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I use green tea wax to colour my soap green, available from Soap Kitchen. It is quite expensive but you only need a tiny bit to get a good green colour, I use 0.5 of a gram to 600g of soap oils. It produces what I,d call an "avocado bathroom suite" colour green. I won,t say it will never fade...

As I can mention names. my preferred supplier has always been Soap Kitchen for essential oils, reasonably priced and good quality and a good range, but recently I have turned to supermarkets for base oils. For coconut oil, KTC jars from Sainsbury's are economical, and they sometimes do special...

Hi, I use one of the suppliers mentioned in the list above (not sure if we are allowed to promote on here so I won't say which one). At first I got all my supplies from them. Then I learned to shop around. Now I get my essential oils and sodium hydroxide from a specialist soap supplier, much...

Penelope Jane SH is Sodium Hydroxide. Probably not quite as dark as the soap in the pic earlier in this thread. Probably milk chocolate colour with darker speckles from the coffee grounds. If you want really dark soap wouldn't you be better of adding something like ground walnut shell...

I work in grams, but I add 15grams of coffee grounds (strong French coffee) to 172g of water and get quite a good dark brown. The grounds do stay in though. I also get a whiff of coffee scent. That's with 690 grams of oils and 86g of SH. It is quite a high super fat as loads of coconut oil...

I have always soaped cool and refrigerated because I hail from a background of mainly making goat milk soap. I have always used 100% full fat goat milk frozen into ice cubes and quite enjoy the process, I don't find it a bother and love the soap. I use only natural colours like madder root and...

Kamahido, thanks for the suggestion. I'm very definitely in the non gel, cool soaping camp. Maybe I should try CPOP or hot process some time to compare, but maybe not with honey soap!

Hi all, I just thought I'd share an idea with people. I always have problems with honey soap as I find it hard not to get partial gel and a resulting dark patch in the middle of my soap. I soap cool, pour fast, freeze for about half an hour prior to refrigeration for at least a day and I still...

I have used goat milk lots of times in fact most of my soap making is with goat milk. I have always used 100%full fat goat milk ice cubes to make the lye and instantly refrigerated on pouring, I have never had any issues with discoloration or partial gel etc. I have also made 100% coconut oil...

I use orange peel powder in my soap and don't find it scrubby at all. I guess this is just where personal differences come in. In which case you can't really ask for advice on some things, you just have to try it for yourself. Another "botanical" I just remembered I use is dessicated...

I have used a few botanicals in soap but mostly to act as natural colourants. Calendula petals are the only flower petal to survive lye and stay yellow, and I have never found them to turn brown, but perhaps I've never left the soap for long enough! Infused in lye they give a pretty good...

In reply to cmzaha, yes I think you can probably buy "for personal use" (sounds more like a drug than ever). I think you would have to import it direct from Africa yourself. If you bought it wholesale from Africa and tried to sell it in Europe, then I think you would be breeching regulations...

I did post the name of a book I found on Ebay the other day but the post didn't work. Here it is - African Black Soap & How To Make It by Melinda Rolf. I found it when I was looking for some to buy, just out of interest (though I suspect its illegal it is still readily available, but then so...

When it comes to preserving black soap as the preserve of African women, I think that horse has already bolted. You can buy African Black Soap melt and pour and special additives to add to your cold process soap to make it "African Black soap. I also think a lot of the more commercially...

Thanks all for your thoughts. The really odd thing is the speed with which it has happened, within about 5 weeks, and the fact that another soap, my cinnamon, honey and oatmeal soap, which was made a day later, with exactly the same oils from the same batches, the same utensils and stored...

My recipe is 600g oil weight usually. I used 15g of very strong French coffee in 172g of water. I brewed it like coffee with boiling water and left it overnight to cool. It isn't "knock your socks off" coffee aroma, but most people can tell its a coffee based soap.

I've recently made a "Working Hands" soap for sale for my charity. Basically I took the base recipe (which could be any you fancy) and added about 15% extra oil weight coconut oil (bringing the superfat up to about 20%), 25% oil weight sea salt, 5% oil weight pumice and 2.5% oil weight coffee...

I think we reached the dizzy heights of about 30 degrees c! But fear not, its now freezing again. Unfortunately I can't keep the drawers open or I'll never get in my dining room again! What I'll do is make a fresh mini batch and see what happens over time. Some of the oils will be new...

No, a wooden chest of drawers. But the drawers are quite large and very far from airtight and opened regularly and the soap is stored on end (ie not lying down) and well spaced out with about an inch between them and at least an inch or two between rows and a couple of inches headspace above...

Large batches!?! Ha! I am making 8 or 9 soaps at a time in a multi cell silicon mould. This isn't business, it is tiny amounts for a charity. Really nothing has changed from the way I have always made soap for years. The recipe is 50% olive oil, 35% coconut oil and 5% each shea and cocoa...