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Inspired by @KiwiMoose and @Mobjack Bay, I'm considering soy wax for my CP soap. I wondering what qualities it brings to soap, beyond being affordable and vegan. Lather? Skin feel? Hardness? Something else? I found a local supplier of soy wax, but they sell a kilo of soy wax and a kilo of shea...

Thanks so much!! I'm doing some EO blend testing, so it's a blend of rosemary, juniper, spearmint and peppermint. So far the mints are winning out - even though together they are less than a third of the blend - but I'm hoping the rosemary and juniper come out as the soap cures. Bamboo teak...

@blueginkgo: I love your color combination! The tops are stunning! @KiwiMoose : Wow! Just wow! So beautiful and intricate!

I did my first line pour! I was shooting for a bit more white, but I'm excited about how it came out. I'm happiest that the two shades of green came through. ETA: I should have photographed this in daylight, but I was so happy I just had to share with the forum right now (now being evening...

Thanks for all your positive feedback!! And @The_Emerald_Chicken : Those straight lines were definitely not expertise. It was just a matter of how quickly each layer of soap hardened in the mold. Instantaneously!

Beautiful soap! A "simple" in-the-pot-swirl also needs skill! Your colors are so well defined! Really nice!

Such beautiful soap!! I'm with @Dawni. I like the swirls the best.

I'm happy you asked! I used the same mica - Peacock Blue by Micas and More - in decreasing amounts with each layer. However, I wasn't sure how much contrast I was going to get, so to increase my chances of contrast I used White Satin Mica for the top layer in addition to the blue. Each layer...

Thanks for your responses!! Such kind words! It's very tricky because I think it has to be a certain kind of accelerating FO. Not the soap-on-a-stick, solid-the-moment-it-hits-the-batter FO, but one that gives you a second or two to mix in the fragrance and pour into the mold.

Thanks!!

Does the matcha stay that nice olive green, or will it turn brown during the cure?

One of my biggest frustrations in my 11 months of soap making has been accelerating fragrance oils. I finally got brave – and organized – enough to use that power to my advantage. I made a 3-layered soap in a small loaf mold (600g of oil). Here's what I did: I had all my mica and fragrance oil...

I had a soap scum issue too. I started added 1% citric acid to my recipes and . . . no more scum! I dissolve the citric acid with some of the liquid from the recipe and add it to the lye/liquid mixture once all the lye has dissolved. The citric acid does "eat" some of the lye, so I make sure to...

@linne1gi : Your soap is stunning! Any tips for the rest of us?

I decided at one point that I was just going to change one thing at a time in my recipe. That way I would know the impact of that certain ingredient. (This is after making many changes in a recipe and then not being certain why the soap felt better or worse to us.) In your case, that might mean...

Thanks so much for this!

Thanks for your responses! After it's been cleaned with soap and water, do I need to also disinfect with alcohol? Or will soap and water make it clean enough to store the new oil in?

I have found an independent local olive oil producer who is willing to give me (!!!) about 18 liters of olive oil. I have a bucket with a hermetically seal-able lid that was previously only used for olive oil. How can I make sure it's clean enough for this new oil? Wash well with soap and hot...

I switch out some of my olive oil with high oleic sunflower oil. I like the feel of sunflower oil in soap, and it's about half the price of olive oil where I live.

Which fragrances do you like from Micas and More? I've tried two I really like: Burst of Energy and Lavender & Apricot. Both soaps were made recently, so I can't yet report on how long they last. I can say that they were both well-behaved: no discoloring, no ricing, no acceleration.