What soapy thing have you done today?

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I'll half to post a picture of my "Stray Chicken" that wondered in the yard & decided to stay' Miss Hen is free range' & could fly away if she wanted to, she also likes to play hide & seek w/ her egg laying, always looking for her new hiding spot though she has a nice hen house & nesting box. lol .

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I fragranced it with a mix of Kentucky Bourbon and Vermont Maple.

Where's the Smell-O-Vision when we need it?! Mind-smells delish!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I'll half to post a picture of my "Stray Chicken" that wondered in the yard & decided to stay' Miss Hen is free range' & could fly away if she wanted to, she also likes to play hide & seek w/ her egg laying, always looking for her new hiding spot though she has a nice hen house & nesting box. lol .

@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.

Sorry forgot to add quote above. I'm getting the hang of it. .

 

[linne1gi]

Where's the Smell-O-Vision when we need it?! Mind-smells delish!

I keep hoping for “smellovision”!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

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. View attachment 50924

Your soap sounds like its going to be amazing.

 

[amd]

I cut yesterday's "fancy pants" soap. I'm quite satisfied with the cut. I'll take pictures after I bevel the edges. This was my first time doing a dual lye bar soap (95 NaOH/5 KOH), so I wasn't sure what to expect for fluidity... and it's a floral FO. The supplier said "no ricing and no acceleration" which are the two things I worry about with florals, and this did neither, although it was a bit of trust that the supplier wasn't fibbing to me. I was happy get a nice hanger swirl. Oh, and before someone asks, the only reason I did dual lye is because I have 4lbs of KOH that I bought to play with liquid/cream soapmaking. I did my playing and now it's just sitting there, so I thought I would use it up before I accidentally grab it thinking it's NaOH and make a real mess of things.

Not sure if I'll get to make soaps this week - I should as a big order has put out of stock of my more popular soap, or dangerously low on a few, but I may not have time. I have a couple big orders of sugar scrubs that need to get made that's going to test my time management skills. Makes me so glad that this year I pared myself down from 1 FT job, 2 part time jobs and 1 soap biz, to just the FT job and the soap biz. Now if I could just rid of having to feed 4 kids and a husband...

 

[linne1gi]

Your soap sounds like its going to be amazing.

Thank you. It’s got lovely lather already. And it’s on my curing rack - so I only think it will get better.

 

[Suzette]

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.

Lovely design!

 

[Catscankim]

I broke out my young salt bar today. Its only about 2 months cured. I love it already!

The first bars i made 4 months ago are pure coconut, 20% SF, 50% salt. I find they are super drying.

These are 90% coconut, 5% avocado, 5% castor. 20% SF, 50% salt wt. 30% lye concentration.I got the recipe here somewhere, so if it is yours feel free to claim it lol. I want to say its @TheGecko recipe.

Nice dense creamy lather, and my hands feel super soft.

Its amazing how big of an impact 10% of other oils made on my bars. This recipe is a keeper. I have a batch of lye waiting for me to start soaping.

The batch i make fills BB 12 bar cavity mold, with enough to make 9 guest sized oval bars. I do need more fragrance in them though. The smell is almost non existent. I hate that...what do you label them as? Makes me mad lol.

 

[Suzette]

I made a big batch of holiday soap and a smaller layered loaf yesterday and cut it today.
The idea I had was something like “you’re a mean one” but the glycerin rivers were not kind it would seem.
I am seeing something that I haven’t experienced before with the soap. There is a slight oozing in places on the top. It’s fine everywhere else.
I’ve done a bit of reading and it would seem that it could be humidity being too high or the fragrance oil. I have used this recipe before and only the FO is new, Snowman Balls from NG. The smaller batch doesn’t have that, but does seem a bit “textured”.
Any suggestions or ideas would be welcomed.

 

[linne1gi]

I made a big batch of holiday soap and a smaller layered loaf yesterday and cut it today.
The idea I had was something like “you’re a mean one” but the glycerin rivers were not kind it would seem.
I am seeing something that I haven’t experienced before with the soap. There is a slight oozing in places on the top. It’s fine everywhere else.
I’ve done a bit of reading and it would seem that it could be humidity being too high or the fragrance oil. I have used this recipe before and only the FO is new, Snowman Balls from NG. The smaller batch doesn’t have that, but does seem a bit “textured”.
Any suggestions or ideas would be welcomed.

What is your liquid amount? That’s the biggest thing that has helped me - discounting the water. The default in SoapCalc is just too much water for CP soap.

 

[Suzette]

What is your liquid amount? That’s the biggest thing that has helped me - discounting the water. The default in SoapCalc is just too much water for CP soap.

I dropped it down to 36% from the 38% that defaults in SoapCalc. I had issues with my soap being too soft and found the 36% to work better for me on previous batches.

 

[GemstonePony]

I dropped it down to 36% from the 38% that defaults in SoapCalc. I had issues with my soap being too soft and found the 36% to work better for me on previous batches.

