What soapy thing have you done today?

[ResolvableOwl]

My M&P enthusiasm has cooled off a lot, since I learned (the hard way) which strange limits it poses on the fatty acid profile. Tallow and palm oil are about the softest fats to make decent M&P from. Little luck with any step further into the direction of liquid oils. Coconut, soy/canola wax (and castor) make the highest-performance M&P bases, but I'm having a hard time to enjoy the resulting soaps themselves. High oleic to no avail (let alone linoleic ). No wonder that many recipes call for refined fatty acids (stearic, myristic), but at these level it's painful to watch others fight against instantaneous ricing.

 

[Tara_H]

I'm having a hard time to enjoy the resulting soaps themselves.

Yes, they're certainly plenty bubbly, and you can get some amazing visual effects, but they always seem to me to be somehow cheap as an actual soap to wash with. Formulation wise I'm much more interested in exploring the Shea/cocoa butter angle and finding a recipe that feels luxurious to me.
But volume wise it's the artistic angle that draws me back, and I'm happy with my swirling recipe now. It's a nice low cleansing one with a creamy lather and while it may never win any prizes, I like it as a general purpose soap..

 

[Nanna]

@Nanna Yes - natural reds are so hard to come by - this is an astaxanthin supplement that has rosemary leaf extract and olive oil. I am trying to source some astaxanthin powder, but it’s so expensive! I’ve been trying to negotiate with vendors on Alibaba but I don’t think they have much interest in a grandmother fooling around with soap.
who is not ever going to buy a pallet of the stuff.
I did have some luck getting a much darker red than I expected from turkey rhubarb root. Photo below shows rhubarb root infused OO on left from February, astaxanthin / iron oxide in the middle, and that nice fire engine red from astaxanthin after 24 hours. (Still saponifying but as you see it’s more orangey.) The rhubarb root appears more maroon in the photo than IRL.
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Thanks for the pics, I really would like to try the rhubarb

 

[Babyshoes]

I managed to unmould and cut this before I left for the hospital this morning, I'm pleased with how dramatic it looks. It's a very mild soap, unscented, with activated charcoal. Fingers crossed it'll work for my combination skin!

Now sitting waiting for the procedure, nurse had to get the "difficult veins specialist" to pop the cannula in - not being allowed to drink before has left me a bit dehydrated...

 

[Tara_H]

I managed to unmould and cut this before I left for the hospital this morning, I'm pleased with how dramatic it looks. It's a very mild soap, unscented, with activated charcoal. Fingers crossed it'll work for my combination skin!

Now sitting waiting for the procedure, nurse had to get the "difficult veins specialist" to pop the cannula in - not being allowed to drink before has left me a bit dehydrated...

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Wow, those are gorgeous! What a great combination of colours!

Best of luck with your procedure today

 

[Babyshoes]

Wow, those are gorgeous! What a great combination of colours!

Best of luck with your procedure today

Thank you, it went fine, nothing obvious to cause my symptoms but they took a few biopsies so I'll get an appointment when the results of that come back. Not fun, but quick at least and I'm home resting now so all is good. The sedative has left me sleepy but not too out of it, which is a relief.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Biscuits, anyone?


(contains traces of lollipop swirl margarine)

The rolled oats soaked up some of the pumpkin seed oil, so they caught some greenish olive tint. It is the laziest of all recipes: just spread the dough on a baking sheet, criss-cross with a knife, and put it into the oven.

No beauties for sure, but they aren't intended to win a beauty contest, but to taste good and to put on weight .


Back to (soap) topic: Yesterday evening, once the biscuits were in the oven, I also made my first soap dough. Due to my impatience with melting the cocoa butter, the oils might have been a bit too warm (40°C) for my understanding of soap dough to avoid gel phase by all means (?). The batter considerably traced by itself and I didn't even need the stick blender. That's why I put it outside (5°C) overnight. Some 16 hours later, saponification appears to be largely done, and it has a nice and smooth texture, is zero brittle but still a bit sticky. I'll leave it well wrapped for a few days at room temperature, until I'll need it.

 

[Tara_H]

I doubt I'll get any more soaping done today, but I did get the tallow almost all the way to finished! I now have about 11 litres of it in a fermenting barrel, and some dregs in a bowl to cool and separate tomorrow.

I cut the one pot not-very-wonderful; it's interesting but not what I was aiming for, obviously.


When I was in the chemist yesterday, I noticed they had Jasmine EO and was curious, remembering everyone I've read here. It was €4.99 for 10ml, the ingredients just say "oils extracted from jasmine", and it has a very strong authentic smell, so I gave it a try in the above soap. Of course I had forgotten about the tendency of florals to accelerate, hence the design fail. It still smells the same and very strong today, I'll be curious to see how it cures.

I also poured and cut another design fail - all this thinking about the lollipop pour got me wondering what it looks like inside, so of course I tried a transparent version to find out! However the separate parts did not approve of the order I put them in, they wanted to be green on the bottom and peach on top, and reorganised themselves despite my efforts. I presume it's due to the relative amounts of air bubbles in each part.

 

[msunnerstood]

I made labels for my Strawberry Peach Champagne soap and Made textured business cards with my new Cricut Maker. No more hand-cutting labels, I even kiss cut them so I can peel them off easily. I'm obsessed.

