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To get fast saponification and the "volcano" you must use high heating oils like coconut. Otherwise it's faster than regular HP, but not the "instant finished soap". Always always always run your recipe through a lye calculator and double check. I also suggest using fresh sodium hydroxide...

Coconut oil saponifies quickly and generates heat I think, that's probably why it gelled so quickly.

You may never be able to stand the smell of lard, it's an individual thing. I can smell Fierce a couple hundred yards upwind, I think, and not in a good way (I think it reeks). Always barely melt lard, that "cooked bacon" smell is a result of getting it too hot. Ditto for beef tallow, it...

Better slow that all over the kitchen counter.... Lots of stick blending speeds things up too.

Lactic acid for beer brewing is supplied as 88% solution, and it's pretty cheap.

Made some shaving soap last night, far more than I need, but I suspect I'll be giving most of it away. Made 500 gr of oils, makes something like 800 gr of soap, and 100 gr will probably last me a year or so.... Came out really nice except the scent is off, more citonella than I intended, but...

Cure will take six weeks, HP doesn't cure faster than CP. It's safe to use as soon as it's cool since it's completely saponified, but otherwise it behaves exactly like CP. No shortcuts, alas. It took my soy/canola soap a couple months to really firm up.

Add a teaspoon of sugar to your lye, and mix the oil and lye as soon as the lye solution is clear. I'd also ignore the phone if it rings -- you simply cannot leave this process at all until it stops volcanoing!

Uneven saponification and lack of water. Next time, if you want to use clay suspend it in the oils, you have to stir like mad to get it evenly distributed in the finished soap. Also, I'd use more water next time -- for HP I always use "full water" in the calculator, you lose quite a bit to...

You can use sodium lactate solution in place of the dairy. Plain hot water will also add fluidity, but if you add very much the soap will shrink quite a bit during cure, and it NEVER shrinks evenly....

I've done this and variations. It works if you use some sugar (which she doesn't mention) or oils that heat a lot during saponification, otherwise it will not volcano, at least not for me, and I had to add heat. It is fast, but you need some extra water and yogurt at the end to make it fluid...

Just as easy to use a shaving soap as a stick rather than a cream -- I keep several of mine in twist-up tubes. Wet your face, rub the soap stick on it for a few seconds, lather with a wet brush. Less messy that creams, too. I suspect creams are both whipped and contain more glycerine (on in...

More water will indeed make it softer, but if you want it to be like shaving cream in a tube, you will have to prevent it from drying out somehow (which is why shaving cream is usually in a tube). If you handle it like a liquid soap you can use a pump dispenser, too -- this should work as it's...

Thanks for the ideas! I have plenty of scrap wood in the shop to make one up, just need the time. It's coming up on fall preparation for the bees, the garden, the house (painting) and our beer club fundraisers..... I will look around for a plastic container too, should be something kicking...

I may have to try this, if I get a soap mold made up in the next few days I'll sign up. Haven't made any soap for a while, it seems to last a long time!

A lot of this depends on your nose. I have soaps I made nearly a year ago that have plenty of scent to me, but I've been told by others they can't smell anything at all, and wouldn't expect to even when they were fresh. You will need to scent pretty heavily for sale, I think, as most artisan...

Sunlight also catalyzes DOS, starting on the edges. Soap left on a sunny window will start to turn yellow. Doesn't stink, but it does yellow. Water on the surface of the soap might speed up chemical reactions too by dissolving things.

Unless it's revolting to smell, it's fine to use it as soap. Maybe not on your face if the odor is pronounced, though. I'm using up some of my early soaps that got DOS -- it's on the surface to start with, and regular use will remove it. Mine all seems to be associated with a batch of lard I...

And it will make excellent lather. My shaving soap is better than anything except maybe Haslinger that I have tried. To say nothing of very much cheaper! I've made several variations, Stearic acid with tallow, stearic acid with lard, and soy wax with tallow, all containing 10% coconut oil and...

It will never get hard like bar soap, but it does firm up quite a bit over a week or so. Shaving soap doesn't need a long cure, but four weeks will do whatever is going to happen. I don't find much difference in most of my recipes after a week except for the high castor experiment. That one...