What soapy thing have you done today?

[SunRiseArts]

kittish are you getting that new iPhone X that cost 1000? I have a son that would! But I m cheap for those things, would not pay that much for a phone.

I made cocoa buttermilk soap. It smells delicious! I used cocoa cashmere FO from BB, I got last fall, which is why I made the soap. You can see the swirls from the cocoa powder, although is probably going to turn brown. :twisted:

 

[Kittish]

kittish are you getting that new iPhone X that cost 1000? I have a son that would! But I m cheap for those things, would not pay that much for a phone.

I made cocoa buttermilk soap. It smells delicious! I used cocoa cashmere FO from BB, I got last fall, which is why I made the soap. You can see the swirls from the cocoa powder, although is probably going to turn brown. :twisted:

Egads, no. I got a pretty basic phone that only cost about $200. I have a friend that would, if it was made by Microsoft. He's as zealous about Microsoft as Apple aficionados are about their products.

That's a pretty soap! I'm still waiting to get my drop swirl attempt out of the liner. The top is nice and firm, but the bottom is still really squishy. It smells fabulous, though. Clear rose (rose geranium, plus ylang to sweeten it some) with some exotic notes. I swear the ylang is unpredictable. It only accelerates about half the time I use it.

 

[SunRiseArts]

Why is it still soft on the bottom? How long ago did you make it?

 

[dibbles]

Sparkling Snowflake is one of my favorites. I have had Peony for about 6 months... but I can't bring myself to soap with it yet. (I don't like Peony. I got this for my daughter who has missed the bush we had at our old house.)

Mix it with lavender. Most of the peony fragrances I've tried are too perfumy for my taste. Lavender helps it.

 

[Kittish]

Why is it still soft on the bottom? How long ago did you make it?

Made it two days ago, so it's not horribly worrisome that it's still soft on bottom. It's because of the liner, I think. Air can't get to the soap on the sides and bottom to set them. I'm going to freeze the loaves tonight and see if I can get the liner off without damaging them. Once I can do that, they should harden up in just a few hours, or at least the ends did where I was able to get the caps off. I've got silicone baking mats and teflon heat-transfer sheets ordered, to try out as new liners. I'm becoming quickly disenchanted by the performance of my plastic ones.

 

[toxikon]

Sparkling Snowflake is one of my favorites. I have had Peony for about 6 months... but I can't bring myself to soap with it yet. (I don't like Peony. I got this for my daughter who has missed the bush we had at our old house.)

Glad to hear you like Sparkling Snowflake! I almost ordered Winter Wonderland from Nurture as I've heard such good things, but I didn't want to put an order in for only one fragrance, when I wanted to order the majority of stuff from WSP.

The Peony was on sale, only $3 for 2oz, so I threw it into my cart to get over the $40 limit for free shipping! I haven't tried any floral FOs so I'll have to see how I like it.

 

[Viore]

Toxikon, Sparkling Snowflake is also a favorite in my house. Glad you picked some up!

 

[Kittish]

Thanks everyone!

Kittish, you need to post pictures!

Pics are posted in the photo gallery, got all the cuts done and I'm really happy with how these soaps have turned out so far. The celebration soap is just gorgeous! And it smells as pretty as it looks.

The vanillin soap looks like poundcake at the moment. That won't last, but I'm calling that batch poundcake from now on regardless.

I've got (currently, who knows if it'll hold) a lovely faded denim/sky blue in my lard soap colored with indigo, along with the flecks from the indigo powder. I like it.

 

[SoapAddict415]

I got my oils from Wholesale Supplies Plus today and I'm hoping to get my fragrances from Wellington by Saturday. Sadly, I'm working overtime Friday, then going to see my sister do her stand up comedy act and I'm doing overtime again on Saturday. I'm hoping to have enough energy left to make soap on Sunday lol.

Sent from my Z828 using Soap Making mobile app

 

[LatherLady80]

I read about EO & checked out this forum!

 

[Kristianna]

I made some Cherry- Almnd soap today. It's a small batch to test the fragrance oil blend. It smells great so far.

 

[annalee2003]

I made a 6 pound batch of coconut milk and honey soap.
Scented it with lavender and cedar wood essential oils.

... Everything smells like cedar wood now, haha.

 

[Kristianna]

I cut my cherry - almond soap today. It was a wee bit soft but it was hard to wait. It's a test batch of a new recipe and fragrance combo. It might discolor a little bit as the almond had some vanillin in it but I think it turned out good.

