What soapy thing have you done today?

[ScentimentallyYours]

Cleaned up and stamped soap. Reorganized curing rack and gathered end pieces and scraps and ugly soap to take to work. Freed up 2 shelves for more soap….

I’m now stressing though… the group I usually give my soap to wasn’t at the hotel tonight and a lady I’ve dealt with before with a community initiative through a church stopped at the desk and I asked if they wanted the soap. Now mind you this is end pieces and a few batches that seized and I don’t like. She asked me if I did this as a business, it was such pretty soap…and I told her no & all the sudden she’s gonna be in touch. Something about a radio show and asking if I’m Christian. I’m scared! #1 I was thinking in my head… I have much prettier soap at home, I don’t like talking to people let alone strangers on the radio and she’s gonna make me work for it. It’s not going to be my therapy anymore! Lol! I’m getting way ahead of myself but she’s still stressing me out! Giving away soap is becoming a real issue for my antisocial self!

You could go on the radio and talk about how you like to give yourself away, a very Christian thing to do, right? Kudos to you for figuring out the difference between doing something you love because you love it versus turning it into a business. Turning soap making into a business could easily suck the joy out of the process that you now love. My first job during high school was working in the pet shop because I loved animals. I was disillusioned when I finally grasped that in the shop, animals were . . . Merchandise! As a career counselor I used to have these discussions with clients all the time. We may be better off to work in a job with a dependable paycheck in order to pursue activities that we love outside of work. Back to the radio, talk about what you do with your soap and the friends you have made because of it. The soap is a creative outlet, but it is also the vector to connect with people.

 

[jentlesoaps]

I am formulating with black soap recipes! I am also working on a collaboration with Thermal Mermaid, Whoo Hoo! I have two new black soap videos up on YouTube and hope to be teaching the method soon. I love doing new things with soap.

Here are my first three amazing black soaps. The first on the left is a Lux soap with cocoa butter, shea, coconut, steric acid, chelators, grapeseed oil and beeswax. The right one is a soft black soap (white black soap style) made with olive oil and coconut. The middle one is a traditional coconut soap with shea and red palm. I am using the African method and K2CO3. It is so much fun! It is a very smoky process! If you are interested in watching me create this way I have a YouTube channel where you can see the process from start to finish. It is called Jen Spice.

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

Today my sister and I taught our first soaping class at our local private school. We had seven senior girls in the class. I had some trepidations, but the process went very smoothly overall. I'm really excited about cutting all the loaves tomorrow! We let the girls pick their colors, and it was quite fun to see their ideas.

This was a neat experience for me since this class is where I first learned to make soap not so many years ago. Now I'm the one teaching. Somehow it feels like things have come full circle.

 

[Ugeauxgirl]

I cut and trimmed soap. OF COURSE the one I forgot the fragrance in turned out the prettiest

 

[blucrsr]

Losing my mind! Haven't made soap in quite a few months. Decided to make a small batch each night to test out the numerous samples I purchased. This is my main recipe used many times before (got it from Gecko).

Might have been a little heavy with the stick blender with the first batch and got to trace a bit quick but things mostly worked well.

Next night backed off the stick blender a bit. But seemed to head to trace somewhat fast after adding scent.

Next batch decided to hand stir. 48 hours later and the soap is still soft in the mold. I guess this one will just sit for a bit.

Batch #4. Very quick burst with the blender to bring to emulsion. Added the scent (apple & cinnamon) and made immediate pudding. Looked at the supplier website and they noted "slight acceleration". Right!

I think I'll take some more time off!!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I am formulating with black soap recipes! I am also working on a collaboration with Thermal Mermaid, Whoo Hoo! I have two new black soap videos up on YouTube and hope to be teaching the method soon. I love doing new things with soap.

Here are my first three amazing black soaps. The first on the left is a Lux soap with cocoa butter, shea, coconut, steric acid, chelators, grapeseed oil and beeswax. The right one is a soft black soap (white black soap style) made with olive oil and coconut. The middle one is a traditional coconut soap with shea and red palm. I am using the African method and K2CO3. It is so much fun! It is a very smoky process! If you are interested in watching me create this way I have a YouTube channel where you can see the process from start to finish. It is called Jen Spice.

I'm gonna take a look at your YouTube Videos' Wow didn't even know of this process. So much to learn in Soaping' I'll never reach the point of knowing it all, IMHO.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I was on a website tonight where two blue soaps had this ingredient list: Olive oil, Palm oil, Coconut oil, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Castor oil, Fresh herbs, EO or FO

In one of the soaps the blue was a cobalt color. In the other the color was more of a deep teal/aqua. I can imagine getting such colors from indigo or maybe woad (if I was having a lucky night), but I can’t recall ever seeing these plants listed on labels as herbs.

