What soapy thing have you done today?

[AliOop]

Cut my pine tar soap. Excuse the crumbs from my slicer lol. They are out in the garage bedroom and im not going to bring them back in for another photo.

They stink to high heavens. I hope they mellow out. Dr Squatchs doesnt smell anything like this, so i wonder how much PT they put in theirs. I used 10% PT and 6% Pine FO. I put pumice in it...3T. I was afraid i put too much, but you cannot see it in the cut soap. AC made them pretty black.

As promised to @AliOop lol, here is my cut. They are safely out of the house lol.

Thank you for not making me call for a safety check.

Cut all three soaps from yesterday. Try #3 for the challenge was, as I'd feared, a beautiful drop swirl. Sigh. The other two confetti soaps had a lot of air holes from an FO that brought the batter to medium-thick trace pretty quickly (along with some TD). But at least my students from yesterday came back to watch the cut.

 

[amd]

How much menthol did you use that you were happy with?

2% of total batch weight. It gives it a fresh scent without the tingle.

I made this soap today after months of planning.

 

[Basil]

Today I washed all the soap dishes after letting them sit for a few days. That was so much easier! ( found on the forum) The weather is unusual for this area, in Oct. it usually snows. Instead we have 40 mile an hour wind outside so my day has been reading everything I can on this forum.I also decided to use my computer instead of my phone to read the forum and found that was so much easier too! I found the thread "what advice would you give to your beginning self"...I read every single comment and printed several pages for my notebook. Thank you all for your knowledge, your willingness to share, and your sense of humor! I feel like I took two steps backward to get 3 steps ahead and it's been such a great day learning. So far I've made every mistake that was mentioned!

 

[Misschief]

Part of the reason I hesitate to do markets. I cant handle the cold.
Stay warm and wish you tons of sales

@TashaBird Impressive Soup Dough! I just started and I havent got past making little beads.

I ended up emailing the organizers to see if they had any cancellations inside; they did and I ended up indoors, thankfully. I'm a wimp.

 

[norrysoaper]

Poured my last big batch for the holiday season. Now it's time to play.... New swirls, oils, scents..

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Forgot to mention earlier that I was actually conducting a soaping class for some very interested students. As you can see from the pic, we observed all COVID safety protocols by having them remain behind a thick glass shield.




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Oh how cute'

Sadly, all my plans for today today were derailed by a scratched eyeball and a long nap. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Hope your eye heals quickly' thats miserable.

Today I worked on another try on the Tall & Skinny Shimmy Challenge. The 1st try today was a fail I forgot to add my soft oils & realized it when I looked at my counter top and saw the oils setting in the container' ugh heart break! as the batter seized up the second I added the EO, I quickly threw it in a pot thinking i'll HP it & add the oils i'd forgotten' what a mess! I threw it in a mold & covered. 2nd attempt today I'd messed up my color order' I think? I'll see when I cut it in the morning. This is my last attempt, Im out of pretty colors & 4 try's latter Im done, so regardless how it looks I'll post it in challenge. It's been fun trying to do the Shimmy Design though.

 

[SoapDaddy70]

Took a shower with a bar from my first batch of soap I made. It has been curing for 4 weeks. Bastille soap that was 75% OO - 16% Shea and 9% Castor. I know it will benefit from a much longer cure but I wanted to learn how to tell the difference in qualities of a soap so I figured what the hell. Pretty cool showering with soap that I made with my own two hands.

 

[Zing]

Took a shower with a bar from my first batch of soap I made. It has been curing for 4 weeks. Pretty cool showering with soap that I made with my own two hands.

It's the best, isn't it?!

 

[SoapDaddy70]

It's the best, isn't it?!

I am slightly embarrassed to say it was an emotional moment. Lol

 

[AliOop]

Ill never understand how you can prepare soap frosting with the same oils, at the same temperature, and have one batch take 20 minutes to firm up and the next 4 minutes and you better move fast. got the soap piped but i had to place the embeds quickly because it was setting fast too

eta: figured it out, its the new tallow. Its leaf tallow and from what I read, is higher in stearic.

