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yeah, I've read many of the past posts here that discussed this. But also heard of a company selling soap high in neem oil to folks in Middle East, who are pestered by sand flies. I understand that soap is a "wash off" product -- but in the same way folks tell us that shea or cocoa butter...

I ordered some EOs and it took a few days just to create the label and then a week to ship. It took more than 8 days just to get a few EOs. IMHO, pretty pathetic. I ordered the same supplies from Amazon and received them, made soap and cut the bars looooong before the BB package finally arrived.

@IrishLass - I was wondering if you ever created a soap with catnip or other insect-repelling ingredients. and if you did, if they were ever effective? I hear that neem oil used in high percentages works as well.

I'm more of a "chemistry" kind of soap maker -- so the oils I use are there to serve a purpose. I'm a big fan of Sunflower -- both HO and regular. I try to avoid soft oils high in Linoleic because I'm told it can lead to DOS. In my formular - I try to keep the linoleic number under 15. I've been...

100% agree that numbers don't tell the entire story. And that soap making is just as much art as science.

If you're asking how to make perfumes (i.e., scents) last in CP soapmaking - there a lot of techniques folks recommend. As stated above - adding your essential oils or fragrance near the end of your process (when it reaches trace) is one way. Another way is to "anchor" your scents by using an...

I pay 77¢ per pound of fat trimmings. I freeze them to make taking off all the meat easier. 5 lbs gives me about 1 pound of meat (I wonder if I should make dog food from this?) and approx 2 lbs of tallow. I've approached local BBQ places to acquire the fat they trim off their briskets -- but...

I'm assuming you mean that my EO calculations should be proportionate to the part of the batch I'm scenting. So if I'm only scenting ⅓ of the batch, I should only use ⅓ of the recommended amount of EOs. Which seems logical. But then, I got to thinking about my current charcoal soap: I didn't...

Let's say I separate my batch into thirds at early trace. I add activated charcoal to one ⅓ batch I keep another third as my base. and I add my scented bentonite to the last third. (so that ALL EOs are in this portion of the batch) Then I make pretty swirly things... When cured, will only the...

yeah -- using only these oils gives you funky numbers -- but it's not very realistic since none are "cleaning" oils (they all lack lauric & myristic acids). the epiphany I had was how closely tied these acids were although the total score may vary. I had no idea. soap qualities of...

I had my soap seize. So, scraping everything into the mold wasn't an option. And clean up became a hassle. But yeah, under normal circumstances, I could see how a soaper shouldn't have that much to clean. Thanks all for the helpful thoughts.

I'm working many hours doing the same. Welcome to the club. This takes a ton of time to research. You'll need to learn how to use a soap calculator. One way I learned is by recreating other people's recipes... a lot of soapmakers will list the ingredients (including distilled water and lye) in...

thanks for feedback. I found another post like this one here: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/cleaning-up-after-first-successful-attempt-at-soapmaking.83572/ but it didn't really deal with working with charcoal. I finally got my plastic charcoal mixing container cleaned with lots of...

Would love to hear how folks clean up their equipment following a soap-making session. Especially after using activated charcoal! I've heard one video say to leave everything in the sink until it becomes soap. But I don't have that luxury. I use up a lot of paper towels to wipe off as much as I...

agree that 45% lye concentration is too "aggressive." will probably drop it back to 40% for future experiments. would love more clarification from this. my understanding is that saponification is complete within 24-48 hours. so no further chemical reactions will take place after this. curing...

no... not during clean up. once the lye water has saponified and all containers that came in contact with the lye water neutralized with white vinegar, I didn't see the point.

About my "mens soap" --- wow! so much to report! So I made another batch using Babassu Oil... plus finally got my Murumuru Butter. In addition, I decided to try some Neem Oil (inspired by Agent Teresa's "defunk da pits" post) So this formula uses Babassu and Murumuru as my cleaning team. This...

Update on "C30 Kitchen Soap" -- So far, so good. I've used it after some cooking and it seems to do well. I took a bar into the shower and got "squeaky clean" with no over drying or tightness of the skin. I had my wife smell-test my arm pits and this "30 cleansing" soap did the trick! No odor...

thanks for reply - I use the same method using a crockpot. I was curious if you ever weighed your fat prior to cooking and tallow to see how much tallow you get per pound of fat. while I didn't expect a 1:1 ratio. I was surprised how much unuseable fat remained. wondered how much fat you...

here's a great video on bath bomb probs: cracks on bombs seem to be caused by not molding properly (not properly packed) or the moisture amount used to keep them together.