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Zany is a wealth of information on many things, including oakmoss: Oakmoss to Offset the Odor of Lard/Tallow

Litsea Lavender (french, not english) Oak moss (for real. changed my world)

Ooooooh, great suggestion! I just tried scraping with a (gloved) finger, and they're soft! Woot! Always appreciate other thoughts! I knew when I was typing in my formula that being honest was going to invite commentary. Ha! Agree re: kukui nut oil--I was playing around adding it at trace (I...

Hi everyone! I made a chamomile soap yesterday (adapted from a recent formula Tanya Anderson shared on her website--love her ideas!) and have a sinking feeling this morning in my gut after taking a look. I used chamomile tea (made with distilled water) for the water fraction, and had trouble...

Love this! Have been soaping for real since 2019, though my mom first tried to teach me in the early 90's. And I was so terrified of the lye that it took decades to realize how amazingly weird and wonderful soaping is! Here's one of my first batches (ugh, they were so soft!) where I got alien...

I used the amazing Caterpillar for the first time to split loaves and cut bars--AMAZING!!!! Holy ned. I'm actually serving out my notice period of my day job (and a profession that I've spent 20 years on, not including the ridiculous amount of schooling that it entailed) and am about to start...

Interesting--so I just googled "lanolin butter" and see that Crafter's Choice is just straight up lanolin, so just the typical wax. I get mine directly from my parents' flock of sheep! 😆 But what you're finding commercially should be the same stuff--just extracted in a more scaled up and...

Lanolin is a wax, and can be extracted directly from sheep's wool, which can be a pretty gross process (see below for evidence). Not surprised that it might be called lanolin wax, since that's what it is! I use it in shave soap....

Very wise!

Veterinarian here! Your formula looks great for dogs! I'll be interested to hear if you like it--and if your puppy does, too. I also wanted to chime in--you correctly seemed skeptical about the wisdom of using EOs on cats. It isn't controversial in the medical field: the major liver enzyme...

Oh wow! I can't wait to hear how it turns out! I'd imagine you'd lose a lot of the EO, but maybe it'll work for hydrosol! So cool! Post pictures if you can! Here's one of my first distilling attempts (was appalled by how little oil comes out of lavender lol):

Oh--to the other question: I would not distill water in the same still I distilled hydrosol in. You can clean the still with super high test ethanol (standard is Everclear), but I typically just scrub mine out in between batches.

What kind of countertop distiller are you using? In general to make a quality hydrosol, it's low and slow (in contrast to EOs). And you use fresh plant material rather than a little bit dried. I make it in my copper still on a gas burner (an outdoor project), so will help you if I can. What are...

Good morning! I'm interested in a couple of those--will send you a PM. :)

And I *love* it!! Thank you Zany for the wonderful recipe from way back! I have customers seek me out for this soap, and it's thanks to you!

Thank you so much!

Did you end up trying this? I'm going through a similar debate, and wondering how it worked for you.

So...as a curious newbie (soaping for 1.5 years) about to make my first salt bar, how did these turn out? (Since it's been a year. :)

These are *gorgeous*!! I've been working a few different formulations (one that I found for free, and several from swiftcraftymonkey that are superior). How did you get these so smooth? I'm thinking maybe I need to swap out my powdered SCI for noodles.