 

[Kittish]

Got my three soaps all trimmed and pretty and put to bed on my curing rack. The poundcake soap is developing more fragrance by the day. It's not strong, exactly. It's a very pervasive, present scent but it's mostly background. I lathered up a scrap from trimming, expecting the fragrance to get a lot stronger, but it didn't. I trimmed off the lighter top, so now the bars are a uniform color all around. They look like they've been dipped in chocolate. Celebration soap is dominating the fragrance of the room at the moment. I really hope the fragrance sticks. That's a batch that I'm only going to share a very few bars of. :think:

I got the silicone baking mats and the teflon heat transfer sheets I ordered to try out as mold liners. I got two really big silicone rolling mats that I'm going to use as is on my counters when I'm soaping. They're very thin and floppy, so I don't think they'd make good mold liners. The baking mats are much thicker and stiffer.

I've planned my batches for my toy embed trial and orange peel wax trial. Went and double checked the material the toys are made from, and the vendor says PVC so it may work after all.

I've got to get the rest of my shelves put up before I actually make any more soap. That's a project for tonight.

 

[lauratryingsoap]

lauratryingsoap, I would suspect you may have had a glitch with your scale when you measured out your lye.

A couple of weeks ago, at the checkout stand at our local Save-A-Lot grocery store, a new check-out-guy was having issues with the scale. He called over his boss to help resolve an issue where the scale said one apple weighed over pounds. My husband told me he had been watching and noticed that the guy was leaning on the check-out counter, and applying his own weight to the scale. He said the problem was that the man was so tall and check-out counters are short for the benefit of female customers and female checkers because that is who does the majority of the shopping and the majority of check-out. (He worked in retail for a good many years before we met.)

Is it possible your scale was influenced by some outside factor? Perhaps you forgot to tare the scale after placing the measuring container for the lye on it? Or perhaps it wasn't sitting on a level surface when you measured. There are so many possibilities when it comes to measuring your ingredients.

This is a VERY late reply, but I think I have figured it out. For a soap to mix properly it should be in a circular container. After a few experiments, I found that mixing in a rectangular or square container actually doesn't emulsify the oils at the corners. So although it looks emulsified, it actually hasn't mixed. Because of this, the resulting soap is soft, oily and lye heavy

 

[powens]

I made a HP 100% CO with 20% SF. Scented it with an old bottle of Grecian Flowers from BB (years ago). Cut about an hour after putting it in the mold. Added a bit of Black Oxide to the mix, came out looking like granite. Loving it! All cleaned up and will be using the ends for now. My first soap in many years, probably 8 years!

 

[chela1261]

I made a honey, goats milk (powdered) and oatmeal soap with fragrance only.....no colorants. I was expecting it to overheat and maybe crack and was trying to decide whether to put it in the freezer or not. I ended up leaving it out and it looks great. Can't wait to cut it today and hopefully no partial gel

 

[SunRiseArts]

Made it two days ago, so it's not horribly worrisome that it's still soft on bottom. It's because of the liner, I think. Air can't get to the soap on the sides and bottom to set them. I'm going to freeze the loaves tonight and see if I can get the liner off without damaging them. Once I can do that, they should harden up in just a few hours, or at least the ends did where I was able to get the caps off. I've got silicone baking mats and teflon heat-transfer sheets ordered, to try out as new liners. I'm becoming quickly disenchanted by the performance of my plastic ones.

I see. I only use silicone molds. Never liked the plastic ones ...

Glad it all worked out!

I made last night when I could not sleep another mini for Halloween. The bars are the size of a baseball card, and only 1 inch thick.

 

[Kittish]

I'm making my first attempt at a hangar swirl tonight. I put together an absolutely gorgeous sweet floral mix for it, and it's going to be yellow and pink. I think it might be fair to say my EO blend is just a bit on the insane side, but oh man does it smell good.
Pink lotus absolute 54 drops, jasmine sambac absolute, 48 drops, ylang ylang EO 36 drops, balsam of peru oil 36 drops, morocco rose absolute 36 drops, orange blossom absolute 12 drops, carnation absolute 12 drops, vetiver EO 6 drops, tuberose 2 drops. Comes to almost half an ounce of oil, which I diluted to 50% with jojoba. I pulled out a sample size vial that I may dilute for perfume.

SRA- I loved Fantasia as a kid. Still do and probably should watch it again. Thanks for the happy reminder!

 

[divinegoddessoaps17]

This is my Rocky Road soap with little "marshmallows" on top. Flavored with NG Chocolate Fudge. Smells fabulous! I was beginning to doubt the color, because when I first popped out of the mold - was a slight beige color. Each day it's drying - gets darker and darker! Yeah!