What soapy thing have you done today?

[TashaBird]

Wanted to try out some new fragrance and mica so made a couple more shampoo and conditioner bars! Lol! The mica is Material Girl and fragrance is Persephone’s Kiss, both from Nurture Soap, love them both!

I’m twiddling my thumbs waiting for my WSP order I placed the 14th and it’s still not shipped...

Thinking about trying a rimmed round soap. I might try the kiss pour for the rimmed soap... shouldn’t be too hard!! Lol! Not!

I just need my order to get here!!!
View attachment 54482

Those are two of my fave NS products!

Happy Soapaversaary @Jersey Girl!
Today started out with a complete soap DOH! disaster. I sprained my wrist muscles trying to save it, then I gave up. When my favorite coping mechanism goes wrong, it can put me in a tail spin. But, I did a bunch of cleaning, and planning how to fix the soap DOH! issue in the future.
Finally I got around to making some soap with my new extruder discs. The bit of soap dough that I had on hand did not work with any of the designs I had planned. I wound up going totally rogue! It was very in the moment, not much of a plan, and it was super fun! It could be a awful, or awesome, either way, it was good therapy. #soapingiscoping
Also, figured a hack for using my regular size extrud3er discs with my new giant extruder and discs.
One fill of the chamber got me 4 lengths of my 18” mold! More embeds, less pumping!

 

[Jersey Girl]

@Jersey Girl look at the Taiwan Swirls, in your first month no less! You’re a natural. Congratulations on the soap-aversary.

A friend at work stopped me in the hall today to tell me how much her grandkids love washing their hands when they come to visit her. I’ve given her a bunch of soap, and apparently the little ones are totally fascinated by a solid bar that makes bubbles with water.

I’m spending some time this month making confetti soap, including some in “exotic” (for me) color combinations. I just finished a batch that went into the mold I bought for the TC challenge. I used 1 divider, put confetti in 2/3 of the mold and batter without confetti in 1/3. I feel so clever, especially if I end up with a reasonably straight line between the layers.

I am in heaven. Received all my micas from Mad Micas today! Oh My, I want to sprinkle a little of each one on the floor and roll in them all! Yes, I know I am a little weird! They are so beauteous! Now to figure out how and where I am going to store them. I wish I could find a vertical spice rack!

I love Mad Micas

Beautiful color' I just received this color from NS & I made soap using Persephone's Kiss NS for the first time, its a soft floral scent, I wish it was a little stronger.

I love Persephone’s Kiss. It’s a lovely feminine scent that sticks well.

 

[TashaBird]

I love Persephone’s Kiss. It’s a lovely feminine scent that sticks well.

I was using that FO tonight and didn’t have enough so I mixed some litsea EO with it. It smelled different, but also nice!

 

[violets2217]

Those are two of my fave NS products!

I also got the Frangipani Jasmine... it’s really sweet and I’m hoping it calms down a bit in the soap! And I got a SMALL (it’s really expensive!) bottle of Oudh wood! I absolutely love it and am saving it for something special! I’m quite enamored with Nurture Soap right now!

Beautiful color' I just received this color from NS & I made soap using Persephone's Kiss NS for the first time, its a soft floral scent, I wish it was a little stronger.

It was pretty strong in the shampoo and conditioner bars @ 1.5%... but I’ve not tried it in soap yet! Their micas are powerful! The shampoo bar sudds up a pretty pink, so the 1/4 teaspoon I used was maybe too much... but it’s a beautiful color!

 

[rdc1978]

@Jersey Girl look at the Taiwan Swirls, in your first month no less! You’re a natural. Congratulations on the soap-aversary.

A friend at work stopped me in the hall today to tell me how much her grandkids love washing their hands when they come to visit her. I’ve given her a bunch of soap, and apparently the little ones are totally fascinated by a solid bar that makes bubbles with water.

I’m spending some time this month making confetti soap, including some in “exotic” (for me) color combinations. I just finished a batch that went into the mold I bought for the TC challenge. I used 1 divider, put confetti in 2/3 of the mold and batter without confetti in 1/3. I feel so clever, especially if I end up with a reasonably straight line between the layers.

My friend's five year old was on Zoom saying that her family "only uses handmade soap"

My friend is concerned that everyone thinks they are snobs now. LOL.

 

[Basil]

@linne1gi we are in Idaho. Due to lower housing costs, low regulation, and low cost of living (not to mention beautiful scenery and outdoor recreation), people are moving into this state like crazy. Lots of Californian are cashing out and migrating here to escape the taxes. They are bringing lots of cash, and that drives the prices up so fast.

