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Although I don't use AC, I do have a tip on easier dish cleaning in general-I just toss them into a 5 gallon bucket with a good lid and let them sit a day or two. After that, the soap is now, well, soap, and much easier to clean. My lye water container gets rinsed thoroughly in the sink and put...

I would never use goat's milk in liquid soap. This is just asking for lots of bacterias/molds to grow in there. If you want it for label appeal, use just an ounce in place of some of the water to mix with your KOH, but using all of the batch liquid as goat's milk is just asking for problems. Not...

You are trying to determine cure by loss of moisture weight. Don't. It is not a determination for cure. Cure is time related, not moisture related. Much more is going on during cure than loss of moisture.

Heating pad method is super simple. Lay the heating pad on a temperature safe surface-I use the top of my washer or dryer. I put a thin towel on top of the heating pad. Place the molds on top of that and cover with cardboard (to prevent the next layer from touching the soap), then beach towels...

I live in DFW now, and have to use EDTA. I also had to lower my SF to 2% to avoid horrendous soap scum, even on me! I came from areas with super soft water. My sister-in-law says my soap with EDTA now bubbles much more than when I did not use it.

By the way, you can use a larger mold, just keep it to a smaller batch. I regularly test new scents and such and just pour the small batch into the bottom of my 32 oz oil/48oz total batch weight mold. You simply cut the bars across rather than slice down like you normally would. I don't own...

I did exactly that as my MD also had eczema. She was sold. And started making soap for her family. I brought soap to her entire office. Doctor's get tons of food before Christmas. They were quite excited when I brought soap.

Saponification is different than gel. Gel happens with heat and will speed your unmolding. Saponification takes longer and just does not generate a whole lot of heat. I force gel on mine by using a heating pad on the bottom and insulating well.

Because hand made soap does not have a sales rep that goes to their offices and pushes the product.

I'm so glad you found something to work! My son said he would take over and make soap for me.

I prefer CP because I can get it done and bottled in a little over 2 hours. OR I can get it to trace, walk away, and come back when it is convenient for me. HP just traps you there minding your soap and hoping it doesn't burn. There are much easier recipes to get to trace than 100% OO.

I have hard water, and even when I use EDTA in the soap, I am stuck with a white film on my dishes from hand made soap. I just use the stuff in the bottles now and wear gloves (when I remember).

I tried using jojoba oil and a lot of other more expensive base oils, and my family preferred the higher lard soaps 100% of the time. And those were blind tests. All the same color, all the same shape, all the same scent. Just different recipes and labelled R13, P84, etc, so no clues in the...

Superglue was originally used to close surgical wounds: Dermabond: Surgical Skin Glue And it works quite well to close skin cracks. I used to close my dad's skin cracks, now I close mine when I have too much outside work and forget to wear gloves when washing big pots-also hand sanitizer. Also...

The gal at the end of the bar is looking out into Her Dark Domain (the back yard) watching for nocturnal invaders so she may slay them in a manner Most Foul. Alas, not one will open The Portal to All She Surveys (sliding glass door) for her to end The Travesty of the Invasion of The Others...

I don't use preservatives. Never have, never will. I make enough paste to last about six months. I dilute enough for only about 3 months. I have kept diluted soap right at two years without seeing anything growing under the microscope. I still am only going to dilute enough for three months. I...

He is probably allergic to the synthetic detergents they call commercial soap. I "cured" my eczema by using hand made soap rather than the "soaps" my dermatologist recommended. Keep making him soap. If he does not react by the end of three months, I would consider that he is allergic to...

Yes, your silicon mold probably has some part in that. But you still have a really high water amount. I unmold my recipe from my silicon molds before I go to bed the night it is made. If it is fully gelled, I usually go ahead and cut it (about 15 or so hours after pouring). If you don't feel you...

Actually, the egg was used to test the concentration of the "lye" (potassium carbonate IIRC) rather than the "doneness" of the soap. My dad was in charge of boiling the "lye" until an egg floated. Which is why I know for sure what that test was for. And they called it "lye". So, while I...

I am a big proponent of figure out what works for you. I would say two things, however, is to run every recipe (no matter where you got it) through a lye calculator and always use weights, not volume. If there is a difference, go with the lye calculator. Fatty acids were not as well understood...