What soapy thing have you done today?

[dmcgee5034]

I’ve been busy as a bee! Made these over the last week. Sometimes you just get in the mood to make soap
Spearmint, Aleppo, Oatmeal Almond, Lavender/Atlas Cedar and Dragons blood/Nag Champa
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@Terri E - those dragonflies and turtles! so beautiful! I would love to know how you did that, if you ever feel like sharing

 

[Terri E]

@Terri E - those dragonflies and turtles! so beautiful! I would love to know how you did that, if you ever feel like sharing

Thank you and I would be happy to share it with you! So easy! First, I choose the soap design I want, swirl, layers, and colors etc. Then I make the loaf of soap, I like the “Essential Depot red mold” but any mold will do. Then next morning I cut the soap and let it rest until the afternoon. I always make a little extra soap for my embellishments pouring it in plain little square molds. If I don’t use all of the extra soap, I store it in small freezer bags and organize it in a sealed plastic bin. (No waste, I will use it for future embellishments). That evening I squeeze the end pieces and extra soap I made into soft balls (like Play-Doh) and flatten them slightly, placing them in plastic bags. The next day I trim my soap bars, get out my little silicone molds, blades & tools, 91% alcohol, tapioca or corn starch and I’m ready to go! I use a small paint brush to dust the inside of my mold with starch and press my soap dough into it. I use a clay cutting blade to level it. I then carefully bend the mold slightly and peel out my little dragonfly. I turn it over, spray it with alcohol and place it in position on my soap bar. I lay it flat for a little while until it dries. I lightly spray alcohol over the bar for uniformity. The bars dry fast and then I sit them upright. You can use any little mold shape you like, I have a ton of them but use just a few Etsy and Amazon are the most reasonably priced places to get those little molds. I have added some pictures to show versatility and give you some ideas.

 

[dmcgee5034]

Thank you @Terri E! Beautiful work on all of them. I really appreciate your sharing of process! I have a little doggie paw mold and might try this with a white with black spots soap with paws walking across!

 

[Terri E]

Thank you @Terri E! Beautiful work on all of them. I really appreciate your sharing of process! I have a little doggie paw mold and might try this with a white with black spots soap with paws walking across!

That would be so cute!

 

[Kari Howie]

I finally got to make soap today after several weeks of not. Yay! I used an FO by Nurture Soaps called “Daisies in Bloom” and it smells so fresh and pretty.

 

[The_Phoenix]

Made my very first batch of LS. Learned a lot. Thrilled to have tried something new and different. 100% tallow. The big reveal of cutting cold process soap is obviously missing from the experience.

 

[AliOop]

Yay @The_Phoenix! I love making LS, and yes, while it doesn't have the more artistic aspect of CP, it has it's own sort of thrill, doesn't it? Yours looks great! Do you like the feel of the lather?

 

[Misschief]

Not a challenge soap but needs before wants, right? I have customers and children requesting some of my essentials so I left work early today (it was slow) and made two batches of Castile/Bastile soap. Black is Charcoal & Lavender, white is uncoloured and unscented.



ETA: Now, 3 down, 1 to go. A batch of Salt Soap is in cavity molds and a batch of Gardener's Hand Soap is up next. Apparently, it's my granddaughter's favourite soap!

 

[The_Phoenix]

Yay @The_Phoenix! I love making LS, and yes, while it doesn't have the more artistic aspect of CP, it has it's own sort of thrill, doesn't it? Yours looks great! Do you like the feel of the lather?

The lather is so-so. My purpose in making 100% tallow is because I have a lot of it and it’s I expensive. Used just 500g of and and am surprised how large the batch is finished.

What I find satisfying about the process was that I could basically forget about for a few hours (or days).

 

[AliOop]

The lather is so-so. My purpose in making 100% tallow is because I have a lot of it and it’s I expensive. Used just 500g of and and am surprised how large the batch is finished.

What I find satisfying about the process was that I could basically forget about for a few hours (or days).

I've never made 100% tallow; I always used a bit of CO for some bubbles. You could also use some sugar.

 

[Sam James]

This girl discovered AI for photo backgrounds!

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Great backgrounds how did you do that? AI for photo backgrounds, what is this magic?

 

[Savage Daughter]

I try to avoid soy, but that definitely is a negligible amount. Thanks.

How funny. I actually am trying to do just that for a friend right now. The ingredients list has only palm oil and pko as base oils.

