What soapy thing have you done today?

[apples]

Cut a lavender soap (been anticipating for the first cut as usual! Its so soft I had to leave it in the mold for 2 days), happy with the color.

Harvested aloe Vera for the next soap from mum's (going to do that till my aloe plant grows back a bit!) Prepared and froze the aloe gel, now thinking of the soap design...drawing the swirls in my notes etc. Just can't make up my mind...thinking grass-look...

 

[amd]

I wish that the mobile app would let me give likes! So many things I'm reading that make me happy as I catch up on my forum reading

Thanks all for the congrats. We joke that it's been 20 years in the making but I can quit stalking him now. It will still be a long road until the actual wedding because we're blending families and want to do what's right for the kiddos. And we need to find a bigger house (preferably one with 3 kitchens but we might be dreaming a tad bit) and I have this weird rule about no living together until we're married. So right now we are just enjoying this next part of our relationship.

Soapy news... Had a terrible show with no sales. Had another show with very low sales (but any time I put soap into people's hands I'm happy). I have the monthly farmer's market on the 2nd and then I have no shows until Aug 6th. Looking forward to getting back to some fun soaping because all I've been doing lately is restocks to keep the store going.

I'm going to take a stab at cupcakes, the stripy heart swirl, and an ocean pattern.

 

[apples]

Had the same thought about the "like" function in mobile app. If I really wanna "like" though I'll have to select the comment and open in browser, like now.

Soapy stuff, made aloe soap with cocoa butter and peppermint eo, I'm so getting fat by just smelling that! Molded at thin trace as I wanted to mix-swirl the layers of 3 colours. As usual, always worrying when I do that...I've had oils pooling on top when I mistaken a false trace for thin trace, poured at false trace. I was like "what can I do now that it's already in the mold all swirled? Leave it. It will turn out OK when I look at it again tomorrow." Left it on the kitchen counter.

Then I was like "Hey, is it gelling or not? What if..." geez...I can't help it.

 

[TBandCW]

Got to use my new acrylic soap planer/beveler! It's awesome! What's even nicer is my daughter-in-law is now trimming my soap for me and loves it too!

 

[earlene]

Okay, I've been postponing soaping for a few days because of the SB issue. I tested it again after an additional 24 hours set up time, just in case getting it wet too soon would have done the gorilla glue any harm (which I doubt since wetness helps GG set up) and it seems to be just fine, even though the bond is rather ugly.

But today I plan to experiment with making spinning bath bombs. I got the ingredients out last night in prep for doing that today. I'll re-watch the video that Spunky shared with me as this one looks like it does a good demonstration of how to make a bath bomb that will spin:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8efu1sjxr7E&index=2&list=PLz649mKx_Z4yKo7YvIesn6NvaPqUrVJPi[/ame]

I'll need to test one in my kitchen sink as I don't really want to fill the whirlpool tub and use up all of our hot water just for a test.

 

[Sagebrush]

Say that three times fast, lol : D

But seriously, what is that? Sounds intrigueing, but have no idea what it is.

Ha ha! I never thought of it as a tongue twister before! Smudge sticks are like incense that people use to air out their house and/or clear out the bad vibes when they get a new house.

 

[Sagebrush]

"

Do you have a lot of sage, sageonthemountain? I guess you must, given your moniker. "

Earlene, I have less sage than I'd like to admit! I mostly harvest wild sage, but I'm growing a couple domesticated sage plants right now that are faring pretty well

 

[thursday48]

The DH and I are currently making a wooden soap mold, I'd be done already if he'd put down his phone and finish cutting the wood . I'm not allowed to play with the handsaw because apparently I concern him when I do, though it maybe because I call it playing with the handsaw.

 

[earlene]

I made several bath bomb embeds, but then when I went to make the bath bombs themselves I made so few that I didn't want to waste one testing it in the kitchen sink (for spinning). So I will wrap them to bring along on my trip to San Antonio & let the first test happen when we actually use them in a tub. I need to purchase more citric acid before I can make more.

My new/used KitchenAid stick blender came yesterday, a day earlier than expected. I looks brand new, like it's never been used at all. The motor sounds smoother and quieter than the one I've been using all this time (same exact model), but I am continuing to use the old motor portion for as long as it holds up. It's nice to have the other attachments and the owner's manual, and of course the whole purpose of this purchase: the replacement blending rod.

