dental work.



Ouch  I hope you feel better soon!


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