 

[melonpan]

THANK YOU! This is why I love this forum. I appreciate it, @dibbles ,

@Zing I might be missing something really obvious, but can I ask how do you shred soap?
I've seen a video where some MP soap was passed through a sieve, but CP would be too hard to do that I guess. I can't wrap my head around it.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Cheese/garlic/nutmeg grater

 

[Zing]

@Zing I might be missing something really obvious, but can I ask how do you shred soap?
I've seen a video where some MP soap was passed through a sieve, but CP would be too hard to do that I guess. I can't wrap my head around it.

Just a cheese grater, easy peasy.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Here’s a bucket ‘o soap that was grated with a microplane grater and a closeup of the grated soap after I broke it down a little more. I have been thinking about trying to create a falling snow effect in an ombre type soap, but the pieces may be too insubstantial to show up as individual snowflakes. A scale bar would have been helpful! The pieces in the bottom photo are flat and a few mm at most in length.

 

[Catscankim]

@Zing I might be missing something really obvious, but can I ask how do you shred soap?
I've seen a video where some MP soap was passed through a sieve, but CP would be too hard to do that I guess. I can't wrap my head around it.

I use a box cheese grater. It was daunting at first. I thought it would be too tedious so i put it off. Its way easier than grating cheese lol.

 

[earlene]

@Zing I might be missing something really obvious, but can I ask how do you shred soap?
I've seen a video where some MP soap was passed through a sieve, but CP would be too hard to do that I guess. I can't wrap my head around it.

Not, Zing, obviously, but another tool often used to grate soap is the Salad Shooter. I have actually used a food processor and by choosing which attachment, can get very fine to very coarse (similar to finely grated cheese or coarse grated cheese). In fact, with the finely ground size, it's almost like powder.

 

[Mommawolfe]

Currently 0540 making 3 loaves of HP soap. 2 of Salt, and 1 of pupper...30 bars total. in the past 3 weeks, made 150 bars...almost done!

They are really good about holding your hand to help you get it right. I bought the biolefin, which is still petroleum based but degrades faster than plastic. Not 100% sure how I feel about that but I don’t think there is a more env friendly option. Art, the owner at National Shrinkwrap (I think he’s the owner?) says that fragrances will permeate the wrap, but they are definitely subdued. Except I reliably blow holes in every wrapper which helps the fragrance get out!
By the end of my wrapping session yesterday I was going pretty fast - for bar soap one tip Art gives is to do the shrinking of several together - line them up and shrink all the ends first. Here are some examples from my efforts yesterday. Art would probably gasp if he saw my clumpy ends. Still have my training wheels on. (I cropped out the ones with my label.)

I shrink wrap my soaps, and set them on their side and label them that way so they sit straight, and don't fall over. (my 3 cents worth) (inflation)

 

[pinpointpete]

Made my first bars of soap yesterday and unboxed and sliced today. Not real pretty right now until I figure out my recipe. Will let them cure on a rack for 4 - 6 weeks. Pretty excited.

 

[Babyshoes]

Made my first bars of soap yesterday and unboxed and sliced today. Not real pretty right now until I figure out my recipe. Will let them cure on a rack for 4 - 6 weeks. Pretty excited.

Hurrah! Those look great for a first batch, well done.

 

[Orebma]

Made my first bars of soap yesterday and unboxed and sliced today. Not real pretty right now until I figure out my recipe. Will let them cure on a rack for 4 - 6 weeks. Pretty excited.

Exciting!

 

[Catscankim]

Not much soapy going on here today. I ran out of lye. I guess I have to start buying bigger containers or order more often.

I worked a 16 hour shift 11p-3p (plus my 1 hour drive back and forth makes it an 18 hour day). I'm not terribly tired, but my legs hurt. I might just do some planing and beveling, particularly my entry soaps.

I have a 9am appointment tomorrow that I cannot miss. So my dilemma is staying up long enough that I do not wake up at 4am wide awake LOL. Its 5:30pm right now, and if I crash, that's exactly what's going to happen. Tomorrow is my only day off this week, so I also want to be kind of productive. Crashing right now would wreck my whole day off.

 

[Babyshoes]

I made soap this afternoon.

Aching from my middle back down to my feet now - my body doesn't do well with standing for long periods, even though I took proper sit-down breaks between steps. I had to make supper not long after I finished soaping which didn't help, but it's totally worth it. That's what painkillers are for, right? To be fair, my hip was achey before I started, so it's not exactly surprising.

2 of the 3 soaps went pretty much according to plan, but the new FO I used in a test batch accelerated massively, putting paid to any chance of a drop swirl. Hopefully my alternating plop and stir method will look ok-ish anyway... Next time I use it, I'll do layers!

Now they're all tucked up in the oven overnight. I'll try to remember to post photos of the cut in a day or two.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I cut the soap I made yesterday and also made a little test batch of tallow balm. I think it’s the first time I put something other than chopped or chipped soap on the top of a batch. Not exactly as planned due to using the skinny loaf. I’m not a huge fan of balms on their own but, when my skin is really dry, I like what happens when I add them over lotion. This is the first time I’ve made a balm using tallow.