I’ve got some little soap dough caterpillars I’d like to paint eyes and mouth on. I’d love it if they didn’t smear too easily. Any suggestion?
Soap Dough Techniques
- Thread starter TashaBird
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Maybe you could poke little eye-holes into their faces and dip a toothpick into oil-dispersed black mica and, using the same toothpick, dap that into the eye-holes? Or, if you're making soap, reserve a tiny bit of batter, add black mica and use that??
Where to begin... There is the thread that needs to be pulled to open up one's creativity. Start with basic shapes. The Wizard of Oz incorporates basics and more complex ideas.
Indeed, it will work. If you want a saturated black I would use oxide. It's the only time I use oxides.
Peachy Clean Soap
Well-Known Member
Your rimmed soap looks great. Haven't heard of this Soap Challenge sponsored by Amy Warden' where is it?
violets2217
Well-Known Member
https://soapchallengeclub.com/
A lot of the members post videos on YouTube! They are awesome!
My fav this month!
That pour makes me want to get a slab mold!
violets2217
Well-Known Member
You're pretty handy, build one! LOL! I just want to try that our with one layer! it was so cool!
Slab molds are pretty easy to make from containers found in the Dollar Store. 
The red dough I made that was too sticky for the cookie cutter is working well in the fondant mold I bought. The mold is much tinier than I thought, so it’ll take several fills. I plan on using an individual cavity heart mold and putting these on top, for Mother’s Day Soaps.
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And the books are Amazing!
I buy RBO at SmartFoodService (used to be called Cash n' Carry) for $11.69 a gallon. That's only 9 cents an ounce
I learned a bunch new tips from the soap stamps and stuff FB page live demo.
Made my first big batch. Left out the scent, sugar, and SL. SB to thick trace. (That took way longer than expected!) And poured right into baggies laid flat on cool counter to prevent gelling.
Made my first big batch. Left out the scent, sugar, and SL. SB to thick trace. (That took way longer than expected!) And poured right into baggies laid flat on cool counter to prevent gelling.
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Dough DISASTER!
What a miserable, sad, disaster mess! I’m hoping to get some insights on what happened. It’d be great if it never happened again, to me or anyone else. Also, I really want good workable soap dough! I’ve made a ton of soap dough before, with this exact recipe when left over from scrapers or pull throughs. So, the only differences are no sodium lactate, no sugar, and no essential oil. I use EOs at %5, so that might be significant. My lye concentration, as I always use, was %33. My oils are %50 tallow, %15 coconut oil, and the rest liquid oils. Like I mentioned, I’ve made lots of soap dough with this recipe before.
As suggested in a tutorial, I left out the sugar, fragrance, and sodium lactate. I soaped with everything at 90F. I mixed to a medium/thick trace. Poured directly into bags, then vacuum sealed the bags. There was no air. Laid them on a cold metal counter. They never got over 80F
This morning they were super hard. I opened the bags and the dough was crumbly and awful. I sprained my hand trying to massage balls of it.
So, I busted out the food processor. Broke up the bricks, misted with water, and ground them up. Smooshed them into balls, wrapped in plastic wrap, and vacuum sealed again. I quit after the white and purple because it was too much work. I think the portion with the activated charcoal is a lost cause anyway, it’s even harder! Also, I’m not even sure it will work, they may be grainy. But, I’ll let them sit for a few weeks.
WHAT HAPPENED?! Oh wise and wonderful soap community. What should I do different next time?
What a miserable, sad, disaster mess! I’m hoping to get some insights on what happened. It’d be great if it never happened again, to me or anyone else. Also, I really want good workable soap dough! I’ve made a ton of soap dough before, with this exact recipe when left over from scrapers or pull throughs. So, the only differences are no sodium lactate, no sugar, and no essential oil. I use EOs at %5, so that might be significant. My lye concentration, as I always use, was %33. My oils are %50 tallow, %15 coconut oil, and the rest liquid oils. Like I mentioned, I’ve made lots of soap dough with this recipe before.
As suggested in a tutorial, I left out the sugar, fragrance, and sodium lactate. I soaped with everything at 90F. I mixed to a medium/thick trace. Poured directly into bags, then vacuum sealed the bags. There was no air. Laid them on a cold metal counter. They never got over 80F
This morning they were super hard. I opened the bags and the dough was crumbly and awful. I sprained my hand trying to massage balls of it.
So, I busted out the food processor. Broke up the bricks, misted with water, and ground them up. Smooshed them into balls, wrapped in plastic wrap, and vacuum sealed again. I quit after the white and purple because it was too much work. I think the portion with the activated charcoal is a lost cause anyway, it’s even harder! Also, I’m not even sure it will work, they may be grainy. But, I’ll let them sit for a few weeks.
WHAT HAPPENED?! Oh wise and wonderful soap community. What should I do different next time?
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If I'm pretending to be wise, the best platitude I've got is, "Don't fix what's not broken."
Substitute water for the FO/EO amount, and if your recipe usually makes good soap dough with the additives, don't remove the additives. Also, different colorants (even among Mica) do make harder or softer dough, so be prepared to add more water or oil to charcoal, TD, clay, and finely ground Micas, just as you would have to do to pre-disperse them and keep the trace slow.
As with all recipe changes, I'd recommend a small batch of soap dough to start with, to make sure that the water instead of FO still works as dough.
I feel like I’m going to have to start all over to find a soap dough recipe. Maybe I can look up one of the good ones online and see if I can compare it to mine.
I’ve got such a huge useless mess to clean up.
Sorry for kvetching. It’s just not the super fun soaping day I had planned.
I don’t see how mine could be so drastically different than this one. I don’t work with a lot of lard. I use tallow in everything. I just don’t understand why it made such good soap dough before and got so hard and crumbly overnight this time!
Back to the drawing board I guess.
Maybe going from lye at %33 to %30.
Then maybe also reducing tallow from %50 to %40? Increasing my avocado, castor, and RBOs?
Here is Bee’s free recipe, BTW. She also sells dough on the website.
Sorcery Soap
Back to the drawing board I guess.
Maybe going from lye at %33 to %30.
Then maybe also reducing tallow from %50 to %40? Increasing my avocado, castor, and RBOs?
Here is Bee’s free recipe, BTW. She also sells dough on the website.
Sorcery Soap
My unscientific theory: your soap was hard because the liquid content (FO and sugar) was lower, and crumbly because the sodium lactate wasn't helping it hold together. If the recipe makes a good dough without those things, you wouldn't want to add them, but if it makes a good dough with those things, I wouldn't remove them.
Ok. I’ll back up and do a small batch with sugar and SL, and increased water to equal EO removed. Do you think I should also change the ratios of hard and liquid fats?
I would just sub water for FO for now. If that doesn't work, then maybe try Bee's recipe, rather than reinvent the wheel.
