Happy SoapDay To Me 🧼🍰

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Two years ago today I made my first Soap, I made a Goat Milk CPOP, it wasn't the best I must admit & I burned the Goat milk! never the less I was as proud as could be! I was hooked from that moment knowing I've found my calling.

What was your first soap you made? please share your Soap Journey with all of us' Love to hear it.

 

[KimW]

Happy SoapDay to you!

My first soap was about ten years ago made with lye from wood ash. I used the method described by Paul Norman in his essay (I don't think it was ever an actual book) "Easy Soap Making" to harvest the lye. Funny enough I just searched for "what is wood ash lye" because my memory is that it isn't KOH, as most folks assume, and the first hit was @DeeAnna's Soapy Stuff. There she confirms that it's not KOH. Where was she 10 years ago?! I used 100% coconut oil and it made a soap with lovely lather, but it looked like gravy, and it sure took a lot of ashes and effort to make what I'd now consider just a little soap - but boy oh boy was I excited with those bubbles! LOL

 

[Guspuppy]

Happy SoapDay Peachy!

My first soap was a shea butter recipe from Anne Watson's book, which I now forget the name of. It was 2016 and that book was the only thing I read prior to making the soap. I bought a pound of shea butter off Amazon, and had no idea what I might do with the rest of it, so I scaled up the recipe to use it all. It made quite a lot of soap in a cardboard box lined with a trash bag, (and not even carefully lined either, I just stuffed the box inside the trash bag and poured the soap ) but boy was I proud of it after! It was only when I got nervous about something with that soap after I poured it that I looked online and found this forum and found out I should be only making SMALL batches of test soap!

 

[AliOop]

My first soap was about 8 years ago now. It was a 100% CO HP soap with 20% SF, using a recipe from a blog. Taught a few friends how to make soap using that recipe, too. I used it on my body and my hair for years. Even with my long curly dry hair, it worked very well for me, so I had no idea that most people can't use soap on their hair! I'd probably still be using it today, but it strips the henna-indigo coloring out, so my latest quest is to make a syndet shampoo bar. All the ingredients arrived this week, but alas, no time. Maybe on Friday when work is closed.

 

[artemis]

Once upon a time, about five years ago, my son decided to be George Washington Carver for a Third Grade project. Of all the things GWC made from peanuts, my son chose to make soap. We found way too many complicated recipes (I wasn't looking for another craft/hobby) and finally stumbled onto simple, straightforward instructions. 33% coconut, 33% olive, 33% Roasted peanut oil. My young Mr. Carver happily took his soap to school (smelling a little like peanut shells) and we've been experimenting with recipes ever since.

 

[TashaBird]

I’d been making skin care with tallow for several years, and had just gotten a new 5g bucket right before the pandemic hit. My first soap was %100 tallow HP with rosemary and lavender EO. I dove head first into learning everything I could, it really helped me with the stress of losing my job, and the anxiety of the world shutting down. I loved the history, chemistry, present practical use of soap. But, when I started realizing it was also an art form, then I got super hooked!!
just checked, March 18th 2020 was my first batch. I’m currently on my 75th batch.

 

[linne1gi]

I made my first soap at the end of 2013 when I read a blog post about soapmaking. I had literally no idea what I was doing, and my first soap was a complete disaster which I threw away. I then started to research it more and making small batches. I was making soap and bringing it into work to have my co-workers test it - and they all were telling me, you need to sell this.

 

[CatahoulaBubble]

My very first soap was made with my great grandmother when I was little using her fat drippings jar and the wood ash lye she made herself. She of course did the measuring out although she never really "measured" anything. She just kind of winged it. But she let me stir the kettle over the fire with a long handled stick stirrer over the coals. But my first soap I made on my own was a goat milk soap about 15 years ago.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I'm lovin all your stories' thx for sharing. Hopefully they keep coming....

 

[linne1gi]

My very first soap was made with my great grandmother when I was little using her fat drippings jar and the wood ash lye she made herself. She of course did the measuring out although she never really "measured" anything. She just kind of winged it. But she let me stir the kettle over the fire with a long handled stick stirrer over the coals. But my first soap I made on my own was a goat milk soap about 15 years ago.

I bet that was fun! I "helped" my aunt make soap outside about 63-64 years ago. She sort of measured, in that she used cup measurements, (not weight based as we do now). The soap was really nice, I remember that. My first soap was about 8 years ago, hot process. I now make both HP and CP.

