What soapy thing have you done today?

[KimW]

Well.... my Kiss pour swirling thing sure didn’t work out to well for my rimmed soap! As per usual, my plan jumped ship!
moving on to plan b!?!?!

Oh no! well...it looks like it would make a really pretty rim. Did it get too solid or do you not like the design?

 

[violets2217]

Oh no! well...it looks like it would make a really pretty rim. Did it get too solid or do you not like the design?

My 85% lard recipe accelerated way fast ( I’m so confused with my recipes accelerating so much lately!) so I basically plopped and swirled and smushed 12 oz of soap in a 12 x 12 slab mold! It was fun! We’ll see how my improvising worked out....

 

[KimW]

Showed pics of soap planer to Hubby, and asked if he could make me one. His response, "Well, let me see. Hmmmm...I see... (at this point I'm getting excited and starting to envision lovely hours of soap planing) uh-hummm... I tell you what, I'll PAY you $50 to buy one."
Whaaaaat?!!

 

[Ladka]

My 85% lard recipe accelerated way fast ( I’m so confused with my recipes accelerating so much lately!) so I basically plopped and swirled and smushed 12 oz of soap in a 12 x 12 slab mold! It was fun! We’ll see how my improvising worked out....

What did you put in lard to make it accelerate? I'd love to accelerate my lard soaps at least a bit.

 

[AliOop]

My 85% lard recipe accelerated way fast ( I’m so confused with my recipes accelerating so much lately!) so I basically plopped and swirled and smushed 12 oz of soap in a 12 x 12 slab mold! It was fun! We’ll see how my improvising worked out....

Did you use any FO or EO? Clays, TD, charcoal?

Another thing that makes batter accelerate and is often overlooked, is leaving small bits of finished soap on your SB, pots, spatulas, etc. For whatever reason, finished soap accelerates your fresh soap batter. I had that trouble a lot with my old SB and some 2-piece spatulas, all of which often trapped soap in crevices that never got completely clean.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

My daughter got engaged last week so now we’re planning a wedding. I figured I’d make some favors for her and here’s the prototype that I just made to test. View attachment 54567 The embeds are M&P. Should I avoid gel so they don’t melt? I’ve never really put M&P embeds on top of a cold process soap before. Need some advice!

OMGOSH Love Love Your Soap. Congratulations on your Daughters Engagement! So exciting planning for the big event.

 

[The Park Bench]

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.
View attachment 54515

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)

I really like the color combination!

 

[The_Phoenix]

I‘ve been planning to make a wood box for my new silicone mold, but I’ve only gotten so far as to sketch it out on the plywood. Here’s the interim solution I came up with to keep the sides of the mold straight.

View attachment 54552

That’s very inventive...

Love it! Hmmmm now to dig out that massive box of LEGO I have stored somewhere.

It’s the one bin of my daughter’s toys I haven’t yet had the will to let go of. I couldn’t sell off her American Girl Doll stuff fast enough. But the Legos...

 

[AliOop]

It’s the one bin of my daughter’s toys I haven’t yet had the will to let go of. I couldn’t sell off her American Girl Doll stuff fast enough. But the Legos...

Well thank goodness! Because they are good for making mold supports, and also for making a box to make a silicone mold liner. Who knew??

 

[KiwiMoose]

I managed to get hold of some Rose Geranium cosmetic grade oil, which is essentially just like an EO but without the ‘aromatherapy benefits’ one might usually get from an EO.
I thought it might accelerate so I used 20g of it blended with 10g Ocean Rose by Candle Science which actually slows trace, and 5G Sweet Orange EO. Boy oh boy it smells GOOD!
It’s a confetti soap with a pink layer in the base. Can’t wait to cut it tonight!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I managed to get hold of some Rose Geranium cosmetic grade oil, which is essentially just like an EO but without the ‘aromatherapy benefits’ one might usually get from an EO.
I thought it might accelerate so I used 20g of it blended with 10g Ocean Rose by Candle Science which actually slows trace, and 5G Sweet Orange EO. Boy oh boy it smells GOOD!
It’s a confetti soap with a pink layer in the base. Can’t wait to cut it tonight!
View attachment 54577

The scent you created sounds lovely' looking forward to seeing the cut' pretty soap

 

[KiwiMoose]

The scent you created sounds lovely' looking forward to seeing the cut' pretty soap

Thanks you - let's hope it sticks!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Showed pics of soap planer to Hubby, and asked if he could make me one. His response, "Well, let me see. Hmmmm...I see... (at this point I'm getting excited and starting to envision lovely hours of soap planing) uh-hummm... I tell you what, I'll PAY you $50 to buy one."
Whaaaaat?!!

I can use a planer' good idea to ask my hubby too'

Well.... my Kiss pour swirling thing sure didn’t work out to well for my rimmed soap! As per usual, my plan jumped ship! View attachment 54573
moving on to plan b!?!?!

