What soapy thing have you done today?

[ScentimentallyYours]

Is she available for hire?

Get in line!

 

[GGMA0317]

I think there should be a Soapers Anonymous. I plan to do some serious soaping this weekend (serious for me is 3 5lb loaves). I'd already have them curing but I ran out of lye again. I've gotta start ordering larger quantities or more frequently, haven't decided which yet. Anyway, more lye was supposed to be here by Friday, but I got a notification this morning that shipment was delayed and now my lye won't be here til Monday. Nope, not having it. I drove straight to the local hardware store and bought a pound to get me by til Monday because I. Can. Not. Wait. That. LONG!

 

[GGMA0317]

I'm planning a (Thanks-Christmas)gift basket filled with B&B products and other handmade items for my sister. So tomorrow I'll make bar soap since it's the only thing that needs curing. I cure my soap for at least 3 months so I need to get it together

 

[Jorah]

Working on packaging soap to send to testers has made it clear that I have a much bigger problem with DOS than I thought. My wife and I will be studying various resources to try to find solutions to this issue. I can't do too much with a bunch of soap that is turning orange. Grim.

I'll be reading a lot of back posts here on forum, you can count on that.

 

[msunnerstood]

Made my Midnight Moonflower Soap the other day. its pink purple and white but after dark its..

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Working on packaging soap to send to testers has made it clear that I have a much bigger problem with DOS than I thought. My wife and I will be studying various resources to try to find solutions to this issue. I can't do too much with a bunch of soap that is turning orange. Grim.

I'll be reading a lot of back posts here on forum, you can count on that.

Oh no!
Do you have pictures to post? Recipes?
Aside from the grapeseed oil (which I don’t think should not have produced orange spots yet), what are you using for liquid? It’s time to go back over all of your ingredients and the way you are curing your soap to determine what is going wrong. I’m sure at this point you are paranoid and suspecting everything. I’m so sorry about your soap.

 

[Tammyfarms]

Made my Midnight Moonflower Soap the other day. its pink purple and white but after dark its..

View attachment 74156View attachment 74157View attachment 74158

Wow! That is beautiful soap.

 

[GGMA0317]

Made my Midnight Moonflower Soap the other day. its pink purple and white but after dark its..

View attachment 74156View attachment 74157View attachment 74158

That is pretty cool. I didn't know that colorant existed. I think kids would love it.

 

[Vicki C]

Working on packaging soap to send to testers has made it clear that I have a much bigger problem with DOS than I thought. My wife and I will be studying various resources to try to find solutions to this issue. I can't do too much with a bunch of soap that is turning orange. Grim.

I'll be reading a lot of back posts here on forum, you can count on that.

That’s a bummer. interested to hear what you find. I use sodium gluconate in every batch and I think it really helps. I just ordered a fifty pound bag because buying a little at a time on Amazon was expensive.

 

[Vicki C]

I sent some soap to my brother in law for his birthday - his favorite, cedar patchouli. Yesterday I commented that my pine tar soap doesn’t sell and I was going to try adding lavender and cedar per @Misschief ’s method - but, head slap, this soap has flecks of pine tar, cedar, frankincense, lavender, amyris, and patchouli, and is a pretty good seller.

 

[Shelley D]

Made my Midnight Moonflower Soap the other day. its pink purple and white but after dark its..

View attachment 74156View attachment 74157View attachment 74158

That's too cute! But I have grand kids that would want to try to shower in the dark to see if the bubbles glowed too though! That might be problematic . . . Or, make a great a story!

 

[Jorah]

Oh no!
Do you have pictures to post? Recipes?
Aside from the grapeseed oil (which I don’t think should not have produced orange spots yet), what are you using for liquid? It’s time to go back over all of your ingredients and the way you are curing your soap to determine what is going wrong. I’m sure at this point you are paranoid and suspecting everything. I’m so sorry about your soap.

