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That might have been me a few times...

I love the feel of the cabbage while mixing in the salt. I use a quart canning jar with a baggie or plastic wrap over the top of the cabbage to keep the air out. My latest batch is almost ready to eat. I like adding caraway but not nearly as much as I like rye bread. Has anyone tried kimchi? How...

Here's some thoughts. I hope I'm not completely off base or intruding. Palm oil to me seems more like beef tallow in composition than lard. I like soap with 100% lard. I love it even more with the 5-15 Castor Oil. The best substitutes I've heard of for Coconut Oil in soaping is babasu (not sure...

I'm in love with both the process and the result. My husband thinks I'm nuts. Both for my Soaping and fermenting adventures.

I've liked 25% Coconut and 75% Olive at 5%sf and 33% water. If you can get it, Castor Oil at 5-15% (added to above, subtract from Olive) works great (sf and water conc as above). Olive 85-95% with Castor 5-15% at 5%sf and water:lye 2.5:1 is my favorite for swirling. I usually add at least 1 Tbsp...

Melt and Pour Soap from Scratch Without Using Alc…: http://youtu.be/AOVPvbwfscI http://oilandbutter.blogspot.ca/2014/02/how-to-make-your-own-melt-and-pour-soap.html?m=1 The above is what I have done only I add sugar to water (dissolve) before adding lye. I've added sugar up to ½ lye amount...

I'm probably way out of my league discussing this. My background is in the biological sciences (and even then more into bioinformatics). So, my Chemistry is probably not up to snuff. I do remember potassium and sodium as alkali metals, with sodium being the lighter. Acetate and lactate are both...

Is this pertinent to this discussion? http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=52250

Post #17 was modified from that book. It's a good book to have! I have just moved back to dealing with lye after my last relapse. I hope to try making transparent and m&p soap again but getting the solvents and having the time and coordination to do it is tough for me. So sorry to have bothered...

Yes, that is what I have found. I can stretch the soap to make roses that I glue together with soap that I have reheated.

The use of sugars in soaps improves lather most likely because it stabilizes the formations of micelles. This is partly why additives like honey and milks improve soaps.

I get decently hard bars of all oil soaps with reducing water to 50:50 w:w in lye solution. You shouldn't need salt in bars but wait two days to unmold. Sodium increases the affinity of the soap molecules for each other. Sodium salts harder than potassium salt, adding salt to the reaction makes...

Stearic has done that to me before. I usually rebatch or use for toilet cleaning. Do you mind if I try to back calculate and reformulate? Perhaps making up for water with excess in alcohol step just can't be done? I may try later this week - I just don't know if I'm quite up to it yet.

How about this? I would try but I'm still having tremors after my last attack. According to Catherine Failor's basic recipe 1, she has: Lye solution 1lb9oz d2h2o, 12oz lye Oils 2lb8oz palm/tallow/lard, 1lb Coconut, 1lb9oz Castor Solvents 1lb12oz ethanol, 8oz glycerin Sugar Sol 15oz d2h2o...

Would using 50:50 w:w lye water work?

I'm curious about your results, If you try. Could you try using 50/50 w/w caustic solution - while maintaining remaining ingredients in the recipe.

Love your color and the scent sounds like a wonderful combination!

Final pic

Here are final pics of cuts from this swirl

Thank you CaraBou!