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It's possible your liquid/milk was kept too cold and the lye did not properly dissolve.

I think that’s a great idea. Let me know if that works.

Err, I don't really go by a percentage. You really only need a small amount. For my 1,400g batch (of fats), I use a teaspoon. For my 3,400g batch (of fats), I use 2 tsp.

I freeze my “rice water” because I want it to be ready for when I want to make soap. The rice flour has never “scorched” on me. After I add the 50:50 lye solution. Once the lye solution melts the “rice water,” the solution is at a perfect temperature to make soap. No waiting for it to Coll down...

Correct. I don’t think of it as “rice water” though. It’s just the water needed for my recipe with some rice flour added. 🤣 I freeze that and then add my 50/50 water/lye solution* when I am ready to make my soap. Does that make sense? *I master batch a large amount of 50:50 water:lye solution.

I used to use the rinse water from when I make rice. And you certainly can do that. But now I just use rice flour because it’s super easy. I weigh out the water of an upcoming batch and add 1-2 tsp of rice flour (depending on the size of my batch) and freeze it. An hour or so before I make...

I used potato starch in soap once. I mixed some in distilled water and added my 50:50 lye solution. It became a gummy mass on the bottom of my container.

Because butter and egg whites contain a good amount of water.

@AliOop I completely understand your point of view. 😘 Ooops! Sorry. It’s rice flour. 🤪🤣

This is just my opinion but goat’s milk soap is overrated. And it’s such a pain to soap with that it’s not worth the annoyance of working with it as an ingredient. I’ve experimented with lots of different things in my soap. Egg yolks. Puréed cranberries. Beer. Wine. Carrot juice. Coffee...

Today was good soapy fun! Making gift bags for my neighborhood Bunco friends for the Fourth of July. Both of these are two-ish years old. One on the left was made using Oregon Trail’s Bonsai. One on the right Nurture Soap’s Creation. Both still strong and fragrant! Adding lip balm and body...

Could the soap dish be the problem? A dish that can’t drain water after use will cause the soap to disintegrate in weird patterns if left to sit in water. Do you have any other bars in use that rest in a different dish to compare? Is the soap squishy?

My July is jam-packed. Will have to sit this one out. But will definitely play around with the concept of warm and cool colors w/non-challenge batches.

As long as you do not reach the smoke point of a particular fat, you are not adversely affecting the fat. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “natural beneficial properties.’ Could you expand on that a little more?

Also, I’d keep the sf% at 2%. Just to be on the safe side.

While I have not used peanut oil, I have used sesame oil at 20%. One batch is coming up on two years of age and not a single bar has showed DOS or smells the slightest bit off. And I didn’t use anything in the soap to try to prevent it going bad. And sesame oil is higher in linoleic than peanut...

50+6 months. 🤣 But I’ve been burning my oatmeal for years so that’s no excuse. 🤦‍♀️

Work has been stupid stressful lately. Poured/cut this batch last weekend and every time I walk past it I get a little dopamine bump. NS’s Grapefruit and Bergamot. And then I walk back into my home office and pull my hair out from frustration.

I heat mine on the stove in a SS pot. I sometimes, umm, forget that I’m melting my fats and, well, well, let’s just say that this is how I discovered that your fats can get REALLY hot and are fine in soap.* I use the stovetop mostly because I master batch my fats and the volume won’t all fit in...

Yay! That’s great! I heat my solid fats (lard, palm, cocoa butter, tallow, etc.) pretty hot. I sometimes see peole say that they “gently” heat their oils. I’m not sure where the idea came from that fats are fragile. They are not. When I melt mine they can get up to 200 degrees. And they’re just...