What soapy thing have you done today?

[LisaBoBisa]

@LisaBoBisa
I have had quite a few sticky, stringy M&P attempts, early on when my recipes were on the oleic side. More or less to find out the hard way, that the only way to get nice and hard M&P soap is to lift hard oils way beyond what I'd be comfortable with for regular bar soap.

This makes perfect sense when you think about it: in regular soap, the saturated FAs from the hard oils have to support the unsaturated FAs from the soft oils (to form a solid bar that doesn't dissolve too quickly) – but in M&P, they also have to take care of the ton of sugar, glycerol, propylene glycol (or whatever solvents you're using).

What is the Sat/Unsat ratio, or the hardness number of your recipe? My regular bar soap recipes are usually around H=25…40, but with M&P I find that H must be above at least 55.


Fun fact for everyone: Sat/Unsat = 1/(100/Hardness-1)

@ResolvableOwl Thanks for the wisdom! I started a separate thread here if you want.
I used 80% hard oils and 20% castor oil! Here's the recipe I tried:

HP stage:
100g coconut
120g tallow
100g lard
80g castor oil
56.83g lye (5% superfat)
123g distilled water (2.25:1 water:lye)

I didn't see anything recommending against this, so I also added 3/4 tsp sodium lactate and 3% citrate, because I normally add those to every HP recipe​

Cook: 3 hours (both recipes I looked at said 3 hours, which surprised me--It takes less than an hour for HP! Sounds like a long cook makes the salts smaller and easier to suspend in a translucent soap.)

After the cook:
Break up soap and gradually dissolve in 60g glycerin and 185g alcohol (This part took me 4 hours in the crock pot, longer than I expected, but I worried about evaporating alcohol with too much heat and used Keep Warm instead of Low) *I'm using ethanol; I know that'll evaporate when I remelt because of its low boiling point and leave me with more opaque bars; I'm ok with that.

After soap dissolves:
Pull out undissolved soap bits, then stir in fully dissolved sugar syrup--114g sugar dissolved in 71g water.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I started a separate thread here if you want.

 

[JuLeeRenee]

So, yeah it's been a while. I haven't been able to make soap in what seems like forever due to my asthma and possible mold exposure. The hubby bought me a 3d printer and a cricut for Christmas, so I have been busy trying to make a box for my soaps, making myself a I'd rather be soaping tshirt and made some soap scrapers on the 3d printer. So now I just need my lungs to get better so I can try my new soap scrapers out

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Oof. Lengthy session. Well, not that long (just above an hour, preliminary planning not included), but it was microbatches with 8 different oil blends + 7 different EOs. Patience, cleanliness, and the dangerously close limits of the weighing comfort zone. But now it's all CPOPing happily in the oven, and the scent mix is … well, umm … breathtaking .



I'm a sucker for that dollhouse-scale 1mL EO bottle! It's catnip (not cheap), and came with that tiny pipette. This catnip EO was in fact the only one where the mix slightly misbehaved (ricing), but I'm not sure if the EO is to blame, or rather the oil blend (false trace).
I have also worked the first time with pomace OO, and can confirm that this brand is indeed a quick-tracer. Easy emulsion after a few whisks with the spatula, and it went on to medium-thick trace quicker than I was comfortable with.

 

[Catscankim]

I didn't actually soap today...haven't since before xmas. BUT I sold 8 bars of soap today if that counts LOL. It was the valentine's day soaps that I posted in another thread. i showed her the bars and asked if she like them or would like me to make something else (which would be a HUGE time crunch). She loved the bars that I showed her that are ready to go. Just want to bevel them and wrap/label them.

 

[msunnerstood]

The blue moon soap is going to be my death I swear. First try, oils separated. Mourned the batch for a few days.. had a successful other batch and thought tonight, ok what the heck. I changed FO and simplified my design. all one color. Disrupted mica line halfway.. the first half of the pour went well. got the mica line down quickly and grabbed the bowl with remaining batter and it was so thick I could have used it for frosting... uggh.. plop plop, bang bang bang, crossed myself, and put it to bed. Its like this soap just doesn't want to be made. Im hoping at least 3 bars dont have air pockets.

So, yeah it's been a while. I haven't been able to make soap in what seems like forever due to my asthma and possible mold exposure. The hubby bought me a 3d printer and a cricut for Christmas, so I have been busy trying to make a box for my soaps, making myself a I'd rather be soaping tshirt and made some soap scrapers on the 3d printer. So now I just need my lungs to get better so I can try my new soap scrapers out

Yay! Love my Cricut so im excited for you. I make all my labels and sample boxes with it.

Box templates is a good place to get templates for custom boxes.

 

[Marsi]

I discovered that my fingernails react with artificial fragrances.

I am sporting a full set (10 fingers) of smokers colouring (you know those old folk that get yellow staining from the tobacco? ... that wonderful colour).

Yay me

(I was testing new fragrances, at the request of a friend, in a recipe upgrade - the base recipe is making me very happy, so maybe I'm good )

 

[JuLeeRenee]

The blue moon soap is going to be my death I swear. First try, oils separated. Mourned the batch for a few days.. had a successful other batch and thought tonight, ok what the heck. I changed FO and simplified my design. all one color. Disrupted mica line halfway.. the first half of the pour went well. got the mica line down quickly and grabbed the bowl with remaining batter and it was so thick I could have used it for frosting... uggh.. plop plop, bang bang bang, crossed myself, and put it to bed. Its like this soap just doesn't want to be made. Im hoping at least 3 bars dont have air pockets.




