Hi !
I have been reading this forum a lot for the past 6 months or so. It helped me a lot and I'm very grateful for all the knowledge available here. Now that I've done around 25 batches, I really want to be part of all the great conversations you're all having here. Especially since I still have so much questions, even after researching and reading from old threads.
I learned cold process soap-making about 3 years ago with a friend in the "using whatever available" fashion. We used juice cartons as our molds, second hand blender and bowls and very cheap oils (mainly olive oil and hydrogenated coconut oil, sold as "frying oil" in the cooking section at supermarkets). I only did 2 or 3 batches at the time.
Then I stopped soaping for quite a while.
I suddenly wanted to soap again around may this year. I gathered my own materiel from second hand shops + some silicon molds (I didn't like the look of the soap from juice cartons).
For my very first soap made all by myself I decided to clear my bathroom of all the opened oils I use cosmetically (I've been gifted a lot of them but don't use that much). They were not rancid yet but figured they would be before I could use them up, and if I failed, I would not have felt like wasting new bought oils. I'm sure you would find my recipe a monstrosity ! (I kind of do too now that I have more experience). It contained oils like rosehip oil, argan oil, hazelnut oil... and mainly olive oil that I used to fill in. The soap ended up very ugly xD. The fact that I also throw in some Indian plant powder I had laying around didn't help. However, I ended up liking the soap and will use it all up.
Confident I was able to make soap, I then spent a good part of my summer making soap. With recipes that make way more sense
. My motivation for making soap is to make something that wont dry my skin too much. I used to don't care what I washed with and rarely used lotion on my skin, but a couple years ago my skin suddenly became very dry and uncomfortable after showering (I guess it's called aging). So I experimented with goat milk, honey, oats, shea butter... I usually make soap high in olive oil and low in coconut oil and wait more than 4 weeks to use them.
I haven't experimented much with fragrances, essential oils or colorful designs. My soaps are very plain. I want to get a good understanding of the oils and additives before digging into the realm of scents and colors.
English is not my first language, please excuse me if I don't always make sense or if I just sound weird in my choice of words
Here are some of my early creations :
The monstrosity :
Aleppo style, with 15% laurel berry oil. I made them with my brother at the beginning of summer so we could gift them to family members for Christmas ! They took forever to harden but are hard as rock now. They also ended up greener than on this picture that was taken months ago. I love the smell
Goat milk and then goat milk + honey. Full water replacement for the first but not for the one with honey as I feared over-heating !
Some small batches testing infused oils (ginger, Saint John's wort and sage) and water replacements (coconut cream, soy milk and goat milk)
I have been reading this forum a lot for the past 6 months or so. It helped me a lot and I'm very grateful for all the knowledge available here. Now that I've done around 25 batches, I really want to be part of all the great conversations you're all having here. Especially since I still have so much questions, even after researching and reading from old threads.
I learned cold process soap-making about 3 years ago with a friend in the "using whatever available" fashion. We used juice cartons as our molds, second hand blender and bowls and very cheap oils (mainly olive oil and hydrogenated coconut oil, sold as "frying oil" in the cooking section at supermarkets). I only did 2 or 3 batches at the time.
Then I stopped soaping for quite a while.
I suddenly wanted to soap again around may this year. I gathered my own materiel from second hand shops + some silicon molds (I didn't like the look of the soap from juice cartons).
For my very first soap made all by myself I decided to clear my bathroom of all the opened oils I use cosmetically (I've been gifted a lot of them but don't use that much). They were not rancid yet but figured they would be before I could use them up, and if I failed, I would not have felt like wasting new bought oils. I'm sure you would find my recipe a monstrosity ! (I kind of do too now that I have more experience). It contained oils like rosehip oil, argan oil, hazelnut oil... and mainly olive oil that I used to fill in. The soap ended up very ugly xD. The fact that I also throw in some Indian plant powder I had laying around didn't help. However, I ended up liking the soap and will use it all up.
Confident I was able to make soap, I then spent a good part of my summer making soap. With recipes that make way more sense
. My motivation for making soap is to make something that wont dry my skin too much. I used to don't care what I washed with and rarely used lotion on my skin, but a couple years ago my skin suddenly became very dry and uncomfortable after showering (I guess it's called aging). So I experimented with goat milk, honey, oats, shea butter... I usually make soap high in olive oil and low in coconut oil and wait more than 4 weeks to use them.I haven't experimented much with fragrances, essential oils or colorful designs. My soaps are very plain. I want to get a good understanding of the oils and additives before digging into the realm of scents and colors.
English is not my first language, please excuse me if I don't always make sense or if I just sound weird in my choice of words
Here are some of my early creations :
The monstrosity :
Aleppo style, with 15% laurel berry oil. I made them with my brother at the beginning of summer so we could gift them to family members for Christmas ! They took forever to harden but are hard as rock now. They also ended up greener than on this picture that was taken months ago. I love the smell
Goat milk and then goat milk + honey. Full water replacement for the first but not for the one with honey as I feared over-heating !
Some small batches testing infused oils (ginger, Saint John's wort and sage) and water replacements (coconut cream, soy milk and goat milk)
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