Liquid and / or powdered sunflower lecithin are both great alternatives to soy lecithin, also very high in vitamin e. You can choose which form depending on what type of product you're using either type in. I just bought 2 large bottles on my trip, actually, as I had been trying to source some for quite a while. I do my best to avoid soy as well, although fermented tempeh which I make is an exception, using organic / non-GMO.

Sunflower lecithin - the liquid - is beautiful stuff, very thick, dark amber brown, lends a nice texture / slip to many products. The powder is a golden yellow color. Awesome in smoothies!

thank you! This was my own soap - the disc in front is an end from a loaf, the mosaic-like sides are shredded trimmings, plantings, and failed soap. The twins’ soap was very modest, looked lye heavy to me, but sweet that they brought it to show me. The lake sunset soap has been selling well, I am still trying to perfect the assembly, I’m going to make another batch today I think. It is a combination of ombré pour, usage of scrapers I made, and embeds. I made the scrapers and embed extruder discs with my 3D printer. Such a blast learning to use it.

I imagine it would be selling well! It's stunning!

That is amazing....I will have to try something like this sometime, although I have no intention of buying a 3D printer at this point....I am already scrambling to keep my soap / herbs / infusions / dehydrators / soaping equipment room functional

Thank you and I would be happy to share it with you! So easy! First, I choose the soap design I want, swirl, layers, and colors etc. Then I make the loaf of soap, I like the “Essential Depot red mold” but any mold will do. Then next morning I cut the soap and let it rest until the afternoon. I always make a little extra soap for my embellishments pouring it in plain little square molds. If I don’t use all of the extra soap, I store it in small freezer bags and organize it in a sealed plastic bin. (No waste, I will use it for future embellishments). That evening I squeeze the end pieces and extra soap I made into soft balls (like Play-Doh) and flatten them slightly, placing them in plastic bags. The next day I trim my soap bars, get out my little silicone molds, blades & tools, 91% alcohol, tapioca or corn starch and I’m ready to go! I use a small paint brush to dust the inside of my mold with starch and press my soap dough into it. I use a clay cutting blade to level it. I then carefully bend the mold slightly and peel out my little dragonfly. I turn it over, spray it with alcohol and place it in position on my soap bar. I lay it flat for a little while until it dries. I lightly spray alcohol over the bar for uniformity. The bars dry fast and then I sit them upright. You can use any little mold shape you like, I have a ton of them but use just a few Etsy and Amazon are the most reasonably priced places to get those little molds. I have added some pictures to show versatility and give you some ideas.View attachment 73185View attachment 73184View attachment 73183View attachment 73182View attachment 73175View attachment 73174View attachment 73181

Bloody gorgeous!

Infused oils with various wild foraged herbs, finished additional soap label designs & got them off to my local printer, wrapped sample soaps to take to more local businesses tomorrow who have been requesting seeing my finished products, cut a test batch of pull-through soaps - SUCCESS, FINALLY! although some tweakage needs to be done because of using extra virgin olive oil vs pomace, prepared soap orders which are waiting on those labels updated my soaping notebook with new essential oil blends I've created, strained & bottled blackberry infused vinegar, did a whole pile of sitting in the sun while drinking my coffee & reading my herbal books to refresh my memory before starting to crank out my line of herbal salves & sticks, wild foraged more beautiful, amazing plants for my salve line....yeah, some things not specifically related to soap, but it has been a very busy day nonetheless with product-doings related to my soap making brand, which includes several different items.

Oh yeah, more non-soap related: sketched my bokashi labels, preparing for the digital design phase, which will be selling at my local plant lady's shop.

It is time for a very late shower & bed and then do it all over again tomorrow....

 

[Terri E]

Bloody gorgeous!

Thank you, by the way, I love reading your posts!

Liquid and / or powdered sunflower lecithin are both great alternatives to soy lecithin, also very high in vitamin e. You can choose which form depending on what type of product you're using either type in. I just bought 2 large bottles on my trip, actually, as I had been trying to source some for quite a while. I do my best to avoid soy as well, although fermented tempeh which I make is an exception, using organic / non-GMO.

Sunflower lecithin - the liquid - is beautiful stuff, very thick, dark amber brown, lends a nice texture / slip to many products. The powder is a golden yellow color. Awesome in smoothies!

Yes I love it too! I use it for my homemade sourdough milk bread!

 

[basti]

Today I am planning to make a red, pink, and white soap. Manifesting good vibes that I don't make it too meaty.

 

[The_Phoenix]

The lather is so-so. My purpose in making 100% tallow is because I have a lot of it and it’s I expensive. Used just 500g of and and am surprised how large the batch is finished.

What I find satisfying about the process was that I could basically forget about for a few hours (or days).

Update on lather: @AliOop Retested the 100% beef tallow LS. VERY creamy, big bubbles, hands feel really soft after drying. Makes me curious about making a 100% beef tallow batch of cold process soap.

 

[AliOop]

@The_Phoenix that is awesome! You've inspired me to make a 100% tallow LS batch this weekend. Our household has recently switched to using LS rather than bar soap because it's easier for my DH with his shaky hands. My daughter's household also prefers LS, so we are going through it rather quickly.

FWIW, I do love 100% tallow bar soap. I make mine with 90-10 dual lye and some sugar (sorbitol). That makes the bar not quite as granite-hard (it's still plenty hard tho) and helps the lather start more easily. Without those two things, lather was still great, but I really had to work to get it started.

 

[Servant4Christ]

Over the last two weeks, I have had multiple people ask me if they could place orders for soap (multiple bars for each person, one wants an entire 5lb loaf!), but I have no idea what my actual cost is! So looks like I'm doing soapy math tonight and then inventory and a list of what I'll need to complete the orders. I'm so excited!

BTW, if anyone knows a faster way to calculate my costs, I'm all ears. Some ingredients I buy are sold in fl oz, others by weight in lbs and oz.... and I calculate and measure my recipes in grams.

 

[Blufuz]

BTW, if anyone knows a faster way to calculate my costs, I'm all ears. Some ingredients I buy are sold in fl oz, others by weight in lbs and oz.... and I calculate and measure my recipes in grams.

You could ball-park it, based on how much of the container you emptied out for each batch of soap. So if you used about a third of the bottle of fragrance oil, or inconsequentially small amounts of clay, you can just use a third of the cost of the fragrance, and a couple cents for the clay.
Or, you could calculate all of your expenses (including reusable materials!), divide it by the total amount of bars you made, then adjust each type of soap to bigger or smaller numbers depending on how expensive the ingredients were approximately, just keeping the total cost of all your soaps constant.
It helps for this if you calculate first exactly a cheap, medium and expensive soap type just to have a feel for how much variability there really is. Sometimes an ingredient can be really expensive, but you use so little of it it’s not more than a couple dollars per batch.

 

[akseattle]

Thank you and I would be happy to share it with you! So easy! First, I choose the soap design I want, swirl, layers, and colors etc. Then I make the loaf of soap, I like the “Essential Depot red mold” but any mold will do. Then next morning I cut the soap and let it rest until the afternoon. I always make a little extra soap for my embellishments pouring it in plain little square molds. If I don’t use all of the extra soap, I store it in small freezer bags and organize it in a sealed plastic bin. (No waste, I will use it for future embellishments). That evening I squeeze the end pieces and extra soap I made into soft balls (like Play-Doh) and flatten them slightly, placing them in plastic bags. The next day I trim my soap bars, get out my little silicone molds, blades & tools, 91% alcohol, tapioca or corn starch and I’m ready to go! I use a small paint brush to dust the inside of my mold with starch and press my soap dough into it. I use a clay cutting blade to level it. I then carefully bend the mold slightly and peel out my little dragonfly. I turn it over, spray it with alcohol and place it in position on my soap bar. I lay it flat for a little while until it dries. I lightly spray alcohol over the bar for uniformity. The bars dry fast and then I sit them upright. You can use any little mold shape you like, I have a ton of them but use just a few Etsy and Amazon are the most reasonably priced places to get those little molds. I have added some pictures to show versatility and give you some ideas.View attachment 73185View attachment 73184View attachment 73183View attachment 73182View attachment 73175View attachment 73174View attachment 73181

@Terri E those are really beautiful and artistic soaps. So, is this cold process? I'm still confused about the dragonflies, fish and turtles, etc. when did you add the colorant?

 

[Servant4Christ]

Last night I did it. I pulled out all my base oils (hard and soft) and wrote down exactly what the labels show for amount and what I paid for each. Then I used Google to figure out how much the fluid oz of each oil weighed in grams and my calculator to figure out my cost per gram of each oil. Thankfully, some of my oils were already packaged and sold by weight so all to had to do was convert oz to grams. I did the same for my lye. Now, any time I calculate a soap recipe, I can simply multiply how many grams of each oil in a given recipe by the cost per gram and then add up the total and divide by how many bars for an actual cost per bar. I'll use this method for FO/EO, too, since those add up. Water, colorants, and other additives will get ballparked based on how much goes into a batch.
Ok, now that THAT'S done, can I just make soap now?