What soapy thing have you done today?

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Since I've stopped coloring my hair but have a lot of leftover henna and indigo powers, I'm going to make a batch of soap today, using these as colorants. I just have to decide whether CP or HP and write myself a new recipe because, why not? I'm still experimenting. I had read that indigo was bad in soap due to staining, but @Dawni used it successfully; and I also saw a post or blog where someone made several batches of soap with incrementally increased levels of indigo, and even at high amounts, the staining was light and temporary. Yay, something to do with my leftover products!

I just started using the soap I made on Jan 31 a few days ago, and like it a LOT -- but it has avocado oil and mango butter in it, which I have decided to save for body butter because they are such great moisturizers and a little pricey to 'waste' in a wash off product that doesn't moisturize. :cool: Some whipped body butter is definitely on the horizon, when I'm closer to using up the store-bought lotions I have, which I've been customizing by adding several things to for years, already.

Bought 7 lbs of Organic Sustainable Palm Saturday -- much more cost-effective than the 14 oz size; and it had taken 5 weeks for this to get back in stock, so that was the second reason. Also bought my first jar of TD, some olive leaf powder, neem oil, and shea butter. So I'm feeling well-stocked with supplies right now.
 
Master batched my oils last night to fit my mold with the insert in. The insert reduces the mold volume by exactly half. So, each container makes half of the full mold giving me option of large or small soap batches without refiguring or remeasuring.
IMG_0744.JPG
 
Meena said:
You're so darn organized. :D Some of ya'll make a LOT more soap than I do! Looks like a great system, though.
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I was using 300ml jam jars i bought ages ago for something else, to batch up oils but for the small amounts i was making it caused more washing up than just measuring them out in a jug and then wiping clean with blue roll between each oil. If i was to make bigger batches more often with same recipe i would go back to jarring stuff up per batch
 
I completed my new recipe, decided on HP, and attempted a swirl with a crazy straw I bought to use as a hanger swirl tool. Really curious to cut this one!

To the 'uncolored', I added TD, Diamond White mica, and white Kaolin clay.
To the indigo, I added a small percentage of ultramarine blue pigment and activated charcoal.
To the henna, I added a small %'g of rose red mica. These additions were an experiment to see if they'd help pump up the colors and help them stay truer, since natural colorants seem to fade or morph often.

Things went a little too fast at the end, so I didn't fuss much about the top. The last portion of white sat a bit too long and went past even the 'gloppy' stage, so I've got it in the oven HPOPing it so that that part of the white soap marries with the rest of the soap!! You can see some of the 'bits' in the picture. It's the inside that I really want to see! I haven't succeeded in swirling my HP yet, so I have high hopes tonight!

ETA: I forgot about my really big boo-boo, though -- I didn't have enough soap to fill the mold, AGAIN! So far I'm still timid about making more than 25 oz of soap at a time :rolleyes: (up from my previous max of 17.5 oz. oil weights, not total soap batter). But I had a blast, and made a HUGE mess in the kitchen! The worst yet!!

20190224_batch in mold 194123-1.jpg
 
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Meena said:
You're so darn organized. :D Some of ya'll make a LOT more soap than I do! Looks like a great system, though.
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Correction. I’m trying to BECOME more organized to stop wasting so much time and soap.

I made my first half-sized batch (6 bars) tonight using master-batch oils and lye. I used cpop for the 2nd time. I enjoyed the process much more this way. Working at, basically, room temp because of the pre-batched lye, REALLY extended the time I have to work with this recipe. It also removes the stress of matching up the oil and lye temp. Clean-up seemed much easier too. I’ll cut and post tomorrow, assuming I got he measurements right.
 
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msunnerstood said:
Yes, Only I make mine with Soy instead of Paraffin
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I've seen some really pretty ones on Instagram and figured next time I order supplies I should order soy wax for both soap and wax tabs but then I have nothing to pretty them up with yet lol

Please show us when you're done? :)

I have some ratanjot roots soaking in my lye water to see if I can extract any color from it... I read somewhere that it has to be powdered before any color shows but let's see.

If all goes well I'll be posting part two of the natural colorant series I started.
 
msunnerstood said:
Yes, Only I make mine with Soy instead of Paraffin
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I tried copying them a few months ago cuz I had some paraffin laying around--the scent on mine don't last very long though and I tried using crayons for coloring. maybe now that I have micas and better scents I should try again
 
Yesterday I made my 4th batch of CP, going back to my roots and using the first recipe I ever did (workshop at the end of November :) ) with a few minor modifications. FOR THE FIRST TIME, I was able to have the batter thin enough to attempt a swirl....and then forgot! I poured my base colour (fragrance = Lemongrass-Verbena from NDA) and put in lines of white and black, and then swirled the top but forgot to swirl the body! (Got distracted by how full my mould was getting....looks like my mould holds about 997g, but not a full kilo.....) Sooo...should be interesting to see what the inside looks like....I'm going to guess a bit of a mess, but stay tuned!
 
MGM said:
Yesterday I made my 4th batch of CP, going back to my roots and using the first recipe I ever did (workshop at the end of November :) ) with a few minor modifications. FOR THE FIRST TIME, I was able to have the batter thin enough to attempt a swirl....and then forgot! I poured my base colour (fragrance = Lemongrass-Verbena from NDA) and put in lines of white and black, and then swirled the top but forgot to swirl the body! (Got distracted by how full my mould was getting....looks like my mould holds about 997g, but not a full kilo.....) Sooo...should be interesting to see what the inside looks like....I'm going to guess a bit of a mess, but stay tuned!
Click to expand...

at least you got your scent in there :) that's usually my goof when I am distracted by swirling. between the two of us we maybe could make a bar the way its supposed to be :)
 
Marilyn Norgart said:
at least you got your scent in there :) that's usually my goof when I am distracted by swirling. between the two of us we maybe could make a bar the way its supposed to be :)
Click to expand...
LOL yes!
My previous 2 coloured batches thickened up so quickly that I had to smush the batter to get it in the mould, but I at least had the wherewithall to move it around a bit to create coloured chunks, if not swirls. In one case, it looks fine, and in the shampoo bars, it looks great! Not sure what this will be....sad little droops maybe. BUT, fragrant sad little droops, you're right :p
 

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