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AAAGH! I've just taught myself to crochet, am now trying Tunisian crochet, and have been eyeballing how to dye websites. You are all enablers! My contribution is an entire site devoted to mixing up custom colors using Koolaid or other grocery store stuff...

This is why you have to make a new batch or two every week. That way you have so much soap to use that patience becomes easier :D

I don't notice any fading with Alkanet. And thanks :) I need to re-make that batch with better texture.

I find undercured soaps kind of harsh and drying. Feel free to use them now - see if and how they get better as they age :)

I got some la Bomb colors from Brambleberry in a trade, and they work nicely. But honestly, I feel like I've gotten good color from food coloring as well. I'm almost tempted to use kool-aid for color and scent sometimes if I wasn't afraid of staining the tub ..

You dont need to change the lye water. Pretend your recipe required a total of 12 oz OO. Just make the soap batter as directed by the lye calculator, but keep 8 oz of olive oil out of it (only use 4 oz OO at first). Split the batter exactly in half. To the uncolored, add 4 oz plain OO, to the...

Ill be the outlier - I use almost exclusively EOs because most FO's smell odd and perfumey to me, I've only found a couple that I really like. If you order fairly large bottles of the less expensive EO's and mix your own blends you can come up with lots of options. Off the top of my head you...

My 100% coconut oil for laundry soap doesn't overheat - but it does get hot and gels very fast. Soap closer to room temp when you do, and don't fill the mold up all the way. A slab mold - even if it's a box with a plastic liner - will cool off quicker. Ive never needed an ice bath. You can...

If the pH meter isn't recently calibrated, and if you didn't dilute the soap in distilled water before testing (I think its supposed to dilute at 10%), I don't know that I would trust that reading. And in any case, pH doesn't tell you if saponification has completed or if there is still excess...

Ugh sorry you're going through this! What con artists! I would check out your local medical supplies company - they might have some to rent and be able to advise you on different types.

Is it significantly cooler in your house? During the winter I find I do need to put my mold on the heating pad to completely gel it or it stays soft longer.

I've ordered a lot from SMR, and that has been my experience. Good quality, good prices, good service (once I had to change a submitted order and they were really helpful), and the shipping is slow. Thats fine, sometimes I pay for expedited shipping, but usually not. Their combo 2lb wooden mold...

Any of my anhydrous (all oil) body butters or salves tend to get grainy after a while. Which is why I switched to making emulsified body butters like this one: http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.ca/2010/01/formulating-with-oils-body-butter.html

I made a crochet soap saver sack from this pattern: http://kizzy-knits.blogspot.com/2012/03/free-pattern-soap-saver-sack.html.

lol that's how we ended up with our chop saw. Those are very nice molds!!

I've made a soap with 100% avocado purée instead of water, and I love it. I used some French green clay to keep the green.

I dont use a neti, but I use an Ayr bottle with saline rinse and it helps me a ton. Like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Ayr-Soothing-Mixture-Packets-Applicator/dp/B000NVSP0S?th=1 +++++eleventy billion for using distilled water or you can get a brain eating amoeba!

I found similar at a thrift store, and WITH a support wire frame and cover - its my go-to slab mold and I love it so. You could easily find or make a box to be a support frame. The only thing is that you will probably need to trim the edges to make them square, but hey - can always use more soap...

I have had soaps take up to 5 days before I could unmold them - they were full water and did not gel. So just leave it for a while and check later.

Stick blender - your stand mixer doesn't go fast enough to really mix the molecules up. I've also had luck with just leaving the darn batter alone for ~ 10 min while I do something else :)