My first suspicion is how I've been curing it. I use distilled water for every batch, and have started adding sodium citrate (and I'm looking at EDTA and sodium gluconate as possible alternatives). I'm shopping Amazon for a dehumidifier and need to clear shelves for more roomy curing areas; I think I may have crowded some of my bars early on.

 

[Jorah]

Made my Midnight Moonflower Soap the other day. its pink purple and white but after dark its..

View attachment 74158

...lit?

 

[msunnerstood]

That is pretty cool. I didn't know that colorant existed. I think kids would love it.

It's Glow Blue from Mad Micas

 

[Jorah]

Oh no!
Do you have pictures to post? Recipes?

You know my recipes are all over the place right now. I'm happy to send the Word docs over to you if you want to look, but I'm not going to post thirty recipes on the forum! :-D

One of the things my wife has been doing the last two days is inventorying the bars to see if there are patterns in which batches have DOS, and she's not seeing anything obvious related to the oils (the only ones that don't have DOS are the Castile and Bastille!), which makes me think that my earlier practice of curing on metal racks likely caused a lot of the issues we're seeing now. The 'snapshot' on my sorting table runs from my first batch on April Fool's Day through the end of July, and during that time I joined the forum and started learning what not to do (thank you, everyone!), so there are batches from before I learned anything.

Question for the assembled savants: could handling fresh (day-old, and two-day-old) soap barehanded trigger DOS? I'm wondering if I should just make a habit of wearing nitrile gloves from here on out whenever handling soap.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

The 'snapshot' on my sorting table runs from my first batch on April Fool's Day

So do you now refer to DOS as April Fool’s soap?

could handling fresh (day-old, and two-day-old) soap barehanded trigger DOS? I'm wondering if I should just make a habit of wearing nitrile gloves from here on out whenever handling soap.

My guess is whether or not it’s safe to handle soap with bare hands may depend on how clean one’s hands are, perhaps including chemicals or occupational contaminants that cling to the skin. 20+ years ago I never wore gloves and it didn’t cause a problem. That said, I don’t like getting my hands icky or getting fingerprints on soap so I now tend to wear gloves. I’m interested to see how others weigh in.

It sounds like your wife helped eliminate the variables and the culprit was the metal shelves. You know you can rent Mrs. Jorah out, right?

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

It's Glow Blue from Mad Micas

Very cool in soap. It looks like the same type of mica I embed in glass pendants to make them glow in the dark. The mica qualities survive the firing process in the kiln. Beautiful combination of colors @msunnerstood!

 

[Jorah]

You know my recipes are all over the place right now. I'm happy to send the Word docs over to you if you want to look, but I'm not going to post thirty recipes on the forum! :-D

One of the things my wife has been doing the last two days is inventorying the bars to see if there are patterns in which batches have DOS, and she's not seeing anything obvious related to the oils (the only ones that don't have DOS are the Castile and Bastille!), which makes me think that my earlier practice of curing on metal racks likely caused a lot of the issues we're seeing now. The 'snapshot' on my sorting table runs from my first batch on April Fool's Day through the end of July, and during that time I joined the forum and started learning what not to do (thank you, everyone!), so there are batches from before I learned anything.

Question for the assembled savants: could handling fresh (day-old, and two-day-old) soap barehanded trigger DOS? I'm wondering if I should just make a habit of wearing nitrile gloves from here on out whenever handling soap.

BTW, I've been reading through posts over the last few years and I can't tell what the current opinion on ROE as an anti-DOS treatment is. It seems people are leaning away from using it, and it's expensive!

 

[Shelley D]

It's Glow Blue from Mad Micas

Imagine an embed of a ghost with that! Or eyes!

 

[AliOop]

BTW, I've been reading through posts over the last few years and I can't tell what the current opinion on ROE as an anti-DOS treatment is. It seems people are leaning away from using it, and it's expensive!

I still use it to treat my home-rendered lard and tallow, as well any containers of soft oils that I open. While it is expensive, the amount used is so minuscule per batch (literally a drop or two) that a very small bottle of ROE lasts a very long time.