Yay! Love my Cricut so im excited for you. I make all my labels and sample boxes with it.

Box templates is a good place to get templates for custom boxes.

Thank you so very much for that. I am struggling with one design and trying to use 2 different programs to make them is going to be the death of me .
I have actually had luck with no air pockets in my plop plop soaps, so I will hope with you

 

[Vicki C]

I tested the red palm soap I made about a week ago. The soap is 5% red palm in the bottom layer, no color-no red palm in the middle and 2% red palm in the top layer. I cut a small piece off of the 5% and 2% red palm I poured into little pots. Both lather white. After sitting on a white paper towel, the staining left behind is barely visible at 2% and moderate at 5%. I do like the color

View attachment 63692View attachment 63693

Just found a tiny ethnic grocery near me absolutely crammed with everything, including red palm! Yippee! Big plans.
[ETA “ethnic grocery” sounds bad but i think the sign said it was African, Indian, and Tibetan - they are catering to the refugee population in Concord, NH.]

 

[Purple heather natural sk]

I had a client ask me to make a "no more bottle dish soap" bar, but i was struggling with how to use it.
Do i get a scrubby wet, then scrub the bar to get my soap onto the scrubby?
Do I wrap the bar in my scrubby?
But instead I decided to make my dish soap bars felted .... these now have a felted cloth wrapping them!
They are environmental, beautifully coloured and easy to use

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

Ohhhhhh it was yesterday and I lost about a gallon of castor oil.

thought I’d make soap while tallow is rendering. Still rendering btw…went to measure out castor. I have a cubit container that started with 37 lbs that I got from SC. Should last me a while! I thought.

I left the spigot on. For 45 minutes. I went to pick my kid up from school forgetting I was measuring oils. Came back to check on the tallow and there’s a small pond of oil on the floor and it’s still water falling out of the spouted measuring cup.

I am gutted. It’s about $30 of castor aka 1/3 of the container. Can’t save it. What a loss.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

But instead I decided to make my dish soap bars felted

Brilliant!
However, as it is likely to get buried and lost forever as post #24,514 in this thread, I'd like to encourage you to give it its own thread so ALL members can benefit from this innovative technique.

SOAP SHOWCASE & PHOTO GALLERY

Add as much info as you like about the making of this soap. Maybe add a link to a YouTube demo for learning to felt soap. ???

 

[Purple heather natural sk]

View attachment 63748Brilliant!
However, as it is likely to get buried and lost forever as post #24,514 in this thread, I'd like to encourage you to give it its own thread so ALL members can benefit from this innovative technique.

SOAP SHOWCASE & PHOTO GALLERY

Add as much info as you like about the making of this soap. Maybe add a link to a YouTube demo for learning to felt soap. ???

Thank you! .... those are very high compliments
I will try to put something together ... later this week.

 

[KiwiMoose]

A bunch of firsts today! First time using vinegar in the lye water, first time using Nag Champa FO (@Misschief - how long ago were we talking about that? over a year?) and first time using my new 'stone shaped' cavity soap molds. Hopefully I can get a pic up this arvo of them.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

A long overdue Christmas present to myself just arrived from its tedious transatlantic trip!

 

[violets2217]

A long overdue Christmas present to myself just arrived from its tedious transatlantic trip!

View attachment 63758

AWESOME!!! More soaping experiments! It makes me feels so smart to read about them!!!! I do enjoy your soaping escapades sooo much

 

[Vicki C]

A long overdue Christmas present to myself just arrived from its tedious transatlantic trip!

View attachment 63758

Excellent! I bought that but had trouble getting through it (and I taught high school chemistry for three years!) Maybe you will translate it for all of us.

 

[TheGecko]

I haven't made soap since September...always something coming up, but I WILL make soap this weekend!!! I have two UNOPENED boxes of FOs and a new column mold to try out. I need to a custom soap with 1920s Barbershop for a customer and figured this would perfect to do a Lollipop Swirls with red, white and blue. And I have a new Honeysuckle I want to test. And some Red Palm Oil. I plan to use one of my 4-cavity Round Molds and plan to try it 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% replacement for my regular Palm Oil. And future DIL inquired as to the possibility of making soap as wedding favors. I said sure, but sooner would be better than later so I could work up some samples for her to approve.

 

[dibbles]

And some Red Palm Oil. I plan to use one of my 4-cavity Round Molds and plan to try it 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% replacement for my regular Palm Oil.

If you go back a couple of pages you will see a test I did with red palm. I used 5% in one layer and 2% in another. I think at even 25%, you will have a lot of bleeding/staining. Of course, if you do decide to test at these higher amounts, please post your results!

 

[KiwiMoose]

A bunch of firsts today! First time using vinegar in the lye water, first time using Nag Champa FO (@Misschief - how long ago were we talking about that? over a year?) and first time using my new 'stone shaped' cavity soap molds. Hopefully I can get a pic up this arvo of them.

Here they are: