What soapy thing have you done today?

[KiwiMoose]

Made a batch this morning. This fragrance oil (nightfall from nurture) has vanilla in it. Curious to see how the color changes...

Hot processed

View attachment 39616

This look gorgeous - nice and creamy looking.

Well, I decided to make two batches this morning. I finally made my pull through soap which turned out pretty decently, I think. Suppose we'll see tomorrow when I unmold and cut it!

Can't wait to to see pics of the pull through!

 

[Lefty]

Today I masterbatched enough oils for three batches and ordered a new stick blender and some storage bins. May mix up some lye tonight so I can do some soaping tomorrow. Need to restock my rosemary mint!

 

[msunnerstood]

Making embeds tonight

 

[Kari Howie]

Funny, I'm actually doing the same thing. I started with heating an annotto infusion last night, then this morning was starting one for paprika and accidentally picked up the annotto bottle again. So now I have two annotto infusions and on paprika infusion going. Jeez! At least I knew what happened right away, but had already begun the pouring the spice into the jar of oil before I could stop myself. My brain->nerve pathway->muscle response is a little slow sometimes.

I need to go get my manjistha because I want to start an infusion of it as well. At least I am confident it is where it belongs, with the rest of the natural colorants. But I keep the paprika in my freezer because it can grow bugs if left in the spice cupboard and I love it on deviled eggs as long as nothing is moving around when I look inside the bottle. Yuck! I guess it wouldn't matter for soap but still, I hate bugs in my foodstuffs!

So I just realized in one of my efforts to clean out the excess jars & bottles in my cupboard, I now don't have enough jars for many oils infusions and for leftover food that I store in jars after a meal. Well, at least that prevents me from going overboard with the oil infusions this time around.

I have not tried the matcha tea powder yet, except to drink it. I'd like to try it as an oil infusion and as added to the lye solution, but right now I want to concentrate on the warmer tones given a project I have in mind and my limited number of jars and my mind doesn't need to try to do too much at once.

My goal is to test these colors side-by side as oil infusion only, as lye solution mixed only and as both lye mixed + oil infusion to see what kinds of results I will get with color. I had fabulous results with manjistha before, but didn't do any extensive color testing. This time around I hope to be more scientific in my method.

I wish there were more options for red tones besides dead bugs.

Earlene, you crack me up!

 

[earlene]

Today I am continuing a sort of low-key organizing effort at the same time I am trying to use up some soaping stuffs and prepare for future renovation. It's a rather slapdash effort, I have to admit and I don't seem to making much progress with this method. But my heart isn't in it, so to speak. I want to get it done, but I don't want to do the work either. I wish I was magical or had a fairy godmother or something.

Well, anyway, some plans for today are:

1. make soap using up some more supplies - I can empty at least one partially empty bottle of oil & that's a goal;
2. bevel a few more soaps - hoping for 1 or 2 dozen;
   
3. choose some soaps to take to the Nursing Home to give to staff (the recent buy out may mean some staff may be worried about an upheaval and job jeopardy, so I want to be supportive, as well as reduce inventory and make room for the newly curing soaps);
   
4. make a rim using high Castor Oil (10%) as a test I haven't tried yet;
   
5. find my impression mat, because I want to use it and it's not where I thought it should be;
6. plan the color test soaps (probably won't make them today, though);
7. toss out/add to recycle at least 5 items I don't need in my soaping supplies

The list seems daunting to me, but if I break it down into the time each will take, it's really doable as long as I get up off my tush and don't allow myself to get too distracted.

 

[steffamarie]

Plan for today is to re-do my rim using the recipe in the challenge thread. Hopefully that goes better than my previous idea...I am also re-thinking the overall design and concept so we'll see where that gets me XD

 

[earlene]

Plan for today is to re-do my rim using the recipe in the challenge thread. Hopefully that goes better than my previous idea...I am also re-thinking the overall design and concept so we'll see where that gets me XD

I have decided to test out the 10% Castor Oil idea in my recipe and see how that performs compared to the 2% Vegetable Glycerin. I will report on it tomorrow. Ooops, I meant to put this in another thread, so I will.

Oh, and I am making progress on my slapdash organizing by making a bigger mess as I carry things downstairs to re-evaluate, re-organize, choose to use soon, or destine for elimination.

 

[steffamarie]

Alriiiiiiight. New soap rim is in the oven, hopefully gelling, and it looks amaaaaaaazing. Super happy with how it came out. I had to make up my own recipe as I had only about 3 of the 6 or 7 oils mentioned in the recipe on the thread lol

Used 2% glycerine and 10% castor because, let's be real, I need all the help I can get!! It smells delightful (lime EO and may chang EO) and looks really beautiful and I'm really excited to get moving on the whole thing. Fingers crossed that it comes out ok!!!

 

[TAS]

This morning I cleaned up the garden after yesterday's hailstorm. It could have been worse. Had lunch and heading downstairs to check on the infusions I started yesterday. I might throw a spontaneous batch together this afternoon. Sharing a couple of pics from the May soaping series.

infused with marshmallow and rose resin.

Shea O'Shea - 30% shea butter

 

[KiwiMoose]

Couldn't sleep last night thinking about the rimmed soap challenge. I think I know what I am going to do...

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@TAS Nice! What’s rose resin???

 

[earlene]

Yesterday this came, so I made a confetti rebatch (no new soap, all old soap, but not all was melted and not all was confetti) to try out the new cutter. It works fabulously and is so easy to clean! It looks like there may be a bit of a learning curve for me to get straight and level cuts. How tight to get the wire and how smoothly I push the soap through both seem to impact the level cut. Or maybe it really is more about how tight I make the wire. I'm afraid to break it by tightening too much, so perhaps a bit more practice will give me the experience I need to get truly beautifully level Rims for Rimmed Soaps. That's my main goal in buying this cutter, but it is also perfect as a log splitter. It could even be a single bar cutter, and could be the only cutter anyone needs, because it can do all three.

