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@Amicia007 I believe you about the temperature being important. The new thermometer is on its way! Also, it definitely looks like I need to stop blending as soon as I have an emulsion. You're so right that CP is very different from HP. You can get away with a lot when you're doing HP. Not...

@KiwiMoose Like beauty, ugly is in the eye of the beer holder lol! And while I'm at it, there's no accounting for taste, right? That's why an artist can duct tape a banana to a wall in a gallery and someone will come along and pay eight figures for it. FWIW, I like your Salty Sailor soap. :)...

That looks a lot like my first batch, lol! While I was busy blaming the AVJ and salt for my seizing problems, I neglected to think about the GM powder. It wouldn't surprise me if that contributed. I'm just glad I finally got something that's slow enough to get most of it into the mold before...

I think you're right about it being a combination -- too much salt, a crappy recipe to start with, and who knows about that AVJ? No telling why omitting it helped, but it did. Can't wait to get that sweet orange EO to help slow things down a little, because I'm bound to run into other...

@atiz I followed your recommendations on that and made batch #3. I was adding twice as much salt before! Anyway, I omitted the AVJ and was actually able to SB to a light trace. I stopped there because I didn't want to push my luck, and it's a good thing I did. Once I added the tea tree and...

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "split method". So if I need 74 g lye and 147 g water for a 33% solution, I should dissolve the lye in 74 g water, dissolve the salt in the remaining 73 g, and then mix them together? I'm not understanding how that is different from measuring out 147...

It's how you make brine soap (soleseife). I don't want a "spa bar" with a lot of undissolved salt. It's okay to add up to 20-something percent of salt to the lye water (I forget the exact percentage), as long as it's below the saturation level. I'm okay at 15%. Yes, it's to harden the bar.

The sweet orange EO and point 'n click thermometer are on their way. Found the thermometer at Harbor Freight's website for $17.99, but of course, shipping bumps it back up to $27. The EO was almost the exact same price as the thermometer for one pound (Bulk Apothecary). I'm gearing up to...

@Obsidian Yes, that's sort of the plan, except I kinda wanna do it from the other direction, removing one suspect ingredient at a time. I doubt any of the oils are causing such an immediate and hard seize, and I've already ruled out the tea tree because the soap seized before it was added to...

I suspect it has something to do with the CA in the AVJ. I've never (knowingly) used CA in soap before, although, as I mentioned, I used this same stuff in HP and never noticed a problem. More than likely, I put it in toward the end of the cook, not in the lye mixture, and only if I needed a...

Thanks, @KiwiMoose ! I really need to get a point 'n click thermometer. I'm totally guessing at my temps. The EVOO was an el cheapo brand, probably not that great for eating, actually, lol! I'll experiment with water tomorrow to see if the AVJ was the culprit. Cutting the castor sounds like...

I forgot that tea tree is an unsaponifiable. That's why it doesn't have a SAP value. So does anyone know to what extent its properties, other than its scent, survive the saponification process? If it isn't bringing anything to the table besides that weird smell, why do we use it?

@atiz I used EVOO. With the salt being only 15% of the liquid weight, the solution should have been nowhere near saturated, but maybe it's a bad actor anyway. I'll take your suggestion about hand whisking tomorrow when I try again, but I'm still going to use water instead of the AVJ with CA...

@shunt2011 Well dang! I guess that's what happens when you decide to switch to CP after making HP for decades. Tea tree can be added at the end of the cook to preserve its properties, or at least I *think* it works that way. Update: Changed the recipe -- 70% Olive, 20% Coconut, 10% Castor...

@shunt2011 Even though it does have a strong scent, I think of tea tree's other properties before I think of it as a fragrance. Maybe I'm wrong to do that. I don't know. I added the salt at 15% of the weight of the AVJ. @cmzaha Thank you for that information! I'll rework the percentages...

I haven't done CP until today either, and so far, it hasn't been the pure soapy enjoyment I expected. I'll try not to let this disaster stop me from trying again, though. If there's nothing else that looks suspect, I can try this recipe again and add the tea tree after trace. Thanks for the...

Yep, all oils together before the lye.

I thought I was being careful about using stable ingredients (other than castor oil, which I know can accelerate, but it's still worth using), but I had my first ever seize today. I threw it into a pot and HP'd it, FWIW, but it doesn't look like it'll be usable. Can anyone tell me which of my...

And deprive myself of all the nerdy fun I'm having building my own database?! (My other hobby is computer programming.) Stuck at home waiting for one critical ingredient to arrive, and the soapmaking jones is killing me!

Told my neighbor about my hobby, and now she wants me to make a special soap for her. I've been thinking about easing into some casual selling, so I ordered the ingredients, and while I'm waiting for it to arrive, I'm building an MS Access database to keep up with things like costs, inventory...