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Humble Pie

Making shave soap is not for the faint hearted! It’s like you can toss out the window most everything you have learned about soapmaking! 🤣🤣🤣 I am surprised by your comment about taking a long time to trace. I use stearic acid instead of soy wax in my soap, and it traces almost immediately...

I’m glad you didn’t throw it out. It will be good soap after it cures, just rustic looking!

I find soapmakers in my area will call their product natural if it is homemade, even if it is melt and pour in a neon color scented with fragrance oil. Mine are all cold or hot processed soaps with natural colors and essential oils. I just try my best to educate my customers, and if someone...

If you are able, make a small batch with exactly the same lots of all your raw materials EXCEPT the old castor oil. Use brand new castor oil instead. Use the same molds, cure the same way, etc. Then monitor for DOS. If no DOS in the same time period, your old castor oil was definitely the cause...

Did I read right that only some batches that used the old castor oil developed DOS? Anyway, I applaud you keeping careful notes on each batch. It really helps trace back when you see a problem. I feel comfortable selling after the curing period. That being said, I ran into a DOS problem 18...

I use a wire cutter too and see these sometimes. It's purely cosmetic. The wires can "pop" an air bubble or catch and pull out a little piece of the charcoal.

I'm disappointed Soapee is going away too. It was so easy to use when the recipe required a dual lye or additives. It even recalculated lye when using citric acid as a chelator. I will try out lyecalc.com.

Soda ash can be caused by a high amount of water in your recipe. You might want to drop the ratio a bit - say to 1.7 or 1.5.

When I make my coffee soap, I add the lye to cooled brewed coffee. It heats up more than water alone. I would like to try your method of having the lye brew the coffee and skip the coffeemaker step! As long as you allow the lye / coffee mixture to cool, it should not overheat your soap batter...

Welcome Sting! You are learning from the best!

Your old lard from 2022 probably did not cause the problems you had. If anything, your bars may develop DOS months down the road if the lard was going rancid. It would be an interesting experiment to make another batch with the 2022 lard now that you fixed the recipe. I bet it will turn out...

I use stearic acid in shaving soaps, and only do it hot process. My recipe works best temperature is around 55 - 65 C before I mix in the lye.

I got a chuckle out of your description as Philippino fishball soup! Another thing that could affect how quickly your batter comes to trace is how hot your lye water and oils / butters were when you started. The hotter they are, the faster it traces. I am learning that when you use honey you...

Cool stuff! I make shave soap but in a cylindrical mold and cut into pucks so the water can evaporate out.

I like these small plastic totes. Got them from Lowes. They hold quite a bit but are not very heavy when full. They are pretty durable - my first set lasted 7 years.

Beautiful soap! I love your instructions. I felt like I was making the soap alongside you!

Spicy Lime. I use it in a hot process soap so the citrus sticks well.

I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work. Otherwise I love my wool dryer balls! Haven’t bought fabric softener in many years!

I bought from him last summer and they are nice sturdy bottles.