It's sad, because wages here haven't caught up, and many folks who have lived here for a long time can no longer afford to buy anything. I'm very thankful we bought when we did.

Congratulations on your move! I’m sorry about your chickens , I understand. But so nice they’re going to a good home. Same thing is happening here as well. Long timers are having trouble affording to buy and moving to other states. Our daughter and husband left to Kansas for that reason . He’s a fireman. That’s the sad part, you’re right. Altho it has helped others who’ve been here a long time just like you. It’ll be fun to hear how soaping goes in your new home!

Same here, except the fixers are going for $400k - small lots with HOA, too. Just nuts.

Ditto here!

 

[GemstonePony]

Waiting for voting results, and holding off on additional soaping until the next challenge comes out. Meanwhile, I've made a hair conditioner bar, my first foray into e-wax with an emulsified body butter (thick, creamy lotion), some lotion bars(that aren't lotion) that I'm trying some new ingredients in, and I've got phase 1 of a lotion warming on the stove. Still waiting on a delivery before starting lip balms, and bath bombs are also on the docket. Ah, the weekend!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Yesterday I Created This Raw "Potato Juice" Soap. It's natural in color' FO used NG Banana nut bread, Maple Walnut Fudge & BB Pumpkin Soufflé, The scent smells a bit strange but in a good way' smells like yeast bread & little pungent. bawhaha all FO behaved well maybe slight discoloration. The soap has a soft creamy conditioning feel which I would contribute that to the PJ though I only used 2oz I could tell in the soap batter as I was mixing' it felt & looked more creamy then other soaps iv'e made as of late. Can't wait for a month to cure i'll see more of the soaps true characteristics. Happy soaping

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best. The green soap has a bit more, maybe 25% of total batch weight and seems “overcrowded”. I think a higher proportion of smaller chunks would work better at 25% confetti. The one on the right is my “exotic” color scheme and was layered using my new mold with one divider. I‘m happy enough with the layering, the proportions and the size of the confetti, but I’m not sure what I think about the contrasting colors. All of this confetti is from different parts of my first wrecked ring attempt.

ETA: I forgot to mention that all of these soaps were made at 40% lye concentration and using a lard (50%) based recipe, with the “melted” oils in the high 70F range and the lye water a bit cooler. Even though the oils were not clear when I added the lye water, there are no stearic spots apparent. BUT, the lard and CO were melted clear before I added the liquid oils - RBO and/or OO and/or HO sunflower. I avoided castor so as not to push my luck. I got bold enough to try BB’s Grapefruit Lily, a notorious accelerator, in the grey soap and had no acceleration. In comparison, I haven’t been able to produce similar results when I start my palm-based recipe with the oils below 95F or my soy wax-based recipe below 120F.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best. The green soap has a bit more, maybe 25% of total batch weight and seems “overcrowded”. I think a higher proportion of smaller chunks would work better at 25% confetti. The one on the right is my “exotic” color scheme and was layered using my new mold with one divider. I‘m happy enough with the layering, the proportions and the size of the confetti, but I’m not sure what I think about the contrasting colors. All of this confetti is from different parts of my first wrecked ring attempt.

View attachment 54510

Beautiful As usual!

 

[KimW]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best.

Ohhhhh - pretty. I like the grey one the best too!

 

[AliOop]

@Jersey Girl we are so glad you are here and sharing your beautiful creations with us -- even though it means that one of the three winning spots on the SMF Challenge is pretty much taken each month.

@Mobjack Bay wowsers! Those all look great. I love the idea of using the divider mold to create straight layers that can go either direction.

 

[Tara_H]

Today I made some hilariously ugly soap...

I was trying to do a Lazy Susan swirl, but two of the colours ended up getting thicker too fast, so I have some very unfortunate brown lumpy bits in it. It's in the oven now at a super low temperature; I was hoping that it might melt and spread out a little bit but that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm kind of disappointed since I really liked the EO mix for the scent: patchouli, bergamot, lemongrass and a hint of cinnamon. I think I'll call the fragrance 'spice market'. Don't know what I'm going to do with this clown vomit though.


I also read through about half of the Soaping 101 liquid soapmaking video? thread last night and decided to give it a go, so I've spent a lot of today fretting and diluting, but I think I'm going to end up with exactly what I wanted, so that's a nice surprise! (documented at the end of that thread, for the curious)

 

[violets2217]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best. The green soap has a bit more, maybe 25% of total batch weight and seems “overcrowded”. I think a higher proportion of smaller chunks would work better at 25% confetti. The one on the right is my “exotic” color scheme and was layered using my new mold with one divider. I‘m happy enough with the layering, the proportions and the size of the confetti, but I’m not sure what I think about the contrasting colors. All of this confetti is from different parts of my first wrecked ring attempt.

