Search results

You’re trinity of sunflower, corn and lard is unique and peaking my interest! And you’re lollipop swirl is already looking beautiful 😍

Those are excellent points. I’m sorry if I came off as trying to advise all people on their personal and regional plumbing. At least 2/3rds of humans live outdoors in open air shelters with no plumbing, so I wasn’t trying to encompass everyone across the globe, but this is an international forum...

Are you looking for soap ingredients that work for your skin, or are you looking for ingredients to make your own soap? If you look at a list of ingredients as a purchaser (without percentages) I imagine you’ll get a huge range of soap qualities, whether they contain the same oils, many that...

#soapmakerproblems

Initially I tried to solve this problem by dipping a straw into EOs, placing my finger over the top of the straw and “dropping” the oils the way we did as kids with soda into our mouth. Didn’t work. The weight, viscosity and excess lubrication made the EOs slip out unpredictably, causing even...

I’m SO glad you asked this question, because I’ve wondered why essential oil suppliers have such TERRIBLE dispensing engineering!!!!! Putting conspiracy theories aside that the industry wants us to waste our precious fragrances 😆 why not sell fragrances in a dispensable way so that we don’t have...

I could see really hard water and really old plumbing eventually having issues. In my opinion, most households can handle regular usage of homemade soap without stressing that they might be damaging their plumbing. But hey, like you said, why not use a lower SF and chelators to minimize risk and...

The sciences definitely seem to come naturally to you! It seems second nature. My last chemistry course was in high school. It was the only class that I got a 98 or above on every assignment. I enjoyed that I was being graded against a “correct” mathematical answer, rather than being judged on...

I started using 3% SF on my third batch of soap (down from 5%) for a few reasons. I wanted to lower the chances of rancidity, minimize “lard” smell, hopefully help lather and MAYBE extend the life of my waste lines. About a third of my work is plumbing and surprisingly I almost never see heavy...

Where did you get your chemistry knowledge? Were you formally educated in this way or did you learn from lots of personal research?

You’re soap looks beautiful! It makes me SO happy to see all this experimenting. My favorite posts on this forum are usually experiments, unsure results, but a willingness to try/possibly fail and learn. Thank you @Vicki C

I’m super glad you decided to participate! If there was an award for most original recipe it’s safe to presume you would get it. I learned so much from your soap creation, thanks!!

My fresh (two weeks cured) grocery store soap is already my best soap! I’m happy because I would hope that each batch would get better, but considering that I plan on experimenting a lot in the beginning, I figure I’ll have plenty of ups and downs. Jessica raved about this “uncured” soap and...

That is perfectly acceptable! The only reason I specified at least 3 oils is because I want to learn from you all and if everyone made Castile or 100% CO with 20% SF I might not learn as much. I selfishly created this challenge to learn. This is an unofficial challenge, and I think the rules...

Thank you! And WOW!! You’re really hitting the ground running making so much soap 🧼 That’s great. I’ve found this forum more helpful than I ever imagined. Eventually we’ll be teaching the newbs too. I’m certainly never going to stop making soap ☺️

Thank you @AliOop 🙏 My last batch of high lard soap is 3% SF. I’m curious to see how that one looks at 8 weeks.

General lighting vs reflective lighting. It’s almost like the way you can’t notice a scratch on your watch until the light hits it just right. But mostly I’m wondering about the glossy-ness you might expect from high lard soaps. Thanks!!

This soap has cured for over 8 weeks. It’s VERY hard, no DOS. It does smell “lardy” after it gets wet. I think the smell is primarily due to the brand I used (armor) because my next batch doesn’t smell like lard (I used snow cap on my second batch). A side note, I think eucalyptus EO might not...

I’m thrilled with your systematic approach. Excellent work!

If the soap sucks I’ll vocally blame you!! 😆 I’ve had a fascination with canola and sunflower lately because it’s easy to balance them to get an oleic and linoleic profile that pleases me. I think olive oil is great, but it’s slippery in a good way. Canola oil seems to grab my skin a bit more...