I think your soap will be pretty as a rim' Hopefully it works out.

Cleaning is done. Waiting on my label guy. (The hubs.) Prepping to test new soap dough recipe and some new FOs. I can’t believe how much I love these fun fruity ones from NS!
Avalon, Smell the Rainbow, Sugared Strawberry.
And these mermaids came out so good! They have noses AND chins!!
Cleaning, packing, prepping.
Happy Sippy Soapy Sunday!

Love your molds' soap was perfect.

 

[Misschief]

I made a batch today. Finally. This one is shades of blue, not sure what to call it yet. I'm hoping to cut it tonight; it's already hard enough but I'd prefer to wait until it cools down completely. Apart from making soap, I've been playing with pictures, getting inspiration from a You Tuber, Kutovakika.

 

[KimW]

I made a batch today. Finally. This one is shades of blue, not sure what to call it yet. I'm hoping to cut it tonight; it's already hard enough but I'd prefer to wait until it cools down completely. Apart from making soap, I've been playing with pictures, getting inspiration from a You Tuber, Kutovakika.

I call it... "Shades of Blue"!! Or maybe... Azure Mood, like the old song, "Azure". Really like the blue you've achieved and can't wait to see the cut!

 

[violets2217]

Did you use any FO or EO? Clays, TD, charcoal?

Another thing that makes batter accelerate and is often overlooked, is leaving small bits of finished soap on your SB, pots, spatulas, etc. For whatever reason, finished soap accelerates your fresh soap batter. I had that trouble a lot with my old SB and some 2-piece spatulas, all of which often trapped soap in crevices that never got completely clean.

This is why I’m so confused... I forgot to add the FO. Just oil, lye and mica! Low temps....Two 3 sec bursts of the SB and medium trace! I’m thinking because it was such a small batch & It wasn’t the mica because the un-colored 4 oz accelerated the most! The same recipe with FO a few hours later took another 5 minutes to get to trace and poured great!

What did you put in lard to make it accelerate? I'd love to accelerate my lard soaps at least a bit.

It was 85% lard, 10% CO, 5% Castor. 40% lye concentration. Low temps around 90 degrees. I forgot the FO. And mica to 8 oz of the batch. The 4 oz of un-colored batter accelerated the most! So your guess is a good as mine!

 

[AliOop]

@violets2217 I think you are right; the small batch size is the only thing that seems plausible at this point, unless you did have some soap residue left on your blender or utensils from the last soaping session. That does it to me sometimes, especially if I'm making one batch after another. The finished soap bits from the first batch really accelerates the next ones, unless I'm very careful about getting that SB super, super clean.

 

[Zing]

Well I was inspired by everyone being so impressed with my baking tin and decided to push it a bit further! I wanted to do a batch where I just lined the tin directly with a single folded sheet of paper, to take advantage of the nice square edges and avoid some of the messing around that comes with the loaf mould.

I made an EO blend with Pine, Peppermint, Eucalyptus and Lavender that reminded me of forests so I wanted to do a tree- or leaf-inspired design and found this post: Christmas Green

Just to complicate things further I wanted to try CPOP for the first time since I get partial gel every time I do a deeper batch of soap and I wanted to enhance the green colour as much as possible.

This is it just after pouring; I think the batter was still a little thin so it was a bit less controlled than I was hoping, but still fairly tree-ish:
View attachment 54459

I was a bit panicked after taking it out of the oven, it just looked like a bit gelatinous blob and I had visions of all that fiddly work going to waste:
View attachment 54460

Luckily after leaving overnight and some judicious cutting I'm pretty happy with the results:
View attachment 54461

They're kind of blobby, but undeniably tree-shaped! I'll definitely be practicing this technique some more.

These are not blobby! Quite the hating on these beautiful bars! Tell me how you like your essential oil blend. I like forest smells but pine always takes me to an antiseptic-PineSol-y place -- but I'm willing to try this if you like it.
I've had good luck with these blends:
- fir needle, rosemary, spearmint, cedarwood essential oils, and
- bergamot, eucalyptus, fir, rosemary, peppermint essential oils.

 

[Tara_H]

These are not blobby! Quite the hating on these beautiful bars! Tell me how you like your essential oil blend. I like forest smells but pine always takes me to an antiseptic-PineSol-y place -- but I'm willing to try this if you like it.
I've had good luck with these blends:
- fir needle, rosemary, spearmint, cedarwood essential oils, and
- bergamot, eucalyptus, fir, rosemary, peppermint essential oils.

Those blends sound gorgeous! I don't have any rosemary right now but you're making me realise I need it!

Personally I'm quite liking the blend in the soap so far, it's s nice fresh smell, but the peppermint is coming through a lot stronger than the pine, and I would boost the lavender if I made it again. My husband did say that it reminded him of floor cleaner when I mixed it first so I can't recommend it without reservations...

 

[TashaBird]

Second attempt. Hopefully it’s soap dough, and not, soap DOH!