Anyway, so I made soap late last night after Hubby went to bed. I used lard for the first time and tried my hand at a ribbon pour. I think I need to re-watch that video regarding what the best consistency is for the soap batter to get the best results. I think I may have poured with too light a trace. It is still warm in the oven; I just checked on it when I woke up. It's a Borax soap for my blacksmithy brother. I made borax soap once last year and thought it did a pretty nice job of making a very white soap that felt really good as a hand cleaner. One problem I had with it was that it was a bit crumbly when I cut it. So I want to cut this soon, I think. I used two one-pound molds, pouring differently into each to see what kinds of color pattern variations I might obtain. However, I think the color choices were too limited to produce much pattern and as I said, my batter was too thin when I poured, making it blend more than I wanted. Still I think it may be pretty enough anyway. We will see when I cut it.

In the meantime, I have a few things to order, including more citric acid. The little amount available at the grocery store just doesn't seem like enough. Plus I want to order powered pumice and a couple other things.

 

[AustinStraight]

THIS!

Anyway. Figured it out. Fixed myself and managed a third batch properly....only to remove from the mold too soon (I almost always cut salt bars within the hour) but this time they weren't ready...so it started to lose its shape and turn into a pile of mush. I jammed it back into the mold and now have some funny off-shaped bars..

Whatever.

They smell good. And they'll work good.

I agree though - I don't even try to salvage salt bars... I'm not even sure you CAN.

Oh no!! I got a couple 6-cavity 4-ounce Freshware molds off Amazon for salt soap and my life is honestly changed for the better! Cutting salt bars is just too much of a pain for me, sometimes it's worth it for in-the-mold swirls that you can't do with a cavity mold, but I can never find that "goldilocks zone" to cut where they don't crumble into dust or get dented by my fingers and ruined.

And yeah, I tried to rebatch salt bars once... once.

 

[artemis]

I've been soaping about one batch every two days. Just playing around with new ingedients/scents/colors. I'm glad for my little 1lb mold or I would be overwhelmed with soap bars!

 

[earlene]

Very nice looking bars, Artemis. I am particularly drawn to the blue & white bars in the foreground.

` ` ` `

My soapy stuff today (interspersed with two naps!):

Unmolded & cut my 2 1-pound molds of Borax soap. They look so pretty. Like marble. I used alkanet root and madder root and TD for colorants, but what I see is grey and white marble. I'll post photos later. I took a few photos, but haven't uploaded to computer yet, but I know they'll look even prettier once cleaned up a bit more.

Did a little shopping on the lookout for soaping-useful supplies at WalMart and found the green silicone 'herb starters' with lid for only $3.00. I bought the only one they had left on clearance. Such a bargain. I love these things because of the lid.

Carried some soaps downstairs to clean up so I can package them, then promptly took a nap. Not much clean up done so far today & it's after 9 pm now. Guess I'll be up most of the night after two naps in one day!

Opened my Micas & More delivery. Lots more micas to test out!

I want to do a batch of confetti soap for the fun of it. I've never actually made confetti soap before. I always just do a complete melt-down when I rebatch, so this will be interesting. Design-wise I am not sure where I want to go with it yet. I'm thinking something off set, not squared and uniform in design. Maybe I'll work on that tonight since I expect I'll be awake for several more hours.

 

[artemis]

Thank you, earline. That's my first mica. I am trying to learn how much to use. I tend to be a little heavy handed... Do you use Borax soap for house hold cleaning?

 

[earlene]

No, I made it for use as hand soap. I first made it for my son, who tends to get pretty dirty when he does yard work. And one of my brothers is a blacksmith and from what I have read at a blacksmithing forum, borax works extremely well to get the coal and whatnot that gets into the hands of smithies. He asked for lava-type soap, but I don't have any pumice yet, so thought I'd make some more borax soap in the meantime. It makes for a very softening feeling type of soap, too.

 

[niclycha]

I cleaned out my Walmart of those too a couple months ago, for 3 dollars too. I think I got 5 or 6 of them lol

 

[artemis]

No, I made it for use as hand soap. I first made it for my son, who tends to get pretty dirty when he does yard work. And one of my brothers is a blacksmith and from what I have read at a blacksmithing forum, borax works extremely well to get the coal and whatnot that gets into the hands of smithies. He asked for lava-type soap, but I don't have any pumice yet, so thought I'd make some more borax soap in the meantime. It makes for a very softening feeling type of soap, too.

