HP soap love. Show yours!

[MarisaJensen]

Lately I've been playing around with HP and I'm loving it. My goal is to make my HP look more appealing but gosh it just feels so good that it doesn't really matter does it?

Let's show some HP love. Here my attempt at a pencil line in hp... It looks like a rock with gold.

 

[JustBeachy]

I was gonna say, that soap looks so white, I can't even see it against the background.

 

[MarisaJensen]

Sorry Beachy, My iPad and I where battling it out. I won I got a picture uploaded.

 

[KristaY]

Nice job! I love the rustic stone look.

 

[JustBeachy]

Well that was worth the wait. Great looking soap.

 

[jules92207]

That is beautiful. I have only done one pretty HP soap and it wasn't near this beautiful.

 

[shunt2011]

That turned out very nice!

 

[honeysuds]

Looks like granite with a gold vein running through, beautiful! I've become addicted to HP lately too, my latest creation is coconut milk gingerbread. Used coconut milk for 1/2 the liquid, added molasses, ginger, cassia, and clove EO's after cook along with matching ground spices. Smells amazing!

 

[MarisaJensen]

Looks like granite with a gold vein running through, beautiful! I've become addicted to HP lately too, my latest creation is coconut milk gingerbread. Used coconut milk for 1/2 the liquid, added molasses, ginger, cassia, and clove EO's after cook along with matching ground spices. Smells amazing!

Ummm I can just smell it already. We make a clove bar with ground clove and it smells amazing I can just imagine how lovely yours smells with all the spices. I love the stripe and the smoothness of your soap.

 

[honeysuds]

I tried a few different things for that smooth look this batch. Instead of adding the coconut milk at trace, I cooked the soap half way through gel phase, then added the milk and mixed well. Not only was I trying to add fluidity, I was also trying to prevent the discoloring that happens with milk based soaps which I think worked out very well.

The other thing I did was after I added and mixed in the milk, I turned the crock pot off and let the residual heat finish cooking the soap. It prevented overcooking and drying out, and I gotta say those two changes made a world of difference in the final product. I don't plan on adding milk to every batch though, so next time I will be shutting off the crock once the soap is 1/2 gelled and seeing if that alone is enough to keep HP fluid.

 

[hud]

I tried a few different things for that smooth look this batch. Instead of adding the coconut milk at trace, I cooked the soap half way through gel phase, then added the milk and mixed well. Not only was I trying to add fluidity, I was also trying to prevent the discoloring that happens with milk based soaps which I think worked out very well.

The other thing I did was after I added and mixed in the milk, I turned the crock pot off and let the residual heat finish cooking the soap. It prevented overcooking and drying out, and I gotta say those two changes made a world of difference in the final product. I don't plan on adding milk to every batch though, so next time I will be shutting off the crock once the soap is 1/2 gelled and seeing if that alone is enough to keep HP fluid.

I have frozen original cholestrum from sheep that I have been thinking lately about the best way of using it, I think I 'll try your method because I want to save all the beneficial ingredients
from the cholestrum into my soap.
What is your amount of water, please?
Thank you for sharing.

 

[xraygrl]

Those soaps both look great! Funny that the cp people are getting addicted to hp. I am a mostly hp person and lately I've been a lot of cp. :mrgreen: Anyway, I posted this in the gallery, but I'll post here as well in case others don't visit the gallery. This fo is Monkey Farts from WSP colors are orange oxide, chromium green oxide, and fdc yellow:

 

[honeysuds]

Hud, I use 5oz fluid for 15oz oils, that is with cold process though so you can go up to 6oz fluid. Use 1/2 of that as water to mix lye, and save the other 1/2 as colostrum for half way through the cook.

 

[hud]

Thank you for your time and your reply.
Do you use stick blender to mix the milk in the batch?

 

[honeysuds]

I used a heavy duty silicone mixing spoon, that worked well enough. You could also use a whisk or stick blend, but since I only made a small batch the stick blender would've been a bit much. If you make a 2lb batch or more, you could probably get away with a stick blender.

 

[jules92207]

Funny that the cp people are getting addicted to hp. I am a mostly hp person and lately I've been a lot of cp. :mrgreen

Agree! I learned backwards, I learned HP first. I have only done 3 or 4 batches HP since I learned CP. I really prefer CP but maybe I am just not as good as all you HP soapers!

 

[xraygrl]

Agree! I learned backwards, I learned HP first. I have only done 3 or 4 batches HP since I learned CP. I really prefer CP but maybe I am just not as good as all you HP soapers!

I started out with CP for my first couple of years. WAY Back then HP was not widely practiced. I think my first actuall HP was DBHP, and I thought it was a pain. Then I tried CPHP and loved it! Since then I go back and forth between the two, but do mostly hp. 1. because I'm too impatient to wait to use it LOL, 2. cleanup seems easier...when I hp, the only raw soap I have to clean up is what is left on my stickblender.:grin: 3. I don't have to worry about fo's seizing/ricing etc with hp and I am sure I can think of more reasons why I like hp, but alas, I get swirl envy so I still do cp. :grin:

 

[hud]

Hud, I use 5oz fluid for 15oz oils, that is with cold process though so you can go up to 6oz fluid. Use 1/2 of that as water to mix lye, and save the other 1/2 as colostrum for half way through the cook.

Honeysuda, here is my update about using the cholestrum. I like to share it since we talked about it earlier. It's actually different than the milk; it doesn't handle even low heat; it turned light orange in the crock pot. For the extra amount I have I am thinking maybe next time I should try adding it at the very end, mix it after turning the crock pot off and leave it uncovered.

 

[Ellacho]

Nice looking HP soaps! Thank you for sharing .

 

[luvtobeamom]

Honeysuds...

Would you share a bit more about adding the milk later? I'm a new soap making and only do hp. So, if your recipe calls for 14oz of liquid, you would add 7oz of water to you lye, put it in the crock with your oils, get it to trace and then let it cook to the gel phase and then add the milk? I didn't realize you could do that. I thought you had to mix all of your liquids with the lye from the get go..can you please elaborate? Do you think you could do this with beer as well?