Advice on recipe

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Well Done' love how white your bars are too.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Zany, so far white is all I know

That's not a bad thing, ya know...
If you want to switch it up a little, when I was at your stage of my soap making journey, I discovered Crayola Crayons for making the most beautifully colored soaps. Talk about cheap!!! Ha ha. Cerulean Blue was my favorite. Lard soaps take color (and scent) amazingly well.

 

[Rsapienza]

TheGecko
That's funny cause my wife told me I was stupid for making such small batches. I did notice my pure lard bar seems to be lasting longer then my lard, coconut, castor oil bar. I do get your point and my first five batches where 19.2 ounce batches cause it turned out to fit the shoe box I was using for a mold.

I do hate waste and I do really want something usable but also am just playing with stuff that I have access to. Since all my oils except castor and coconut are basically hand me downs, my real loss would be lye and sodium citrate if it turns out not usable. I made a new mold that dictated I up my batch to 30 ounces to use it and I figured I would take a chance with the extra ten ounces in individual molds for the heck of it. I do not want to throw it away but am going to only give it away if it works and so don't see much difference in the big picture except my family might get something if it works and won't is it don't.

The above is not to discount your very good point but more that I have made a few and feel that the risk of loss is not the end of the world though I hope for better. I am working with hard oils cause I don't have to go to the store and spend money to do so. Just trying to have fun with what I have access to. Please feel free to call me stupid on this and all my post cause that is where my experience level is and I do get real value out of your comments and hope to keep them coming. I even do listen sometimes.
Thanks
gww

Ps Up to now in previous batches I have been using one tbl sugar per twenty ounces of oil. I do not know where I came up with this but do know it came from this site and reading. I was a creature of habit and so have been just rinse and repeating since using it for the very first time.

I regularly use 1Tbsp PPO of sugar and I believe many others do as well. I have always read 1 teaspoon salt in 1 tablespoon sugar PPO.

 

[gww]

Zany
Very nice and the grandkids might not even miss one if it happened to end up in a soap. It was never my intention to worry about doing more then making something to wash with. I really fight against going whole hog cause you can spend a ton but your suggestion really fits with using things laying around as well as things that I actually understand. Got any scent ideals that are in the garden or kitchen though I admit to being scent adverse on most scents and really have aversions to lots of lotions smells and thing you spray for smell. Sad to say but I don't mind the smell of dial soap.
Thanks for the great suggestion.
Cheers
gww

Rsapienza
As I have no imagination on my own and so have to plagiarize almost every Ideal that I use, I am sure I read it before I used it.
Cheers
gww

As I have to get the soap to a place to cure I was messing with it. I cut the bumpy flat enough so I can flip it during cure and it will at least sit up on its own. The gel is already pretty hard and I am sure will get much harder. The things of interest even at the 24 hour mark are;
1. A sud test with a sliver was slow to sud but built up with smaller suds which held well. So not as good or big of bubbles as my lard, 20 percent coconut but quite a bit better then my 100 percent lard bar.
2. I rubbed my index finger on the sliver to get some amount of soap on it and touched it to my tongue and it did not zap. Wonder what this says this early about superfat. There is a market difference from the gel and non-gel and I would not have the guts to try the zap with the softer un-gel.

If I am posting overboard on a measly little batch of soap, please forgive me as I am still new enough to be excited to try and figure out how to read what is going on. Plus I find typing sometimes helps me retain things I am thinking through and trying to remember and believe me, memory can use all the help it can get.
Cheers
gww

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Wonder what this says this early about superfat.

A intensely gelled soap usually goes through most of the saponification reaction within, well, gel phase (a few hours). Plus, your recipe doesn't contain particularly slow-moving oils (olive or mid-linoleics like sunflower, canola, peanut). It is kind of expected for such a soap to be non-zappy after one day, and it doesn't tell much about superfat (though the hardness and the early lather test do: it sounds like you're on the safe side, i. e. no excessive superfat!).
More interesting would be a zap test on the ungelled soap. Your instinct already told you that the outcome is more uncertain there .

Regardless if you zap-test it now, or not: It's very interesting to observe how gelled/ungelled soaps (out of the very same batter!) behave over time. Watch their similarities and differences!

 

[gww]

Resovableowl

More interesting would be a zap test on the ungelled soap

Not interesting enough for me to try it though. Ha ha.

Regardless if you zap-test it now, or not: It's very interesting to observe how gelled/ungelled soaps (out of the very same batter!) behave over time.

I think one of my fairly recent last batches has the center gelled and the outside not. I am watching it to see if it ever equalizes or not. Seems I read that sometimes they do equalize but it won't matter if it all works for soap. One thing for sure, there is a very marked difference in hardness in this batch between the two.

Happy Thanksgiving.
Cheers
gww

 

[Zany_in_CO]

the grandkids might not even miss one

Got any scent ideals that are in the garden or kitchen though

I'm sorry, I don't. Botanical or Spice Rack additives to color soap abound but the scents simply don't make it through the lye process.

Thanks for the great suggestion.

You're most welcome!

 

[Janewoc17]

Thanks all for the encouragement and advice along the way. I have no ideal what size I might like in the end on bars but am a utilitarian and mostly like what acts like soap when I use it. Since I have like 50 bars made so far, I am just hoping those I gift to feel the same.

I do know I made a few really small ones in some chocolate molds and my brother loves them but all that goes though my mind is use once and then the rest is waste. They are as small or smaller than hotel soap.

I had to run to walmart to pick up a black friday deal for my wife and while there bought 4 more lbs of armour lard and so can just keep right on trucking for a little longer or at least am not stopped if I get a wild hair in a bored moment to make more of something. Zany, so far white is all I know.

Cheers
gww

I’m a big fan of soap bags for the bits and pieces of leftover soap. I make them out of washcloths, sisal, or hand knitted. They can probably be purchased, but where’s the fun in that? For gifts, the bags make a nice wrapping.