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This worked great. I'm not sure I improved the look of the soap - we'll see - but at least I got to add more fragrance... when I added the FO the batter became a nicer consistency, more pliable. This is helpful. I did mine at 350, but if I'd read that I'd have done it at 200-250. Next time

See my update. I used my food processor & didn't use the grater attachment this time. I used the regular blade & guess what happened: since as we all know soap loves to stick to everything except itself, the soap will coat the inner surface of the processor bowl very finely, and will not stick...

Do you put a cover on? 300F OK? I gotta do this. Update: it's grated & in a 300 oven, covered (with one of those tempered glass things that has a tiny hole). It was still softish so I added only 2 TBSPs of water.

Do you first grate or chop it up or just let the oven do the magic? Add water? I have some ugly but promising stuff that's screaming "rebatch me! I have such potential!"

It is lovely! Question to all the experienced soapers here - since there is no set formula as to how much water to add to a rebatch, is it possible to add no extra water? Can I just grate finely, put a cover on, and let it melt? My first rebatch I added too much water & the bars took quite a...

I'm actually not nervous anymore - after doing it a few times I narrowed down the moment of true lye anxiety - for me it's when emptying the crystals into a plastic cup before adding the crystals to water. That's really the *only* time you can truly mess up, and if you do it gently with the...

Great. I like to add some sugar; this is another step that can be done at the outset. I've been known to forget to add something until too late. Like, when it's in the mold.

I handled soap dough the day after without gloves. Got two very puckered palms which I washed off with lots of cold water. Never again. Always use gloves.

When you add lye to sugar water, does it heat up A LOT, bubble, fizz, etc. Anything that could be hazardous. I have never had a true accident but I did have an unexpected occurrence that could have resulted in an accident. I added lye to half-ice water, the crystals didn't totally dissolve. I...

Or perhaps there is an error on their website. That's an easy error to make. I would email them. It's either wrong on the bottle or wrong on the website. They should know this so as to make whatever change should be made. Also, it's so hard to know whether a scent will seize. They have very...

No weird lye reactions? I'm getting over it but I suffer from a certain amount of "lye anxiety." I don't want any surprises.

Other than their LoTV, which of their FOs have you used & liked? Some of their combination scents look interesting.

Not hot process per se but high temperature hot process (HTHP). You warned it could be dangerous. When I wrote that comment, I had tried HTHP twice and nary a volcano in sight, so I had to do a trad stovetop hot process. I thought perhaps this happened because my lye hadn't heated up enough but...

Thanks, Ali for you (and DeAnna) making me aware of the risks. For now I'm sticking to cold process but I'll keep this in mind for the future because of my latest dud experiment (in hot process; it went thru an interesting stage that would have made a nice cold process soap, which I'll...

Thanks for that caveat, Saponificarian! They do have a lot of other items that look promising, which are skin safe.

I am obsessed with attempting fluid hot process soap (or high temp hot process soap) so after two fails I tried again last night. Another fail. The lye and oils were around 210F. But I noticed something interesting: after mixing with a rubber spatula, and stick blending for no longer than 30...

maneuver

Thank you for the warning. If you don't mind a rustic look, is this a bad thing?

And how this happens is what I need to understand. I have to read your pages & Prof. Dunn's book again. I'm sure the answer is in there. (Side but important point about emulsification: I've never liked the word "trace" - to me it's a meaningless jargon term and sometimes it doesn't apply...

Thanks - sometimes it's hard to know when one is being a PITA and hijacking a thread, or being useful. Believe it or not, I actually went to bed thinking about exactly this. We must have had a Vulcan mind meld last night. When I woke up, what you wrote occurred to me - but I'm glad you wrote...