I am so glad I posted this here last October. I was trying out this soap today and couldn't find any documentation in my notebook about making this soap. I really wanted to look up the ingredients, but I couldn't.

Well, I still would not be able to figure it out, so I guess I'm out of luck on that front, at least with any real accuracy. I can see some of the soaps and go back and find some of the ingredients, but it just wouldn't be accurate. Good thing I don't sell, right?

But the soap is nice for washing. Kinda ugly in the above photo, but it's looks have improved over the past 10 months.

I am working on beveling soaps I want to label soon, but stopped to make soap; strangely enough it was for a rim and the post I am quoting is also about wanting the cutter to create nice smooth cuts for rims.

 

[Bladesmith]

Another batch today. Guess I didn't add enough black. I was going for black but ended up gray. Fragrance is a Lord of Misrule lush dupe. Also not real sure what all the little whitish spots are. Maybe bubbles?

Hot processed.

 

[TAS]

If you're an "old timer" like me you might remember Eden Botanicals use to sell Amber Resin. They also sold rose, vetiver, jasmine and desert balsam resins. I had a bit of rose resin so I infused an oil.

 

[DWinMadison]

Shave Soap #2. Wet shaving really has changed my life. I used my traditional shave cream while traveling this week and really missed that super clean feeling. Here’s my recipe from the batch I made today. I owe several of these as Father’s Day gifts. It’s 60/40 KOH/NaOH in HP. Critique welcomed. Wish I could have gotten the conditi0ning a bit higher. I went with 8% super fat plus bentonite clay and a bit of glycerin, so maybe those will help.

 

[KiwiSoap]

I made another batch of salt bars so they'll be ready for summer. Find out more here, with an update on the 'Battle of the Greens' special event

 

[KiwiMoose]

I made another batch of salt bars so they'll be ready for summer. Find out more here, with an update on the 'Battle of the Greens' special event
View attachment 39643

Are yer selling tickets for the event?

 

[KiwiSoap]

Are yer selling tickets for the event?

Gather up, gather up, get your tickets to this special event while they are still fresh and green..
I could never compete while your craft is in town, the better Kiwi comes with a Moose Thanks for keeping me around though!

 

[Dawni]

Another batch today. Guess I didn't add enough black. I was going for black but ended up gray. Fragrance is a Lord of Misrule lush dupe. Also not real sure what all the little whitish spots are. Maybe bubbles?

Hot processed.

View attachment 39636

Niiice! I actually like grey n red. I've never managed black in HP just varying shades of grey...

The spots could be stearic spots? Did you use any butters?

 

[amd]

List for the weekend:
Spray down cure crates with hose because they need a good cleaning before new soap gets added
More dishes
Make soap with IRL soap friend who is coming to visit
non-soapy nonsense that I am going to resent the heck out of
MB Oils and more lye solution
Make 40 bars of soap and 96 lip balms for custom order #1
Make 24 ugly sweater embeds for custom order #2

My IRL soap friend came to hold my hand for some infusions - annatto and alkanet. We are totally different soapers, so there were interesting discussions. Two things that stirred up my curiosity were 1) stickblending in bursts (amd) vs stickblending continuously (friend) and 2) FO added to oils before lye (amd) vs FO added at trace (friend). I'm pretty sure I've convinced myself that it really doesn't matter for my recipe because my recipe traces so fast - literally less than a minute - that I really only spend about 10 seconds blending to emulsion and 30 seconds handstirring, so it's not going affect adding air to my batter by stickblending in bursts - same for adding FO before adding lye - my recipe moves so fast that the 4 minutes (considering labor time) between unmixed and mixed really isn't going to affect scent volatility. [is that the word I want? maybe.] Most cases I spend more time pouring the soap into the mold than mixing it, and I pour at such low temps (my oils are probably running around 80 degs and my lye might be 120 degs) that heat is a small factor in the process. I think if I had to stickblend for 3-8 minutes and soaping at higher temps like my friend does, I might consider changing my methods... or might not. I started soaping with adding FO at the end, and after three too many batches in the mold with FO forgotten... I think I'd rather pay for a bit of lost scent. Also funny... she was completely shocked that I don't measure temps. Ever. I took a few readings when I first switched to MB oils and lye just for a reference, but otherwise nada. Anyways, super interesting afternoon spent making and discussing soap! Sorry for rambling... my brain needed to dump some information.

This week's list is short as all of my bosses are here, so I have a lot of evenings taken up with dinners and such, but I might be able to squeeze in some soap making...
Make 40 bars of soap (the lip balms can wait until next week) for custom order #1
Wash Dishes
Source HO Sunflower oil for vegan soap experiment

I won't need to MB oils until next week, I forgot that last time I MB that I had done two buckets, so I still had one sitting under the work table, so I'm good for a few more batches!

ETA: Oh! I forgot to mention that my hubby told me he is down to two salt bars, so I made a batch for him. Mostly made them because the annatto/alkanet soap wasn't gelling, so I wanted to add more heat. So I made a batch of salt bars and set in the box with the other soap to warm things up a bit. Hubby told me he would "try" to wait 6 months for this batch. Plus I got to try out my new cavity mold and discovered that my calculations were a bit off (I suspect that I resized the recipe to fit the mold, and then tweaked the recipe which threw everything off) so lesson learned there: make sure the recipe is fully locked in before resizing to fit mold!