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You bring up a good point, and likely a potential problem. I figured that "zap" testing was likely equally inaccurate. At what pH do you feel the zap? If that the same with everyone? Does sensitivity differ to pH? Do you lick the whole bar, or do you trust that the tiny spot you touched is...

Putting soap in my mouth has no appeal to me, but I would do it if I thought it was necessary. If I was going to sell soap, I wouldn't trust that test. I'd use a pH test after 6 weeks to see where it was at that point. If I cut a soap and it doesn't look right (pockets of liquid, or some other...

After my first few batches, I used a bar within a week or two. As soon as the first batch became 6 weeks old, I tried another bar and it was so different from week 1, that I figured testing withing the first few weeks was worthless to use as a basis for adjusting formulas. I have at least 15...

I've yet to put soap in my mouth and I'm really not planning on it anytime soon. From what I've read, if the soap is aged, then even if you measure poorly, excess lye will eventually become inert with time, or something to that effect. I have so much soap, I'm sure every bar I use will be...

The lather does appear a bit airy and too dry, but you may also want to check on the water temp in the skuttle. I found out that many soaps fall apart as the temperature of the bowl goes up. Personally, I wouldn't go above 120 F and I usually lather at 100-110.

Very nice video. You saved me the effort of having to jump forward in the video to avoid all the monotonous segments that are in most videos. If you have video editing software, it's easy to combine the two videos and then reload the resulting new one to youtube. You can then delete the old...

Like many things, cheap or expensive is relative. I consider it dirt cheap. I can get fat from some sources quite inexpensively. I don't use fancy colorants, expensive molds, or commercial cutters. I actually like the smell of soap more than most fragrances, so I don't usually scent it. Not...

And, if you HP the lard soap and then superfat after gel with a vegetable oil, then the animal fat is no more. Myself, I'm on the side that considers using animal fat the most ethical way of making soap and much prefer it to be smeared on my skin than vegetable oils. ;) I'm really liking my...

In an effort to slow trace, I started making my lye solution with ice or frozen liquids. Once my lye is dissolved, the solution is at 60-65 degrees with no waiting. My hard oils have to stay above 75 or they are too thick when I add the cold lye. In essence, the whole mix ends up at room...

My soaps with high percentages of coconut oil have turned out quite nice. I've made sure my superfat % is at least 2% for every 10% increment of coconut oil. In other words, a recipe with 30% CO would have the superfat of at least 6%. I've gotten into the habit of adding an extra 1-2%...

What's so odd about this, is that I wouldn't have guessed there was even a remote chance that I would like soap making, much less develop an addiction. I started out trying to make a decent soap for my wife's sensitive skin and it snowballed before I had a chance to realize what had happened...

I'm only into my 3rd month soap making and I've done about 20-25 batches. So far, everything has been wonderful. Sure, there have been some minor glitches, but I haven't been trying to do time-sensitive stuff like multi-color swirls. However, I have done shaving soaps, pine tar soaps, beer...

Bit of an update. I was hoping to see if it gelled, but I can't get it out of the mold. I used a foot-long 2" PVC pipe, which is what I use for my test batches. The 70% OO mix must be too soft. After 3 days drying and then 12 hours in the freezer, it won't budge. Using the freezer has...

Good to know. So, it sounds like alcohol acts a lot like sugar in regards to generating heat. I'm guessing my procedure of using cold beer and a slow rate of adding the lye has kept my beer mixes from having any trouble. I see lots of youtube videos where the lye is poured into the water within...

I've made 3 soaps using beer as a water replacement. All were different recipes. Today, I made one with 70% olive oil and it went to trace almost immediately, which surprised me with that much OO. So, I did a little search on here and noticed warnings to use flat beer and boil off the alcohol...

You could add one color without too much added difficulty. It's the swirling that takes time. You can even stick blend in the color before adding the lye to your oils. Nothing will be rushed before the lye hits the fats. And since your putting it in individual molds, you can cram it in, even...

I think that about sums up where I'm at. My last 3 shaving soaps have worked very well, but I'm finding the attempt to improve them, enjoyable. I think it will be baby-steps the rest of the way.

That's pretty neat. The amount of lye is important, but so is the concentration. It would be easy enough to enter this in soap calc and reproduce it with your current lye source.

How small are your batches? My scale reads in increments of 5 grams, so when the batch gets small, everything is a bit less precise. My last batch was 8 oz of fats. That's still probably a year's worth of soap, and I'm not sure I should mix up less than that. I have no trouble giving away...

An attempt with a new formula My latest attempt is a dual lye shaving soap with stearic acid, CO and lard. It turned out very well. A definite step above my last one, which I also was happy with. This one gives an even more dense, creamy lather. I debated on adding clay to this one, but...