My First Soaps & homemade soap cutter – LONG

[tkine]

I hope you all dont mind my sharing my first soaps & soap cutter. I've been reading about making soap for months, & have watched about a KAZZILION videos on YT. Sorry if this is too long of a post.

I feel like I'm all thumbs when I'm making a batch. But I love the feeling afterwards, when the soap is in the molds. I keep going back to sneak a check on my 'babies'...and sniffing. My first soap, Grapefruit/mint, now smells like Sweet Iced Tea. It actually smells better now than when I made it. I dont detect any grapefruit to it.

My second batch either Riced or Siezed on me (I think it riced-it reminded me of tapioca pudding & I had to stir like crazy to smooth it out as best I could) as soon as I put in the FO...Sweet Pea from Hobby Lobby. I know I should probably not have bought it from there, but I wanted to try another scent, & had not ordered any FO or EO yet. I was able to get it into the mold...pushing & smoothing it, but still ended up with some voids. It smells really great, and I think it will cure out eventually. I did a zap test, it did not 'zap'. My daughter is really hoping it will be ok...she loves the scent. When I was working/struggling with it, & for the next few hours after it was in the mold, I was ready to scoop it out and try cooking it in a crockpot (never made HP soap either)...I felt like a soaping failure for the rest of that day :/

I was happy enough with my Love Spell & Fresh Coffee/Capp. batches. Although when I cut the LS, the lavender buds left tracks down the sides of the soap as I cut through them. The Fresh Coffee/Cap. has some ash on the top, & now smells more like Chocolate Cake than coffee...so I'm going to call it Coffee Cake. It smells pretty good, just not enough coffee.

I just finished making my soap cutter 2 days ago (woodworking in my other hobby...I made my molds), so NONE of my soaps were cut with it But I did cut up a bar into 'sample' pieces, and it cut great (I had to stop myself from making all the bars 'sample' sized with the cutter). It's not pretty like the Tank (I'd love one), but it also didn't cost close to the tank price to make. I was able to use my scrap woods to make it. The hardest part was figuring out what wire to use. Any I tried from the big box stores broke. I finally gave in and bought some guitar strings from Ebay. I was able to get all the other hardware locally.

I hope to one day do the swirls, pretty decorative tops, layers that I look & drool over constantly!

 

[judymoody]

Great job on both the soaps and the cutter!

 

[eleraine]

Am loving the soaps and the cutter. Major like!!!!

 

[SueSoap]

Wow, you've been busy! Congrats on the soap and the cutter.

 

[tkine]

Thanks for the kind words. I can't wait to make more soap, so I can try out my cutter on a loaf

 

[Godiva]

Jealous of your soap cutter! Love your soap, too!

 

[Mouse]

I finally talked my husband into making me a soap mold. I could have just done it myself, it's quite simple construction, so I am thinking of attempting to make a cutter. It doesn't need to be like the Tank, I just need something that cuts soap better than I do! I have gotten to the point where I am very proud of my end product....until I cut it
Any advice on how to make one of these?

 

[tkine]

I finally talked my husband into making me a soap mold. I could have just done it myself, it's quite simple construction, so I am thinking of attempting to make a cutter. It doesn't need to be like the Tank, I just need something that cuts soap better than I do! I have gotten to the point where I am very proud of my end product....until I cut it
Any advice on how to make one of these?

I looked at pics of different cutters that I thought I could borrow ideas. I made sure to keep straight layout lines for the wires, and where screws had to be offset to keep straight lines for wire. A lot of guessing on my part. I didn't use guitar tuner heads, but that might be a route to go. I used thumb screws and drilled holes near the heads in them. Good luck with your cutter if you decide to do one

 

[MegaSoap]

that cutter is awesome! i want one!

 

[Davika]

Love the cutter!!

 

[vikvik]

I htink you should make the cutter to sell, well done with the soaps, putting swirls in is not that hard just pour in you 2nd colour and give it a light mix