What soapy thing have you done today?

[dibbles]

Yesterday’s batch is sitting in the naughty corner, all crumbly and smelling like grapefruit. I’m just going to leave it there and see what happens. Can’t rebatch it if it’s needed for scientific observation, right? Anyway I made a redemption batch today and it absolutely had all the oils in it. I am going for a subtle yellow ombré. I hope it turns out well because it took over an hour to pour and I am not going to do it again. I guess I will know tomorrow.

 

[Georgeandstella]

Yesterday’s batch is sitting in the naughty corner, all crumbly and smelling like grapefruit. I’m just going to leave it there and see what happens. Can’t rebatch it if it’s needed for scientific observation, right? Anyway I made a redemption batch today and it absolutely had all the oils in it. I am going for a subtle yellow ombré. I hope it turns out well because it took over an hour to pour and I am not going to do it again. I guess I will know tomorrow.

Can’t wait to see it!
An hour pour, impressive- what is the key to having your batter fluid for an hour? Temperature, oil mix, blending to emulsion only, carefully selected FO or?
Thank you!

 

[Misschief]

Yesterday’s batch is sitting in the naughty corner, all crumbly and smelling like grapefruit. I’m just going to leave it there and see what happens. Can’t rebatch it if it’s needed for scientific observation, right? Anyway I made a redemption batch today and it absolutely had all the oils in it. I am going for a subtle yellow ombré. I hope it turns out well because it took over an hour to pour and I am not going to do it again. I guess I will know tomorrow.

My naughty batch is hiding under a paper towel on my soap shelf and I'm trying to decide what to do with it. It's a batch of salt bars and I did the math - they're lye heavy. I have no desire to grate up 16 bars of salt bars for rebatching. So...... there they sit.

 

[dibbles]

My naughty batch is hiding under a paper towel on my soap shelf and I'm trying to decide what to do with it. It's a batch of salt bars and I did the math - they're lye heavy. I have no desire to grate up 16 bars of salt bars for rebatching. So...... there they sit.

Under a paper towel is a good idea - that way they can’t mock me every time I go in my soap room. I feel for you though. 16 bars is a lot to lose.

 

[linne1gi]

I made a really nice soap HP, two colors plus white & a very naughty fragrance (Fresh Cut Roses from Nature’s Garden) BUT, I forgot the fragrance. Big bummer.

 

[Vicki C]

My naughty batch is hiding under a paper towel on my soap shelf and I'm trying to decide what to do with it. It's a batch of salt bars and I did the math - they're lye heavy. I have no desire to grate up 16 bars of salt bars for rebatching. So...... there they sit.

@dibbles
Ug, I hate when that happens. I did this recently, made some lye heavy soap by accident, although my path to disaster was different. Here’s a thought. I too hate rebatching. But, what if you grated it and made ciaglia soap and incorporated some of it? I go as high as 1:2 (shavings to oil). If you upped the superfat of the batter it might be ok. I’m going to try this - as long as the shavings are well blended I think it will work.

 

[AliensrReal]

Can’t wait to see it!
An hour pour, impressive- what is the key to having your batter fluid for an hour? Temperature, oil mix, blending to emulsion only, carefully selected FO or?
Thank you!

The biggest factors for me are recipe, mixing to emulsion and the fragrance oil. Strawberry patch from OT slowed trace and I was at light trace for 3 when using it. I also soap around 100F.

 

[linne1gi]

@dibbles
Ug, I hate when that happens. I did this recently, made some lye heavy soap by accident, although my path to disaster was different. Here’s a thought. I too hate rebatching. But, what if you grated it and made ciaglia soap and incorporated some of it? I go as high as 1:2 (shavings to oil). If you upped the superfat of the batter it might be ok. I’m going to try this - as long as the shavings are well blended I think it will work.

Maybe if you let it cure for a while - otherwise I think those lye heavy soap bits would be really irritating. (exposure to air/curing will help the soap neutralize somewhat).

 

[Misschief]

@dibbles
Ug, I hate when that happens. I did this recently, made some lye heavy soap by accident, although my path to disaster was different. Here’s a thought. I too hate rebatching. But, what if you grated it and made ciaglia soap and incorporated some of it? I go as high as 1:2 (shavings to oil). If you upped the superfat of the batter it might be ok. I’m going to try this - as long as the shavings are well blended I think it will work.

Do you have any idea how hard salt soap is? With my wrists, not happening (Carpal tunnel and de Quervain's).

 

[linne1gi]

Do you have any idea how hard salt soap is? With my wrists, not happening (Carpal tunnel and de Quervain's).

Where did you see it was salt soap? I thought it was just because she left out an oil (28%). And I have to tell you, my best purchase ever was a Salad Shooter - bought it at Goodwill years ago, and it is fabulous for rebatching.

