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I'm probably not alone when I say that as a new soapmaker, I'm pretty bummed that I have two wonderful batches of soap (one is almost pure olive oil, the second is a rice bran/oatemal/grapefruit EO) and I can't really use either because they have to cure. So I'm wondering (a) what is the bare...

I had lye under my nail and it was painful as hell, I can't even imagine it in my eye. I would have freaked right out too, I'm a photographer... I was a little worried about the lye scalding the coconut milk so I made my liquid for the lye solution 1/3d water, 2/3rd coconut milk. I added...

Thanks all! I would like to suggest, for posterity's sake, that the admonition to handle lye carefully and with gloves -- even after trace has been achieved -- is well-considered and sagely advice. Because lye under a fingernail HURTS. I'm not speaking from experience, of course, just...

I'm going to make a coconut milk oatmeal CP soap in an hour or two, was wondering if I needed to factor in the fat content of the coconut milk. Because the oil will be 100% rice bran oil, I'll be using 2x the liquid for the lye as opposed to the normal 3x I used in my first batch, the coconut...

I've finished up my first batch, cut it up (next time I'm trying a wire, the knife cut fine put stuck to the soap and caused chunks to rip out when separating) and now it's on racks to cure. I've seen it stated that the curing area should be dry, dark and cold. We have a pantry which meets...

Ah! I did have one more question, I knew it!! I tried to get my lye solution to the same temp as my oils, got close, oil was around 120F and lye was around 105F. I then stick-blended the mix for ~10-12 minutes and it did heat up but not near the ~190F necessary to gel (or so I'm told)...

Awesome, great news all around. Yes, very pale yellow. If I wanted it to gel, what should I have done differently? And from what I've been reading, soap that has been through the gel stage both hardens faster (but winds up the same hardness as non-gelled soap after a cure) and is more...

Two photos of the de-molded soap block. Does that peaking look correct? In other words, does that indicate that it reached trace before pouring? That's after ~30 hours after pouring. Does that look sane? Sorry, feeling a bit OCD, first batch jitters and all...

I should have been a bit more specific, sorry about that. I remembered 5.25 cups and 0.25 cups because I measured the size of my mold (80 cubic inches) and then figured how much oil I needed (5.50 cups). I then poured all the sweet almond oil I had (0.25 cups) and the olive oil necessary to...

I did my first batch with approx. 5.25c olive oil and .25c almond oil, unfortunately I read about superfatting AFTER making the batch so the lovely almond smell is pretty much non-existent. It's been about 28 hours, of course I'm impatient and slid cast from mold early to check it out and...

Hm. What's FO? PS: Love your sig.

Greetings! I'm completely new to soap-making, made my first batch this evening, of course now I'm completely hooked and want to make more interesting bars. While looking around I found this: ...and while I can figure out how to imbed one chopped-up type of soap in another, I cannot...