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Time to get my Venn diagrammer out! My wife and I both love all 3, but our two boys detest cilanto and anise. They don't yet try to escape the house when they smell patchouli...

Are there any though? My theory is that there are a few things that people either love or hate: patchouli, anise and cilantro are my list so far. And everyone I know falls on the same side with all of these!

Ironically, I decided to undertake this experiment to better understand what affect lye concentrations have, and in order to be able to soap more consistently. Suffice to say, it's a big FAIL on both counts. Off to gently bounce my soap bars against each other....

Thanks everyone, lots to read here and many rabbit holes to go down ;-) I'm not sure about the gel, though: I put them in individual molds, so they likely didn't get warm enough to gel anyway? I also didn't insulate or wrap them at all (I rarely do). I'll open one up to see if there's partial...

What soapy thing am I doing tomorrow? My first ever rebatch because my third batch today seized on me (look here for my description of the first two batches). Sure enough, when I went back to read the FO review, there are 2 reviews and both say "omg this seized! never use in cp soap" so I'm not...

Hmmm ok thanks @DeeAnna . I was basing that assumption on this Soap Queen article and a few other things I'd read. Maybe it was just a fluke, but I was working at the highest possible concentration she recommends and she's right, it WAS tough to work with, but only because I almost burned out my...

I usually only have a bath when I don't feel great and will put in whatever bubbles are around. I've only made one batch of bathbombs and I must've used the kind of colour that sticks to everything, so it was an ungody mess when I got out. Even when not using bathbombs, there's no better way to...

Ok so I've been using a variety of recipes and not paying all that much attention to water amounts. I decided to do 2 small unscented/uncoloured batches of the same recipe: Coconut Oil: 20% Lard: 30% Olive Oil: 30% Grapeseed Oil 15% Castor Oil 5% One used 1.5:1 water and the other used 2.65:1...

Thanks! I'll probably go with lard primarily, stearic acid in lotions and maybe find some soy wax. But how can I tell which is the right soy wax? Just GW 415? My supplier sells Eco SoyWax Q210, Q220, and Q230 but that seems to mainly be for candles? Mind you, when I read the GW 415 description...

I had a soap playdate, too! About 10 days ago a friend emailed asking me to show her how to make soap...I figured she should come over the same afternoon! We made a triple batch of my usual recipe (which will no longer be my usual recipe, without palm and all): unscented and uncoloured, lavender...

Thanks for the advice! I don't mind lard at all; easily available and makes good soap at 100%, I know. I didn't know you could swap straight for palm; that's very easy! I've still got a pound of stearic acid to do something with :-P

So....a year ago when I started soaping, I bought a big tub of palm oil. Then I learned more about sourcing of palm oil and decided I wasn't going to use it anymore once I ran out, and indeed, I ran out this very weekend and had to tweak a recipe on the fly :-P My problem: I need new recipes...

I walked around the house and discovered batches of soap curing! I wish I'd taken a before photo, because I was feeling a bit like Old Mother Hubbard with such empty curing shelves. But I'd been making more soap than usual...where was it all? 45 minutes later, I'd rounded it all up from other...

Made @Dawni 's Neem Soap! My kids can't stand Anise, so my EO mix was: cedarwood 20%, lemongrass 30%, sage 10%, tea tree 40%. On the day I made it, strange parts of the house smelled like Neem. Not the basement kitchen where it was, but the upstairs bedrooms or the back room or something. On...

Yeah I wouldn't trust anything from these guys. Cherry essential oil? Strawberry? Even the ones that could be legit EOs (bergamot, basil, etc) are too cheap to be real....

All right I did it! Small 4-bar batch. Got a little extra cedar EO in there, but should be fine. Was a very lovely shade of cappuccino; will see what it looks liek (and smells like!) as it saponifies and cures....

Great, thanks. I think I will try your recipe and see how it goes with CP. I think I've only used used EOs in CP once (patchouli)....I have a lot of EOs, but they're only 5ml or 15ml each, so I can't bear using a whole bottle in for a wash-off product (a few drops goes really far in my other...

I've ordered the most from NDA....I REALLY like their stuff (but I have almost all of it now...ooopie....guess it's not hard for me to make that $100 minimum....). I've ordered FO from WSP and NF in the States and had them shipped to my MIL in Chicagoland. Same thing with supplies from TKB. Base...

@Dawni That looks great! After your description, I was expecting a hot mess, but that looks very intentional and sophisticated. And, thanks to your extra-long description (:p), you've convinced me to make a batch (CP) for my teen! I do have all those EOs...what percentages did you use?

Thanks for the info @Steve85569 . All right, I just made @Alfa_Lazcares 's recipe, quoted above, with 1/2 coconut cream and a 20% SF. Boy, is 50% a lot of salt! I mean, salt is heavy, but I couldn't believe how much I had to add to get to 250g. Scented with CC Sea Salt and Driftwood and TKB's...