What soapy thing have you done today?

[NewlyCreative]

I’m really impatient and couldn’t stand not knowing which FO was terrible in my CP soap - so I made another test batch.

I also tested a coconut mango FO that is a known separator. That FO did instantly turn the batter liquid (from a medium trace emulsion) when I added the FO, but I could stir it back together again to emulsion pretty easily. I don’t know what that would have looked like with a stick blender in a larger container instead of a small mold and and spatula.

Alas the mango-y scent was destroyed. We’ll see if it comes back.

This time around I pre-colored with mica too to see if that could mask the discoloration- so it’s more difficult to tell 10 hours later which will be the turns dark brown soap.

 

[AliOop]

@AliOop I want to do a soap/B&B camp at your house!

Yes, come! Idaho is warm and dry this time of year, with amazing cool nights and a nice lake not far from us. Just sayin'...

However, I apparently will need you @Mobjack Bay to teach the color theory sessions. See any problems with the soaps I had planned to enter in the July Challenge?

 

[Basil]

I did a test run of an octopus mold I bought to make soap for a diehard octopus fan. Apparently the stars were aligned in my world yesterday because, yes, this is cp soap!

View attachment 70816

This is beautiful!!!!!!!

 

[KiwiMoose]

Yes, come! Idaho is warm and dry this time of year, with amazing cool nights and a nice lake not far from us. Just sayin'...

However, I apparently will need you @Mobjack Bay to teach the color theory sessions. See any problems with the soaps I had planned to enter in the July Challenge?

View attachment 73465

Pink is not a cool colour!!!! Silly Billy. They look beautiful though.
I'm coming to the soap retreat - maybe next year we might be able to afford to travel again. Virginia was on our agenda ( I used to live in Kentucky, and have friends in VA) so we'll have to meet at @Mobjack Bay 's place.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Yes, come! Idaho is warm and dry this time of year, with amazing cool nights and a nice lake not far from us. Just sayin'...

Oh, that sounds lovely. SE Virginia is steamy hot and very buggy right now. I will let you know when I’m on the road .

Pretty, pretty soap! If that’s Hollywood Pink from Nurture, it def looks more purple in the jar than it does in soap.

I'm coming to the soap retreat - maybe next year we might be able to afford to travel again. Virginia was on our agenda ( I used to live in Kentucky, and have friends in VA) so we'll have to meet at @Mobjack Bay 's place.

If you come anywhere near Virginia, you better let me know!

@Basil Welcome Back and thank you!

 

[Jorah]

I love the color and the stamp, @Jorah.

May I make a recommendation? Don't use those metal cookie sheets.

Thanks for the recommendation; I will look for some silicone or other racks.

You got the color from madder root? Beautiful! Where is your soap stamp from? The cube shape is unusual. Did you get the soap stamp on Etsy?

Yup, madder root! I bought some for a project and lost track of the project (I'm sure I'll find it again), so I thought I'd throw some into this batch, as I'd seen photos of this stamp in use, and it looked great on soap with color. The cube mold is off of the Bramble Berry site, and I used some Bramble Berry scent (her Berry scent) that I had sitting around. The guy I got the stamp from is awesome. When I told him that the 2" stamp he had was a tiny bit too big for the 2" cube, he whipped up a 1.75" stamp for the same price. Ray's business on Etsy is called 'Printed by Ray.' I also got two custom stamps from him with my future business name. I think he's out of British Columbia.

 

[AliOop]

Pink is not a cool colour!!!!

Bingo! I was planning to do green and changed my mind at the last minute - "because pink would look better." DOH.

I'm coming to the soap retreat - maybe next year we might be able to afford to travel again. Virginia was on our agenda ( I used to live in Kentucky, and have friends in VA) so we'll have to meet at @Mobjack Bay 's place.

Excellent! Our second-oldest son just moved to Kentucky, so we have a reason to visit out that way, too. Soapy caravan!!

Pretty, pretty soap! If that’s Hollywood Pink from Nurture, it def looks more purple in the jar than it does in soap.

Thank you! I wish I could blame it on the mica. It was all on me - I know better than to change my mind after the soapy train has left the station. Nothing good ever comes of that!

 

[Jorah]

Thanks for the recommendation; I will look for some silicone or other racks.

@AliOop I went straight to my drying rack and put baking paper between the rack and the soap... I know sometimes when I give advice I wonder if the person followed the advice... if you've wondered that, at least in this case... you can be assured, I did.

 

[VikingChick]

Bingo! I was planning to do green and changed my mind at the last minute - "because pink would look better." DOH.


Excellent! Our second-oldest son just moved to Kentucky, so we have a reason to visit out that way, too. Soapy caravan!!


Thank you! I wish I could blame it on the mica. It was all on me - I know better than to change my mind after the soapy train has left the station. Nothing good ever comes of that!

All right y'all, if you have a soaping reunion in Kentucky, I wanna come! Tennessee is right next door! (And so is Virginia!)

 

[AliOop]

All right y'all, if you have a soaping reunion in Kentucky, I wanna come! Tennessee is right next door! (And so is Virginia!)

Sounds great! This may be morphing from a party to a rave...

 

[Jorah]

Today's 'soapy thing' isn't anything I did (well, I did fondly fondle my recent soap batch & took pix, but... yeah), but something my wife said. When I first started making CP soap, she apologized and said that she'd been using Dove for 50 years and she would never give it up. I did some research & made a batch I call Two Pigeons (because it's a dove clone!) (I originally called it 16 Gauge, because I told my wife it would be a Dove killer; she was not amused...). Anyway, today she told me she'd been using the first bar of Two Pigeons for a few weeks now and she liked it... said she might like it better than Dove.

I felt pretty warm and fuzzy, hearing that!

