What soapy thing have you done today?

[Zany_in_CO]

I dumped everything out of the ziploc baggies into the pot, weighed out my liquid oils, and I had everything done, cleaned up and put away in 30 minutes. It used to be an hour per bucket.

Way ta go, amd! Doin' the Happy Soapers Dance for you!

 

[Moose Wrangler]

I did a first go at using the second batch of soap I made. I would describe it as the most disappointing and unsatisfying soap experience I've ever had. Next to no lather and kind of slimy- although it seemed to get sightly better the next couple times I used it. I'll probably let it just sit for another month before trying it again.

I also unmolded the castille and 100% sesame (because, curious) soaps I made.

 

[SunRiseArts]

I took pictures! I had made soap I had not photograph. I always like to have a picture. Here is one I took. Coconut soap.

 

[Lin19687]

@Moose Wrangler It may need more cure time ?

 

[Moose Wrangler]

@Moose Wrangler It may need more cure time ?

Definitely! I just grabbed it on my way to work because the "date made" was over a month ago on it. Looked back at my notes and the recipe when I got home... It's 80% olive oil. It needs a much longer cure time.

 

[Zing]

Here's my first time using the spoon swirl technique. And I used litsea cubeba EO as scent. It will be hard to wait during the curing time....

 

[Lin19687]

Cool I have not used that method yet.
2 more batches done, Loving Spell and Dragon's Blood <-- I am all set up to make it just trying to figure out what color)

 

[MySoapyHeart]

I just purchased 1.5lb of Sodium Gluconate!

I was almost completely out of EDTA, and had to order more. But after reading this thread I just HAD to try that one to see if I can switch!

Thanks @nframe for talking about it, can`t wait to test it soon.

It will of course take weeks before I can test the results, but at the end of summer I should see if this is my new and preferred chelator. It is said to be even more effective than EDTA, and it is more "natural" in its origin (yeah, I know, whatever that means...) so if it works out I am going to redo my labels and add it to my safety asessement instead of the EDTA, before I send it in.

Btw, the SG is manufactured by Jungbunzlauer in France, that someone mentioned earlier in the linked thread.

 

[earlene]

The only soapy thing I've done this week is test soap I brought along with me to Hawaii. I think my testing is skewed by the environment. I have found that salt soap sitting dry inside a non-air conditioned room draws so much moisture from the air that it has a pool of water on top of it after a few hours (maybe less, but we were gone all day long). So I learned to dry it off and keep it in a plastic baggy each day. I made salt soap 100% CO with equal salt to oils a few weeks ago (not technically ate it's best due to the longer cure time for optimum use) and brought one bar with me to see if there is a difference in tropical weather. I haven't used it in non-tropical weather yet, so cannot say what difference other than the pooled water on top.

Also looked at soap where ever we went when it was available. At Kaua'i Coffee, the soap they have (made by someone else, but with coffee additives) is not higher priced than hand-crafted soap around the mainland. I was surprised, considering most things are far more expensive here than on the mainland. I did not buy any, because I just don't have room in my luggage for other people's soap at this point. I do have to leave some room for gifts for family and so far, have only got a couple of small items.

 

[amd]

@earlene I hope you are enjoying your vacation! I have a friend who will be there at the end of the month, can't remember which island she is going to now. If the price isn't different maybe I can talk her into picking me up a soap so that I can cross HI off my 50 states list. Truthfully I think tropical weather changes the skin feel of salt bars. I brought a year old salt bar on our honeymoon to jamaica, and I was able to use it with no problems. I thought it was an amazing soap! Then we got home and I went to finish off the bar... and my skin completely hated it. I will be interested to hear your thoughts of non-tropical weather use.

My soapy stuff has mostly been collecting orders, but not getting them filled yet because I haven't really been home in three days. Friday is order filling day. Although if work continues to be this slow, I may take all day Friday off and catch up on everything. Three nights of the husband cooking for the kids has left my kitchen a disaster. So Friday will be pulling orders, getting things ready for the PO that need to go that way, packing for my show on Saturday, and maybe possibly masterbatching lye to give that a go on Saturday or Sunday. I want to make a batch of soap using WSP's Butt Naked in Bed FO, but I will rename it for my store. Not sure what, but it is getting renamed.

 

[Lin19687]

Yesterday I set up buckets with the measured out oils I planned on soaping.
Ran out of palm on the 6th bucket. So I ordered more but can't pick up till Monday. Had I noticed this the day before I could have picked up today. Which is a lovely cool 1/2 sunny day perfect for an hour or so drive.

Hoping to do some soaping today, have Bergamont & Tarragon FO batch all set but have to watch time to pick up the Kiddo at school. So will see how long it takes Lye to cool off.

And I am catching up on this site

 

[Rune]

Today I'm looking at fragrance oils to buy from Australia, from waxwicks.com.au. And I have been looking at essential oils here and there, mostly in Germany and the UK. From morning to now have I been looking around the internet and not bought a thing. Very typical. But I will order today, though. And I have said that before. But so many sites have so many tempting things, and my wallet is too small for just picking whatever that is tempting.