View attachment 54510

ETA: I forgot to mention that all of these soaps were made at 40% lye concentration and using a lard (50%) based recipe, with the “melted” oils in the high 70F range and the lye water a bit cooler. Even though the oils were not clear when I added the lye water, there are no stearic spots apparent. BUT, the lard and CO were melted clear before I added the liquid oils - RBO and/or OO and/or HO sunflower. I avoided castor so as not to push my luck. I got bold enough to try BB’s Grapefruit Lily, a notorious accelerator, in the grey soap and had no acceleration. In comparison, I haven’t been able to produce similar results when I start my palm-based recipe with the oils below 95F or my soy wax-based recipe below 120F.

These are all beautiful! The Grey bar is may favorite though!

 

[Babyshoes]

I tried an end piece of my first soap (from a kit) today, after 2 weeks of cure I couldn't wait any longer to see what it's like!

The scent is great, the soap lathers nicely but not excessively and my hands feel squeaky clean after use, which translates to slightly dry skin. I now realise it's a pretty high CO soap, so that isn't surprising, but I'm hoping it'll get a little milder after the full cure time.

I ordered a batch of sample size FOs a couple of days ago, which have apparently shipped but there is no indication of when they're going to arrive. I thought I was a fairly patient person, but soap has taught me that I'm not nearly as patient as I thought! Lol.

 

[AliOop]

... two of the colours ended up getting thicker too fast,,, the EO mix for the scent: patchouli, bergamot, lemongrass and a hint of cinnamon.

Cinnamon EO contains eugenol, which will accelerate your batter and make it get thick very fast. Same with clove, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, and basil.

 

[Something witty]

My soapy things today/yesterday is that my mom commissioned me to make her some soaps to make for her to give to her clients (of her own unrelated business). I had made soap for her xmas gift and so I've been making little heart versions of the ones that make the most sense for others.
Yesterday I made red wine and epson salt (eucalyptus and mint fragrance) in goat milk base that I added shea butter to to counteract the alcohol (you don't cook wine first with M&P) had a few fails with this one because adding the Epsom salt has to be mixed in mold at the same time as pour at a particular temperature right before cooling otherwise they melt into the mix and you get a sludge. I painted rose gold biodegradable flakes to give the top a metallic look. I think I'll call it "me time"

The ones I just finished; Clear base, canola oil, and fragrance oil mix. Look and smell like blue ring/push pops candy that I'm sure every kid (if the 90s at least) agrees is the BEST. Since Jolly Rancher is Trademarked I'm thinking of calling it "Jelly candy" (so if I do a big version I can use more colours)?

And finally I finished a baking soda soaps scented with a frosty candy apple scent. The baking soda ones are sooooo fun to make. I have more plans and scents in the future for this one. I don't have a name.

Last one to make is my coffee one that my mom said was the fave (no pressure right)

I have my boxes and bags but I still need to spray paint the boxes to look nice because they showed up with a code punched through the front panel

(Pictured already shrink wrapped: "jade garden" goat milk base aloe vera and essential oil blend, "Minty Mallow" goat milk base plus whipped soap base with peppermint essential oil to make a marshmallow texture)

Same here, except the fixers are going for $400k - small lots with HOA, too. Just nuts.

Some of the Land around where I live (regardless of the state of building on it) is 1Mil min per acre. If you want a house that isn't condemned your going for 1.5 million easy. Course when I say home I mean detached with 3 or more bedrooms. Townhouses and condos are still in the 500k-800k easy for the basics/small ones. At least when I last looked 4 years ago. Who knows how expensive they are now.

 

[msunnerstood]

Im in love with the colour I got on these! In bamboo and teak scent. I wish I had more of the poo mold. They look more like cupcake toppers. The possibilities of soap sets and I have a cone mold too.


Also. How has this thread gone on for 7 years now. So much knowledge and soaps and help and wonderful people here.

Yay! love me some poo molds. I have one with 5 cavities. So much fun

 

[KimW]

While searching for an old bar recipe, I found my first ever LS recipe from 2011. Aaawweeeeee. Pretty funny given my latest LS foible! LOL

 

[Jersey Girl]

@Jersey Girl we are so glad you are here and sharing your beautiful creations with us -- even though it means that one of the three winning spots on the SMF Challenge is pretty much taken each month.

@Mobjack Bay wowsers! Those all look great. I love the idea of using the divider mold to create straight layers that can go either direction.

I wish there was a blush emoji on the forum cause that’s what I did when I read this. Lol Thank you