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I actually don't see much of anything in terms of officiousness. I could certainly indulge myself if I wished, and I'm quite certain that many of us are similarly able, but disinclined. That she's selling EOs (presumably for use in soap) doesn't make things any better; she's using poor...

I always enjoy saying it due to the cringing, but I find a high lard recipe to be very skin-sparing in terms of drying it out. Technically, lard is a replacement for palm. In practice, I find palm rather drying, and I'm not thrilled with the ethics (a story for another time, but it does...

Lavender 40/42 has a camphorous note that I don't particularly care for, personally. I used Crafter's Choice Lavender Fields FO, and liked that better, but both the EO and FO improve with increasing age. I just polished off my FO bottle after four years, and it's smoothed out into a gorgeous...

In my case, I zapped together a VB.NET program to manage oils, standard recipes (I really only have six), colorants, additives, and batches. It auto-generates labels since I always list ingredients just in case somebody's allergic to something. OK, "zapped" is a misnomer, I'm still doing alpha...

I think...maybe...that what you're saying is that you're constraining the batch size to 16 and allowing all the constituent amounts to change? Whereas most of us constrain the oil weight and let everything else, change. Including the total batch weight. In the case of most of us, with the oil...

Morpheus has been a teacher, so Morpheus is quite used to translating "STOP THAT BEFORE YOU DIE!" into something a little more politic. Still, there's a limit. Inherent in our commentary is the fact that this person has posted this video to YouTube intended as an informative release to a...

I'm not sure about the safety of the plastic she's using, either. My rule is that caustics are in known-safe plastic types, or stainless steel. The lack of gloves thing...guilty. I'm too clumsy in gloves, and I'm not exactly graceful without them. However, remove all rings and bracelets...

12 ounces (340 grams) in my case, a test of 90% tallow. I could go smaller, but my scale is only accurate to the gram. Even assuming perfect accuracy, it'd be easy to make an almost 3% error using 3 oils at that batch size.

I just grated seven pounds with a very small hand-held paddle grater like the below. I strongly advise a pyramid grater like Kamahido posted above, or a food processor to turn it into small shards. For coconut soap, I'd do that as soon as it has the consistency of a hard cheese or a little...

A lot of it is personal preference. I do find that peppermint gets lost a little more easily than rosemary, so I might be inclined to make it 75% peppermint, 25% rosemary, for a blend that will smell nice in 2 to 3 months. On day 1, it's going to hit you in the face with "PEPPERMINT!!!111!!!"...

+Above. High water, high olive soaps take a while to firm up and not be sticky. I think my record is five days in the mold before I could remove it, and even so, it was still a bit tacky. And as noted, high-olive soaps will take a while to really shine. I just tested an 80% olive soap I made...

There aren't technically any contraindications for ROE in anything, but I wouldn't bother adding it to any oil that has a long life; its assistance isn't significant in those cases. It would also be very difficult to incorporate into any solid oils unless you melt them first. Since that causes...

Mine didn't, but I do tend to soap cold (115° absolute maximum) and with fuller water than most seem to use (30% oil weight, absolute floor, more usually 33-35%). Now plumeria scent, that I have trouble with. And violet, carnation...

Mostly because of the scent. I find sweet odors to be overpowering at times and, on balance, I'd prefer a lot of rosewood to a little accent of a floral. Florals do tend to accelerate a bit, but I usually know that's going to happen and plan soaping temperature and swirl (if any) appropriately.

The only bar out of...lots and lots...that ever developed DOS was mostly palm, olive, and coconut. And it was only a tiny dot. As to whether I'm just lucky, I don't know. However, I've always avoided linoleic and linolenic acids in my soaps because I've been told they cause a problem. Plus...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0007GAWRS/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 I have the above model (although this one might be a touch more modern) and like it very much; I can't detect any accuracy issues, although I haven't specifically tested it. And I love the tare function. That having been said...

I'm kinda with BrewerGeorge here...it does encourage DOS (at least most people say so), so there would be no reason to use it as a super fat, even though it won't stay that way. All the salts will metathesize (called, unsurprisingly, salt metathesis), even after cooking and you'll end up with...

I love rosewood with vanilla, heavy on the vanilla and durn the mahogany soap. It combines well with any floral in light doses and almost any fruit scent. I might avoid strawberry, but that's about it.

Is that palm? I have it in my calculations as 3% soybean (partially hydrogenated). Oops. :headbanging: And yeah, I hear you on the space thing. Every square inch of drying space is filled, including the top of our television. Where am I going to store all this? I have no idea as...

By test, do you mean simply make a complete replacement of lard with palm, or vice-versa? If so, I did that several years ago. I must be slightly sensitive to palm as I found it makes a harsher, less pleasant soap. My hide likes lard much better, and I find that to be gentler. Palm does...