As someone who does a lot of HP, you probably know that even small amounts of even partially-saponified soap will accelerate the new batter. I have used this trick to accelerate HTHP batter intentionally, by tossing in just a few shreds of finished soap. But it sure is a pain when you don't want to speed up the batter! My SB has a couple of spots that trap the soap, even when I whir it in hot water to clean it out.

All that to say, my second batch is almost always faster than the first, and I've pretty much narrowed it down to the difficulty of getting all the batter out of the bell of my SB. YMMV.

 

[CatahoulaBubble]

Ugh well apparently the culprit was the fragrance oil blend I put together for this beeswax soap. As soon as I put it in it began ricing and trying to seize. I just beat it to death and stick blended as much as I can but I think it's going to be lumpy looking inside. It just doesn't have that smooth soap texture. Which sucks because now this is the 2nd batch that has gone wrong. I hope the customer is happy with it after I cut it.

 

[Catscankim]

Thank you for not making me call for a safety check.

I was still sniffling sneezing scratching using the nebulizizer crazy person. Just not as bad as bad as yesterday

Cut all three soaps from yesterday. Try #3 for the challenge was, as I'd feared, a beautiful drop swirl. Sigh. The other two confetti soaps had a lot of air holes from an FO that brought the batter to medium-thick trace pretty quickly (along with some TD). But at least my students from yesterday came back to watch the cut.

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I want chickens lol

 

[AliOop]

I was still sniffling sneezing scratching using the nebulizizer crazy person. Just not as bad as bad as yesterday

So are you destashing the remainder of the pine tar now? I might be interested

I want chickens lol

They are so fun to watch - so smart and so dumb, all at the same time. Good thing I like them so much, because all the poop on the back doorstep is rather annoying. There's a reason that we have a member on this forum called "ChickenPoopShoes." My pair sits right by the back door and I never wear anything else in the backyard!

 

[Adobehead]

I master batch my lye also. I do a 1:1 master batch. So say I start out with 1000 grams of water, I add a 1000 grams of NaOH.

Yours is the clearest description I have heard for this, thank you, I am going to try it. Suddenly it makes sense. Thank you!

 

[Savonette]

If you 95/5 NaOh/KOH do you MB 50/50 that? Or add the KOH with the later-added liquids?

 

[Jersey Girl]

Cut all three soaps from yesterday. Try #3 for the challenge was, as I'd feared, a beautiful drop swirl. Sigh. The other two confetti soaps had a lot of air holes from an FO that brought the batter to medium-thick trace pretty quickly (along with some TD). But at least my students from yesterday came back to watch the cut.

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You have to try one more time! You know you can do it. Your first attempt was amazing. Get back into that zen mode and maybe skip the FO so there will be one less thing to worry about. Love your girls btw...looks like they’re looking for Mama!

 

[AliOop]

@Jersey Girl our White Rocks are very, very social. Whenever one of us in the yard, they are all up in our business: "Whatcha doin? Can I help? Is that a SNACK?? Your hair looks so nice today, kinda like a snack. Could I try it??"

The banty cochins, on the other hand, like to think of themselves as a little more dignified. Sure, they will come near if a snack might be involved, but they will not stoop to following us around or eating out of our hands. You can almost see them rolling their eyes at the others, "What, were you raised in a barn?" (yes, as a matter of fact, they were, haha).

Thanks for the encouragement. I teach an online class on Monday nights, so we will just have to see whether I've got anything left after that for soaping.

 

[Louise Taylor]

Yesterday I tried my first attempt at a butterfly swirl. Today was spent trying to get the mold out of the wooden box. Fridge for 3 hours didn’t help. Freezer for 20 minutes didn’t either. Resorted to pallet knife down the sides and brute force. Spoiled the ends a bit but they would be wasted anyway. First time this has happened to me.
The butterfly looks more like a bat but not bad for a first attempt.

 

[AliOop]

@Louise Taylor those are gorgeous!!

 

[linne1gi]

Cut and beveled my latest soap. A HP soap I made with 4 wild butters: Ucuuba Butter, Murumuru Butter, Cupuacu Butter and Bacari Butter. I really loved making this - and I fragranced it with a mix of Kentucky Bourbon and Vermont Maple.