How much Borax do you use? If you don't mind me asking. My dad is a mechanic and his hands are so greasy at the end of the day. My last "mechanics soap," I used cornmeal and we're pretty happy with that for scrubbiness.

 

[earlene]

Today's soapy thing:

Sorting my colorants & moving them to a bigger plastic carry-all container. And still I have more coming! Adding labels to the tops of jars so I can see what they are without having to lift everyone of them out first.

Cleaning up some soaps so I can use my new packaging set up: heat gun, impulse sealer & smell-through shrink wrap. Also adding labels and ingredient list.

Choose soaps & soap dishes for nephew's wedding present. Then I need to go pick out some towels and wash cloths to include in the package. I hope to mail that out in the next day or so.

Put in an order for a few supplies I keep putting off ordering for lack of enough to warrant the shipping. Hopefully I can get to this today.

Test some of my new micas from Steph's Micas & More. This time I will do the ribbon pour at light trace and see if I can get that wooden look that newbie got in her tutorial thread. I love the look of that. With some neutral colors, I think it would go over very well for the men in my family (and there are a lot of them.)

Vote for only 3 soaps in the June Challenge. What a hard decision!

Oh my goodness, this heat sealing deal is more time consuming than I realized. Well I guess I'll get better at it once I've done this a bunch of times, but right now I'm going so dang slow! Time for another break. I'm really glad I wasn't planning on doing a whole lot of these today.

 

[earlene]

How much Borax do you use? If you don't mind me asking. My dad is a mechanic and his hands are so greasy at the end of the day. My last "mechanics soap," I used cornmeal and we're pretty happy with that for scrubbiness.

The recipe I use, calls for 2.2 ounces of dissolved Borax, using some of the water taken from the total water for the recipe. It's a 2 pounds of total oils recipe. I don't remember where I found it, but I think it was in one of the soaping books I borrowed from my local library when I first started soaping. Or it could have been something I found online. I am just not sure. I know for sure I changed the oils in the original recipe because when I started I did not have certain oils and just used what I had on hand. But I kept the total oils the same and the amount of borax the same. Of course I always run any change through a lye calculator.

Anyway, the dissolved borax gets mixed anytime you want to mix it in. I put it in with the oils while they were still warm just to make sure it did not fall out of solution.

Here's are 2 pictures of what they look like this time.

This is from 2 different molds and I was trying for a ribbon pour, but poured too thin so the colors kind of melded together. Next time I'll do it differently. But I really like the marbled look of the rectangular soaps. The majority of the white ended up in that part of the pour and none of pinkish tinged madder root powder color that is visible in the other square soaps on the right.

How much cornmeal do you add when you make your mechanics soap?

 

[artemis]

The recipe I use, calls for 2.2 ounces of dissolved Borax, using some of the water taken from the total water for the recipe. It's a 2 pounds of total oils recipe. I don't remember where I found it, but I think it was in one of the soaping books I borrowed from my local library when I first started soaping. Or it could have been something I found online. I am just not sure. I know for sure I changed the oils in the original recipe because when I started I did not have certain oils and just used what I had on hand. But I kept the total oils the same and the amount of borax the same. Of course I always run any change through a lye calculator.

How much cornmeal do you add when you make your mechanics soap?

Thank you! More experiments are clearly in my future! I love the black and white. It looks very stormy.

I made my last batch of mechanic's soap in a 1lb mold and I think I used a couple tablespoons of the cornmeal. Since I was only keeping it for at home, I don't think I was very precise with the cornmeal. And I was only about 6 months into soaping when I made it, so I wasn't keeping super precise records, either. Cornmeal and fine citrus peel are the only scrubbies I've tried so far.

 

[BlackDog]

I celebrated my one-year soap-iversary! 5 days late, lol. It was the 21st but I didn't realize it until today.

To mark the occasion, I busted out the first bar of the castille I made back in December. It took a while to get a lather worked up and I got a slight bit of stringy-ness, but oooh that puppy felt great on my face. Looking forward to a few more months' cure!

I my two-part celebration also consisted of an ice cold bottle of hard cider because damn, it is like 100 degrees out. Happy soap-iversary to me!