 

[Misschief]

Where did you see it was salt soap? I thought it was just because she left out an oil (28%). And I have to tell you, my best purchase ever was a Salad Shooter - bought it at Goodwill years ago, and it is fabulous for rebatching.

Sorry... I did the same thing... shorted my oils by almost half. But mine was a batch of salt bars.

 

[dibbles]

Can’t wait to see it!
An hour pour, impressive- what is the key to having your batter fluid for an hour? Temperature, oil mix, blending to emulsion only, carefully selected FO or?
Thank you!

Probably all of the above. I soap pretty cool normally. I'd say this batch was combined oil/lye solution temp of low 90s F. Lard is super slow moving, but I am also trying to use up some shea butter so I used lard at 28% (this is the fat I forgot to add in the failed batch). I barely use the stick blender and only to bare emulsion. I did use Afternoon Tea from Nurture which, IMO, can decelerate trace. My lye concentration was 33% and SF was 2%.

 

[jeanemarie]

Maybe if you let it cure for a while - otherwise I think those lye heavy soap bits would be really irritating. (exposure to air/curing will help the soap neutralize somewhat).

When letting it “cure for a while” - would help to shred it first?
Also, would you want/need to use the same recipe again and adjust the lye as if you were simply making a larger batch and the shreds were just part of it?

 

[dibbles]

After all that, here it is. Almost never does soap turn out exactly as I envision it, but this time it did. I am very happy with it. Yellows can be tricky, and I thought it might be of interest to see the difference between gelled and not gelled. Usually colors pop when going through gel phase - but not yellow or sometimes orange. In the individual cavity molds, the one on the left did not go through gel phase and the one on the right did.

 

[VikingChick]

@dibbles Those are lovely! Very pretty yellows. Did you use an impression mat for the tops of your loaf soaps?

 

[dibbles]

@dibbles Those are lovely! Very pretty yellows. Did you use an impression mat for the tops of your loaf soaps?

Thank you! I did use an impression mat in the bottom of the mold.

 

[VikingChick]

This is more of a soapy-thing-last-week than soapy-thing-today, but I got a chuckle out of this.

My daughter lives in Nicaragua and was here in Tennessee for Christmas (without her husband, but that’s a whole ‘nother story ). She wanted to make Nicaraguan nacatamales since that’s a traditional Christmas dish there. We had to go to the Supermercado to find a lot of the ingredients, one of which was annatto. While we were looking for it, she held up this big jar of it and said, “There’s this, but I don’t know what you’d do with the rest of it!” I said, “Oh, I can use it!”

I currently have annatto infusing in olive oil in my crockpot.

 

[Vicki C]

Do you have any idea how hard salt soap is? With my wrists, not happening (Carpal tunnel and de Quervain's).

Ahhh… shoot. I too have a salad shooter - works well for shredding. Half the oils is very lye heavy though. Well you could always salt it out…

When letting it “cure for a while” - would help to shred it first?
Also, would you want/need to use the same recipe again and adjust the lye as if you were simply making a larger batch and the shreds were just part of it?

I don’t know if shredding it would help. And I would just add shreds to a recipe - would make the superfat high, and then stick blend it to a fine slurry. But it would be an experiment.

 

[AliOop]

Today's soapy thing was a 30-bar batch of mechanic's soap, which is my riff on @earlene's famous Blacksmith Soap, using my MB oils and her ratios of borax and pumice. Instead of dual lye, I add sorbitol and use aloe vera juice to dissolve the borax. You can tell how thick it got by the end of the pour by all the soap residue around the cavities. I was scraping it in, smacking it down and leveling off the tops as best as I could. Thankfully, our mechanic doesn't care how it looks; he only asks that I never let him run out of this stuff. Scented with pink grapefruit EO and d-limonene, it smells great!

PS - @dmcgee5034 you can see the soapy gift from DH in the background - the single burner hot plate that I've been wanting for awhile now. And of course, I used the new SB and scale which he urged me to open and use so many weeks ahead of time.

 

[Misschief]

Today's soapy thing was a 30-bar batch of mechanic's soap, which is my riff on @earlene's famous Blacksmith Soap, using my MB oils and her ratios of borax and pumice. Instead of dual lye, I add sorbitol and use aloe vera juice to dissolve the borax. You can tell how thick it got by the end of the pour by all the soap residue around the cavities. I was scraping it in, smacking it down and leveling off the tops as best as I could. Thankfully, our mechanic doesn't care how it looks; he only asks that I never let him run out of this stuff. Scented with pink grapefruit EO and d-limonene, it smells great!

View attachment 75783

PS - @dmcgee5034 you can see the soapy gift from DH in the background - the single burner hot plate that I've been wanting for awhile now. And of course, I used the new SB and scale which he urged me to open and use so many weeks ahead of time.

Looks fantastic! I've been meaning to make Earlene's Blacksmith soap but still haven't gotten to it.