I made soap two days ago. Unmolded it yesterday. And wow, it looks like a success! It started as a complete disaster and ended up looking like a serious success. That is unusual around here. I made "cold" process. It should be cold process, but it ended up more of a hybrid between cold and hot process. I dumpet hot lye into the oils, you see. I mixed the lye outdoors and took it indoors because it was blowing like crazy. I could not let the lye container stay there to cool down unattended. So I ran in with it and dumped it straight into the soap instead of letting it sit on the counter to cool down. Well, what to do other than mix like crazy and get it in the mold as soon as possible before it became too unmanageable. It did not volcano in the mold, neither did it crack. It did nothing than behave perfectly. I was expecting the worse. But it both looks and smell very nice. I don't think it is a tall and skinny shimmy, judged from looking at the short ends. I looks more like big blobs of dark brown in the orange soap. I can send photos after I have cut it. And after I have made a cutter to cut it with.

 

[amd]

I made "cold" process. It should be cold process, but it ended up more of a hybrid between cold and hot process. I dumpet hot lye into the oils, you see. ... Well, what to do other than mix like crazy and get it in the mold as soon as possible before it became too unmanageable. It did not volcano in the mold, neither did it crack. It did nothing than behave perfectly. I was expecting the worse. But it both looks and smell very nice. I don't think it is a tall and skinny shimmy, judged from looking at the short ends. I looks more like big blobs of dark brown in the orange soap. I can send photos after I have cut it. And after I have made a cutter to cut it with.

Hi Rune, this is still certainly cold process soap. A hot process soap would be cooked with heat until the saponification process is done before putting into the mold. While keeping oil/lye temps within a certain range is helpful for new soapmakers, or for working with certain ingredients, fragrances, or designs, it certainly isn't required for making soap. You can read this thread here https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/lye-mix-and-oils-temperature-does-it-really-matter.65785/ for more on the subject. There are several threads on the forum as well about this: https://www.google.de/search?q=soap...bAhViIpoKHQJfC3oQrQIINCgEMAA&biw=1440&bih=809

Personally, I use fresh hot lye within 3-5 minutes of mixing. My oils are pre-melted and allowed to cool to room temperature so they are a thick gel consistency (comparable to vaseline). Once you're comfortable with handling lye and recognizing trace, start playing with your temps.

 

[Rune]

I have made hot process without any cooking with heat. But then I had very hot oils and very hot lye, and it cooked itself. So called countertop hot process.

Yes, oils and lye does not have to be close in temperature. But I had already melted the oils, and had no clue what temperature they were. I only know that they were warmer than room temperature. But yes, not as warm as required for a countertop hot process. But I had intented to soap quite cold, to have time to make something fancy. It turned out that I had time anyway, but I lacked the experience to know such things and got panic over the hot soap in the bucket. When I was done stickblending, the bucked was quite hot, almost like coffee.

The soap thickened to begin with, very rapidly, but stopped. I thought it would continue thickening up and hurried to get it in the mold. But it didn't. It stayed like a thick sauce.

I have a very powerful stickblender, and I maybe blended it too much, just to be sure it was not false trace or anything. Plus I had it on full speed, which is seriously powerful. This was the first time I was soaping with a high amount of hard oils. And the blending time was very, very short. So I became insecure. I have seen on Youtube that they blend for ages. But often they blend for short second, then hand stir, blend again and so they keep going for ages. I did the opposite, I cranked the machine up to full speed and blended non stop until I could feel it thickened a bit. Which was very soon. First then I hand stirred a little bit. So yes, I definately need to practice on trace recognition.

Thanks for the links. I will check them out now

 

[amd]

I have made hot process without any cooking with heat. But then I had very hot oils and very hot lye, and it cooked itself. So called countertop hot process.

Still not hot process. If you don't apply heat through the entire saponification process, it's cold process regardless of what temp your oils and lye are.

 

[SunRiseArts]

shunt2011 please post pictures! I want to see ice cream soap!

 

[zolveria]

well i was in a pinch and needed a log splitter.. went to home depot got some free scrap wood. and l bracket and some screws. went to local guitar store and got some wire and that guitar thingy that you wrap the wire around and made my own for 7 dollars... that the metal glue we used to hold the guitar things.
he making another one with out glue and welding it this time and coloring it.
im convincing him to make them and sell them for 60 bucks

 

[grumpy_owl]

OK, folks. Intimidated by all y'all, I went back to my favorite color combinations, just to play around I love orange and gray, so I committed a True Crime (soap). The picture came out kind of yellow.

 

[SunRiseArts]

zolvenia, very clever!

grumpy I LOVE your soap. Is so cool.

 

[SunRiseArts]

This is my "leftovers" soap. I save the shavings from beveling, pot, etc, and then mash them together in HP. I only use it to have it outside, for washing hands when working in the yard. But sometimes they look kind of cool.