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Oh geez. Ok, I’ll rebatch tonight. Good to know about lye water temperatures - I’d been soaping with my window open for ventilation and the temperature outside was below freezing. I’d read in Zany’s thread that people using the salt water mixture had experienced precipitation so I hadn’t been...

I made my second batch of soap last night - Zany's No-Slime Castille - and a number of things went wrong. I ran out of olive oil (12.60 oz is a lot!) and had to use approximately 1oz of avocado. Then, I accidentally spilled water into my oils when topping up my water bath. I was able to pour...

Ooh, thank you!

Oh, that's a spreadsheet I made. I wanted to learn how lye calculators work and to be able to modify mine as I see fit (in my research I saw people criticizing SoapCalc's soap qualities values, so I made that fatty acid profile chart based on articles by DeeAnna and Kenna of ModernSoapmaking). I...

Whole Foods had it in the skincare aisle.

Welp, I made the soap! The lard did not smell of anything at all (at least to me, though I have a very bad sense of smell). The store I went to only had shea, so that's what I used for the butter. I ended up going with a 50% lard, 15% coconut oil, 15% avocado oil, 15% shea butter, and 5% castor...

I have to admit, a not insignificant portion of my interest in soapmaking came from the opportunity to haul my old college lab coat and goggles out of storage and get back into chemistry. I made soap for the first time today and I'm really glad I wore them (and put cardboard down over my...

Ok, I’ll definitely use the lower superfat, then. And good to know about the stearic acid spots, thank you! Are there any opinions on mango vs shea butter?

For some reason my response has been stuck in moderation for 12 hours (is that typical?), so let's try again. (Also, I realized after the fact that I probably should have put this in the recipes forum - apologies!) Thank you for the responses! I am glad that people are reporting that they...

Thank you, @MrsZ and @AliOop! I may reduce the lard to 50% - I bought 16oz of it and that would let me get two batches out of it with no leftovers. I will replace it with 10% shea (or mango? debating) as MrsZ suggested. I appreciate the advice about lard from AliOop. I will definitely smell...

I am looking to make some soap for personal and family use. My mother is very sensitive to scents and at this point has very delicate skin, so I want to make something gentle and cannot use essential oils or fragrance oils. I looked through some recipes for sensitive skin here and eventually...

Hello! I'm an engineer looking into making cold-process soap for personal and family use. I expect to enjoy the chemistry and creativity of it. I have already done some background reading - "Soap Crafting" by Anne-Marie Faiola, then pretty much all of DeeAnna's SoapyStuff page (I appreciated...