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Hi Everyone, I have a few batches of soap under my belt since I returned to soap making. I've been watching a few YouTube videos for inspiration and thought I'd try something new (to me). I've done a few batches in the past with swirls but never anything intricate. Anyway, I set up a loaf mould...

I'm only a simple engineer but I think 28% of 30% is 8.4%. :cool: As I said, I am 'remembering' figures from a long time ago. What I do remember with some certainty is that after a relatively short time - i.e. not 6 months to a year - the vast majority of the weight contributed by the water...

That was something I was concerned about when I bought the bags (under $5/100 so not too worried). but it hasn't been a problem. Some of my small ingredient labels got rubbed off because of the way I packed and transported them. Otherwise all good.

Hey All, apologies for my tardy response. I’ve been a bit caught up with the refugee event we were doing and struggling a little with a “man-cold”. Many thanks for all the comments and reading material. It seems my understanding was a little simplistic and my memory was playing tricks again...

Hi All, We had our event today and raised about $900 “selling” soap, candles and honey. We also had some fun. Thanks to everyone for your encouragement. I’m exhausted and having a hot toddy before heading to bed. 🙄😝

Hi MobJack Bay, FYI, I spent a day or so playing with Excel and the tool now has the option to use lye concentration as a variable. I’ve limited it to 5 different concentrations that were suggested to me in some articles I was sent. If people prefer a greater range of concentrations I could...

Greetings from Brisbane, I walked away from the spreadsheet and had a good night's sleep. I awoke today with a thought. I had an inkling of how to solve my circular references issue without making macros essential! Even better, it worked. :) I'll upload Simple Soap Designer 2 in 2 versions...

Hi Guys, Quick question on a subject that has bothered me for years. A long time ago I was involved in a discussion along the lines of this post's title. It centred around Castile soaps and leaving them to "mature", for lack of a better word for up to a year. I recall that I did a little...

Hey Fireside, You make me smile. :) I fully agree with your caution over macros. In fact, I don't enable macros on MS Office documents from sources I don't know and trust. That's one of the reasons I didn't password-protect the tool, so anyone with knowledge of VBA could examine it. That and I...

Thanks for going to the trouble of looking it up. It was a good read. Having read it I’m not stressing about it either. I had thought it was some magical way of predicting shelf life outside of the normal variables. I’m learning again how much there is to know compared to what I do know. It’s...

One more thing; I notice that in the graph provided by the soapmakingfriend calculator there is an output called “Longevity”. Does anyone know how that is calculated? I see that my standard recipe doesn’t score well on that variable. 😩

Hi AliOop, I'm always of the opinion that being offended is a choice. It's really hard to offend me. :-) I'm really grateful for the help in improving the tool. If I can incorporate the improvements you have suggested then it will be good for everyone - including myself. So, many thanks for...

Thanks for the link. I'll have a look at it along with the other similar pages I've been reading. I keep hitting the same circular reference issue. I'll try to explain it. With the "Water as % of Oils" method of calculation once the mold volume is entered the volume of oils is easy to...

Hi Fireside, I’m glad you like it (even better if you still like it after you’ve tried it!). Hiding the other sheets was unintentional. There is a solution though. There is a button marked “Show all sheets” that will reveal most of the other sheets. If you prefer to disable macros (i.e the...

Hey AliOop, Thanks for the feedback. I did notice a lot of people using lye concentration while talking about recipes. I did play with that in the spreadsheet but kept getting circular references. I think that was because I really wanted the recipe to recalculate properly according to the...

I had a look at some past winners. Wow! There are some talented people out there. I look forward to seeing how you go. Good luck.

Well done for going outside your comfort zone. I'm curious about the Soap Challenge. What is that?

I thank you for the kind words. 👍 I'm curious about the soap boxes. What do they look like?

Thanks for the tip on lye burns. I'll definitely try that.

Hi Dibbles, Thanks for the positive feedback. I bought the giant tea bags on Temu. I wanted to avoid plastic wrappings despite their ability to preserve fragrance. These soaps will be gone in a couple of days so these bags work well. I measured the bars and bought bags I thought would work but...