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Are you of the Brookstone Soaps I'm finding online? If so, I'm guessing you have been making this recipe for awhile? So what elements have changed since the last time you made it? Or has every single batch of this recipe reacted this way?

The 100% coconut oil soap (0SF) I make for laundry is fantastic for washing my linoleum floor, but just handling it dry dries out my hands. I can't imagine actually washing my face and body with it.

Just FYI, oats do not contain gluten. The Gluten free oats are just oats that are grown and processed without contamination from wheat. Otherwise, the exact same oats as regular ones.

Snappyllama, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've had a few people who remember that homemade farm soap with a look of dismay and think that all handmade soap will be like that. I think there was a great deal of variation in quality from farm to farm.

What was the difference in the amounts of lye in the two recipes?

Sorry.

Got it.

I got that type of soda ash recently on some bars that didn't gel. It was a 3D crystalline structure. Soap wasn't lye heavy, just slow to lose water. It was pretty neat.

Good question! I'd buy a copy if there was. There's so much information about EO usage but a lot of it doesn't seem to apply to soap, and it's really time consuming wading through all of that.

Ok I must have misunderstood what you wrote. So 95% lard, 5% pumpkin oil, and another 5% pumpkin for superfat?

Umm, what's your superfat again? What you wrote above has 0 SF.

Those are glycerin rivers and they seem to happen frequently when titanium dioxide is used. I switched to using kaolin clay to whiten instead. Kaolin doesn't have the same issue.

Ok I couldn't wait so i crocheted an envelope around my 11-month old castile with buffalo wool. I then partially felted it in my sons bath. The lather was still not bubbly, but it was copious foam and not slimey at all.

Oh darn. :) I'm going to try it on two bars anyway. I'll get my friend to felt one for each of us to try out and report back.

Hi all, I looked through the old threads on felted soap but didn't find an answer. Has anyone felted 1-year old Castile bars? A friend wants to try it and I didn't know if it would make the lather better or worse?? Has anyone tried it?

Avocado oil can be used up to 20% without issue, so I would reduce the coconut and add more avocado. Coconut is quick to trace but I don't think avocado is.

I use real honey melted in a little warm water.

I second the added honey. I added some to just a portion of the batter and got a lovely tawny yellow colour.

I render and use lard from a local farmer. I love to use local ingredients so it works for me. I render it over 24 hours on low in my crockpot and it comes out beautiful. The smell while rendering is very much like baking pork chops in the oven. Not offensive at all to me. As for label appeal...

Any idea if the customer is a senior citizen? I've had a few elderly ladies who appeared to have almost no sense of smell and didn't realize. I passed one lady my peppermint and lavender bar which is quite strong and she couldn't smell a thing. And didn't believe me that it was actually quite...