 

[KimW]

Don't forget the classic: AI Weirdness — Try these neural network-generated recipes at your...

And I promise that when I can hold molecular dinner parties again I will invite anyone who's interested, although you'll all have to pay for your own plane tickets

In soapy news today, I challenged my received belief that tallow can't be used for transparent soap, with positive results:
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I also tried a one pot wonder for the first time, which... yeah...
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Your transparent soap looks lovely! yay!!! What happened to your one pot wonder? Technically, I'd call it a "wonder"!

I replied before I saw the end result of your one pot wonder. I think it's fantastic! Your color choice is spot on, per usual, and I am dutifuly impressed that you made such a lovely soap from such thick batter. Nicely done!

 

[Vicki C]

Thanks for the pics, I really would like to try the rhubarb

I got it here Turkey Rhubarb Root Powder, Clearance

 

[AAShillito]

Not officially
I just unfolded a soleseife last night, based on the Zaney recipe. Added activated charcoal and rosemary and lavender EO.
Very happy how these turned out.

What is the zany recipe?

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Restocked HO sunflower oil from a grocery store a few days ago. Today I had a glimpse on the receipt, with a funny Freudian misread: Actually the oil is called “Bratöl” (German for “frying oil”), but my subconsciousness decided to read “Bartöl” (“beard oil”) instead. You can imagine I was a bit confused for a moment how I came by a family-size bottle of beard styling goo

 

[Tara_H]

Today was a zero soap day, but I did a lot of organising, planning and scheming.

I also re-edited all of my photos from the last photo shoot - @ResolvableOwl I looked at them on a different screen and I was horrified at how dark and washed out everything looked, you were right that they needed some work now I have to go and re-upload them all...

I formulated a cunning plan for the challenge which will be either amazing or a massive waste of time and materials but I'll learn something new, we shall find out which soon enough. I often feel like Calvin: Google Image Result for https://riteshjsr.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/ch860122.gif

And my FO shipment finally arrived! My nose is confused and my wallet is sad, but my creative juices are unblocked and running wild, to butcher a metaphor...

 

[TashaBird]

Last week I sent some ideas to my favorite tool maker and they just made them and sent them to me! Made my day!!!

 

[Johnez]

Picked up more of the "basic trinity" oils, including a giant jug of "regular" olive oil at Wally World. Deciding between tweaking the trinity with a special superfat (shea, cocoa, mango butter) or go try the famous ZNSC recipe. Funny how buying lard at Walmart is cheaper by ounce with the one lb carton vs 4 lb pail.

Also patiently waiting for WSP to stock KOH again so I can order everything else I want (EOs, butters and glass bottles).

 

[violets2217]

I had so much fun trying out my pull through’s. It was soooo cool! My first batch got way to thick... not sure if it was the FO or the corn silk powder I added to the lye. Second try my pretty smooth and almost perfect, just need to work on my pour accuracy. And third attempt was a heavy trace but still pourable. It was the kid’s favorite. Pictured 1-3 left to right.

I will definitely order from Wild Platanica again! When I was picking out plates for my batches I actually counted and realized she sent me 4 extras. Such a pleasant surprise!

 

[Catscankim]

Just got done soaping with Ylang Ylang and Honey from NS. It was dreamy at first...I had a few minutes (I thought) to stop and do a little clean up. Suddenly it started to thicken, it wasn't terrible. I guess it just sitting for a minute instead of stirring did it, I dunno. I can deal with it getting too thick too quick than ricing lol. But I had to move FAST at the last moment, which I hate, but again, not as bad as ricing...

Anyway, did a hanger swirl. I completely suck at hanger swirls. Does anybody know of a good tutorial for doing them? Every YT that I watch gets to the hanger...then they go through it super fast lol.

The Ylang Ylang and Honey smells great, but to me it smells like rose geranium. I still have the FO on my hands and keep going back and forth between my hands and the rose geranium EO. It smells just like the EO. Maybe it will change with the cure. Definitely no Ylang Ylang in there, at least not OOB. Either way, I like the smell.

My friend called me for Mother's day soaps. She said to pick them myself and send her four. I didn't make anything remotely resembling a mother's day soap...and her mom is like 90. I might just send her a picture of a lineup of soaps and let her pick.

edit: and I poured part one of three parts for the soap challenge club polka dot soap. I'm only giving this one shot so keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I had so much fun trying out my pull through’s. It was soooo cool!

Honestly, I like the first ones most! Numbers two an three are telling “Cool, you jumped on the pull-through train, and you're fine-tuning your technique”. But the first gave me a “Whoa! How did you do this pattern?” moment.

 

[TashaBird]

I had so much fun trying out my pull through’s. It was soooo cool! My first batch got way to thick... not sure if it was the FO or the corn silk powder I added to the lye. Second try my pretty smooth and almost perfect, just need to work on my pour accuracy. And third attempt was a heavy trace but still pourable. It was the kid’s favorite. Pictured 1-3 left to right.
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I will definitely order from Wild Platanica again! When I was picking out plates for my batches I actually counted and realized she sent me 4 extras. Such a pleasant surprise!

Gorgeous! I recognize those patterns!

@Catscankim i use ylang ylang when I want to accelerate.