 

[CatahoulaBubble]

I bet that was fun! I "helped" my aunt make soap outside about 63-64 years ago. She sort of measured, in that she used cup measurements, (not weight based as we do now). The soap was really nice, I remember that. My first soap was about 8 years ago, hot process. I now make both HP and CP.

My great grandmother had a jar that she used for her measurements. The soap wasn't really nice, it was brown and thick like paste and she poured it into this old clay jar that she always poured her soap into. Over time it would get harder and harder but it was never like bar soap. It also smelled like bacon sometimes so when she made the washing soap she would grate up a bar of commercial soap into the cooking soap and that one bar would scent the whole batch.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Happy soap day @Peachy Clean Soap! Funny enough - my two year soap day anniversary came up recently in my facebook memories, and here's a pic:

Everyone got a bar for Christmas that year, wrapped nicely with a soap dish. I cringe when I look at it now, however, I managed soap, fragrance and multicolours so I wasn't doing too badly.
The recipe was 30% each of Apricot Kernel Oil, Olive Oil and Coconut Oil, with 10% Shea Butter.
The pale pink part was scented with Palmarosa EO, the darker pink/mauve colour with Patchouli EO, and the blue/purple with Ylang Ylang EO.
As you can tell by the photos, the mixture was at heavy trace when I plopped it into the moulds. I just plopped and layered different colours and then smoothed it out as best I could on the top.

 

[linne1gi]

We all started out that way! I tossed my first soap into the bin! And several after that as well. Practice makes perfect.

 

[impish]

Happy Soap Day Peachy Clean! It's fun to read everyone's stories.
My first soap was made in a class, Crisco/coconut/olive, scented with peppermint and using small ikea plastic containers. Outside of being terribly difficult to unmold it was good soap and like everyone else here, I was hooked.

 

[Carolyne Thrasher]

Hey Peachy Clean! Happy Soap Day! My husband talked me into making soap 3.5 years ago. He wanted us to start a small home based biz together. He works full time outside the home but is always needing to be doing something and we used to work together and he missed doing that. Ha ha. I'm a full time caregiver to my parents (well now it's just my Mom) and 2 kids. Anyway we used a recipe from Anne Marie of Brambleberry's first soap book that I checked out from the library. We made a few batches a month the rest of the year. It's kind of addictive. Hubby has moved on to making body butter. We've added syndet shampoo bars and keep playing with other stuff. Not sure what I will do when my Mom passes on. Kids are old enough now that I'll be able to go back to work outside the home full time and probably will need to to pay for their college. In the meantime, I'm having fun and networking with lots of other makers and customers in my city which hopefully will help me transition back to employment someday.

 

[TheGecko]

Happy Soap Day!

Technically, I made my first soap about 6 years ago, It was a Soap Making “class” through our local community college. I put class in quotes, because there wasn’t a lot of instruction. We made soap from Olive Oil, Coconut Oil and Cisco Shortening and I mixed my Lye Solution in a glass mason jar. We hand stirred to trace. I added some Orange FO I bought from Hobby Lobby. We poured into orange juice cartons and I wrapped it carefully in a towel to my car and sat it on the top of my frig for three days. It was rough getting it out of the carton...it was still a bit soft. I cut it in bars the size and shape of sticks of butter. I was very proud of myself.

I didn’t start making soap until about a year and half ago after several months of research and hundreds of hours of YouTube. I bought BrambleBerry’s Beginner;s Cold Process Soap Kit. The FO was Apple-Sage and it was so strong it drove us out of the house. But I loved making soap.

 

[msunnerstood]

I was a rebel and started with liquid soap even though everything I read said to work your way up to liquid soap. I was CO/OO blend and my son wouldnt let me add the lye to the water myself, in fact he made me stand 6 feet away and then he added it, stirred 3 times and came and stood by me while it groaned. both of us in full goggles and rubber gloves. Hes a tad protective of me lol.

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

Fun stories, everyone!

My first time making soap was in a 12th grade Home Ec Cooking class at the private Christian school I attended. My cousin's wife came in and helped our class of 5 make CP soap. I used Sandlewood FO, despite being warned of discoloration, and the batch morphed from a lovely purple/black to dark, ugly brown/black. Lesson learned.

A month or so after that, I ordered supplies and dove into soap making at home! About 2.5 years later, I'm still making soap...and my sister has picked up the hobby as well. I don't sell at this point, except to family/acquaintances who occasionally request to purchase a few bars.

Here's a picture of the first 3 batches I made after that first class. The one on the left was supposed to be a circling Taiwan. It taught me a valuable lesson about acceleration, one that I haven't forgotten