I use a 2:1 liquid:lye ratio, which works out to around 30% liquid of oils on average in my recipes. 36% is still on the high side IMO, I'd consider dropping it a few more degrees.

 

[violets2217]

I made my first successful LARGE batch of soap! 15 lbs of loveliness! My first didn’t go as planned! Accelerated to fast and was just a blob of soap by the end. This time I split it into 3 batches and worked on each layer separately! I also soaped at room temperature for the first time and I loved it! I’m pretty proud of this soap! The pot swirl layer was so fun! Pink clay is my favorite additive now! So hopefully these will be All cured and ready for Christmas gifts!!!

 

[TheGecko]

what do you label them as?

Salt Soap

 

[linne1gi]

I dropped it down to 36% from the 38% that defaults in SoapCalc. I had issues with my soap being too soft and found the 36% to work better for me on previous batches.

That’s still quite a lot of water. It’s good to get away from water as a percentage of oils. Water has nothing to do with oils and everything to do with lye. Best to calculate your water as a ratio of water to lye. Or as a lye concentration. A 2:1 water to lye ratio is equal to a 33% lye solution. A side note: The default in SoapCalc was originally intended for HP soap making where a lot of moisture is lost during the cook. That much water/liquid is just not necessary in CP soap. Look further into water discounting. It’s a total game changer.

 

[msunnerstood]

the only soapy thing I did was cut my silver and gold soap. I lost several of my little embeds so Im going to need to figure out how to reattach some

I finally found a mold to make chunky candy bar-shaped wax tarts and just unmolded the flannel ones which are half blue merging into the other half red.

I bought two molds prior to this one and every time I tried to unmold, they would crack no matter how careful I was.

 

[lenarenee]

Ugh. Usually I am more of a fly by the seat of my pants type of soaper - not planning the soap out on paper ahead of time. But I decided I really should step up my game and be more professional.

The soap fairies warned me today was not a good soaping day. I was stubborn and ignored them....after all, I was going to professional and use math and formulas and calculators to do it the "right" way.

The number of things that went wrong is just comical; and started with dropping and breaking a sturdy plastic soaping pot. 5 hours later I had ONE batch of red and white peppermint stick soap baking in the oven....because the Trial by Fire mica colored soap was....purple. Yes. P.u.r.p.l.e. My goal: a 7 layer (perfect straight layer technique) of red and white peppermint soap - was obliterated because I decided to be a professional soaper and actually calculate the portions with math - rather than my lazy (but effective) way of eyeballing by volume. (mold holds 7 cups of soap batter)

Determined not give up, I decided on a tiger stripe (I have other Christmas soaps to get done soon) The white batter accelerated, the red batter was perfect....so the tiger stripe was a mess. Doing a simple spoon texture on top was enough to mix the mix and red to make...pink. Hoping the red and white glitter helps disguise the the ugly top. But then it turned more purple than red. This may be a confetti soap in the future.

Lesson learned; be true to your soaping style. And always respect the soaping fairies.

I used 1 oz of beeswax for 7lbs of soap. Which was under what was called for in a brambleberry recipe I saw online for making beeswax soap. The BB recipe called for 2.8 oz beeswax for a 10oz mold. I only did one stick blend of 2 seconds after I poured the lye as I had already stick blended the wax, oils, and fragrance. The colors I added were nurture colors that have never caused seizing before. The temp of the oils was around 170 because with beeswax you have to soap at higher temps so I knew I'd have to move fast but never have I had a soap on a stick like that. I unmolded it this morning but the blue layer is still soft so I'm going to let it sit for a bit before I cut it. The fragrance held up to me cooking it and when I cleaned up the pots this morning the hardened soap is quite lovely. I do like HP soap but it always darkens the colors when you HP it so it won't work for this customer but I'm sure other people will like it. The fragrance is orange, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, frankincense, and a eucalyptus which sounds like it would be horrible but it's actually pretty nice. I never would have put those scent combinations together on my own.

Oohh...honey and a spicy fo - overheating. Good on your for all of that dedicated working making that soap workable!

 

[AliOop]

I made my first successful LARGE batch of soap! 15 lbs of loveliness! My first didn’t go as planned! Accelerated to fast and was just a blob of soap by the end. This time I split it into 3 batches and worked on each layer separately! I also soaped at room temperature for the first time and I loved it! I’m pretty proud of this soap! The pot swirl layer was so fun! Pink clay is my favorite additive now! So hopefully these will be All cured and ready for Christmas gifts!!!

Great job and they look fantastic.

the only soapy thing I did was cut my silver and gold soap. I lost several of my little embeds so Im going to need to figure out how to reattach some

These are divine!!

 

[Catscankim]

I dropped it down to 36% from the 38% that defaults in SoapCalc. I had issues with my soap being too soft and found the 36% to work better for me on previous batches.

After getting my hand slapped more than once here, i have settled on 33% Lye concentration on my regular bars. Which also should not be confused with the default. You need to physically change it to lye concentration. It has made a world of difference in my soaps