She did mention that she wished it smelled like the green Dove she uses, and I told her I'd try to replicate it.

Edited to correct misremembered soap name.

 

[NewlyCreative]

Spirulina power

My batch #6, first time with "colors"
View attachment 73486

Also first time with sunflower oil. Does it slow down trace somehow? I had the impression.

Recipe: Spirulina Power (Solid Soap Recipe)

That is my general impression with safflower oil (which I think is similar).

 

[BWt]

I hung up a second soap rack and cut my first soap I made with an Oregon companies fragrance.
I found them while doing my oil scouting. Finally got to test the fragrance I picked up @ Shay and company Really great selection and customer service. Their fragrance bottle for "Brazilian Mango" was labeled correctly. Finally got to cut the soap today and I'm impressed. Soaped beautifully, smells great.
Will be trying more of their scents. Will add pics tomorrow.

Thank you. Have been wanting to try Shay.

I did a test run of an octopus mold I bought to make soap for a diehard octopus fan. Apparently the stars were aligned in my world yesterday because, yes, this is cp soap!

View attachment 70816

Stunning! Molds this intricate cannot possibly be easy to unmold

 

[Servant4Christ]

I think I goofed. I decided to try using AC in a lard heavy recipe because I wanted to see if going slower would help keep those millions of tiny bubbles at bay. I also wanted to try a fo with a low max usage rate (8th and Ocean) to see if it sticks and if I like it. Killing all the stones at once, so to speak. Well, I got impatient and didn't wait for stuff to cool down and I think that is what made everything go sideways. I ended up with a clump of batter semi solidified inside the bell of my SB which led to a few clumps in my batter when I poured. I debated fishing them out and tossing them, but figured that would make things even worse. So I just poured over and around them. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm also interested to see if @AliOop's theory of lard/charcoal recipes getting ashy proves true.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@Servant4Christ 8th & Ocean is strong and sticks very well in my soap, but I find that it causes a wee bit of acceleration in some of my recipes. I’ve been making a bunch of charcoal soap lately for a special order and all of it has gotten a wee bit ashy regardless of the FO.

Molds this intricate cannot possibly be easy to unmold

The bars I’ve made to date have been remarkably easy to unmold. I’ve been adding sodium lactate which I’m convinced is making a difference even though the recipe I’m using firms up relatively quickly on its own. I’m also not rushing the soap out of the mold since the bar doesn’t need to be cut.

My soapy thing for the day was to begin executing Phase 2 of an ongoing soap room reorganization plan. The plan for this phase was devised last night when I should have been sleeping. I thought my disorganization issues would all be solved last year when I bought a big chrome shelving rack. Surely all my molds and paraphernalia should fit on a 6’ high rack that has 5 big shelves, especially since the fats, colorants, scents, cutters, planers and drying rack have other places to reside! Well, sort of. I had a most of the stuff in totes, stacking bins and shoe boxes on the shelves and my molds were mostly stacked on a shelf on top of each other. It looked fine, but I had to unstack storage containers whenever I needed something and then the item I was looking for would inevitably be at the bottom of the bin. Today I found a cavity mold that I was convinced I did not buy because I couldn’t find it anywhere. It was at the bottom of a tote, perfectly nestled inside another cavity mold of the same size. I now have a wild solution for cavity mold confusion that I will share with pics, soonish (There was a reason I spent all that time on Pinterest ). I made a trip to the closest Wally World Supercenter to buy stacking drawers that fit my shelving efficiently and then ordered more on Amazon because there are no more available within a 40 mi. driving radius. The soap room still looks like a tornado went through, but it’s getting better. Phase 3 will require another sleepless night to figure out how to improve the accessibility of my ever growing collection of FOs (use up 1, buy 2, 3, 4… to replace it). With the labelling on the sides and tiny caps, the bottles are begging to be on shelves, but I don’t have the wall space for any more shelving. If you have a good system for storing a large stash of small bottles of FOs, please let me know!

 

[SSC Oregon]

I'm doing the stackable large tubs thing and it kinda sucks for the reasons you stated!
I'm looking forward to seeing how you reorganize.

 

[Blufuz]

Today's 'soapy thing' isn't anything I did (well, I did fondly fondle my recent soap batch & took pix, but... yeah), but something my wife said. When I first started making CP soap, she apologized and said that she'd been using Dove for 50 years and she would never give it up. I did some research & made a batch I call Pigeon (I originally called it 16 Gauge, because I told my wife it would be a Dove killer; she was not amused...). Anyway, today she told me she'd been using the first bar of Pigeon for a few weeks now and she liked it... said she might like it better than Dove.

I felt pretty warm and fuzzy, hearing that!

She did mention that she wished it smelled like the green Dove she uses, and I told her I'd try to replicate it.

I’d love to know your recipe for Pigeon, especially once you’ve figured the scent out!

 

[Blufuz]

This weekend, I made a ton of melon soap! It’s colored with watermelon juice, and scented with Watermelon Sugar from Brambleberry, but it just looks and smells like cantaloupe

I made one batch with 100% babassu oil, one salt bars, and one layered swirl, inspired by last month’s challenge

 

[Jorah]

...it just looks and smells like cantaloupe

I made one batch with 100% babassu oil, one salt bars, and one layered swirl, inspired by last month’s challenge

Cantaloupe soap isn't a thought I've ever had before, but now I'm interested!

 

[Jorah]

I’d love to know your recipe for Pigeon, especially once you’ve figured the scent out!

Happy to share, and I'll bookmark your post to see if I can remember to send you the updated recipe after I get the scent down. She told me it's called 'cucumber aloe,' if you want to investigate it. Remember, I've only been making soap for a few months, so handle with care!

Also, when I opened the Word document to print the recipe, I realized that it's called Two Pigeons (because it's a dove clone). My jokes are all dad jokes...