What soapy thing have you done today?

[Blue1969]

Hi guys and girls.
I got gifted a bottle of pine fo. Would really like to use it, but dont think I will like soap smelling like pinesol. Any ideas?
Not sure if I should mix it with somehing else?

 

[AliOop]

Hi guys and girls.
I got gifted a bottle of pine fo. Would really like to use it, but dont think I will like soap smelling like pinesol. Any ideas?
Not sure if I should mix it with somehing else?

@cmzaha got me hooked on a blend of lavender 40%, chamomile 40%, and pine 20% (those are my percentages; I am not sure of her exact amounts). I sometimes add a smidge of patchouli to it, as well.

 

[Blue1969]

@cmzaha got me hooked on a blend of lavender 40%, chamomile 40%, and pine 20% (those are my percentages; I am not sure of her exact amounts). I sometimes add a smidge of patchouli to it, as well.

Thx, will try this

 

[Georgeandstella]

I was wondering about the butcher counters ~ they aren't specifically advertised as such, but I do see "deli section, with fresh cut meats" so I was wondering

The ones I go to throw the fat away, so if you have to ask them to save some for you and if you eat meat, they have yummy marinated meats.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Combined the ends of two fragrances yesterday to make this Dragonfruit, Lychee and Black Tea soap. Cut today:

 

[dmcgee5034]

Made a special request soap for a friend yesterday and cut it today. It’s scented with Eucalyptus & Mint from NS.

 

[Jorah]

I finally made soap yesterday for the first time in two weeks, and I rushed a bit and may have spoiled the second batch; yet another learning experience for this newbie. If you're wondering what I did wrong, I poured the lye water into the oils, stirring as usual, but something happened to pull me away for about 10 minutes and the fats started hardening up. I was able to get it liquid again briefly because I had some oil set aside with fragrance & honey mixed in, and I did about 40 seconds of stick blending as it started hardening again but this morning I appear to have two molds of mush. May have to rebatch this one, sadly. I'll add photos of the other two batches once I unmold them.

On the better-news side of the weekend, I shipped (or hand-delivered) 5 more boxes of test bars to my very kind testers & got a lovely care package from a fellow soaper here on the forum. Amid a plethora of soap samples, it included some fragments of bayberry wax & two sample bars of her experimental 'Franklin Family' historical recreation soaps (thanks so much, @ScentimentallyYours !!).

Also, I may have stumbled on a really decent white soap recipe. My wife liked the looks of my most recent borax & pumice bars, she asked me to make her some without the borax & pumice, as she doesn't need anything that 'scrubby.' I looked at the recipe from the perspective as a shower bar and realized that it was far, far too aggressively cleansing for her, so I tweaked it by adding a generous amount of grapeseed oil. The bars look quite nice, and the lye calculator profile looks like it will be a good general-purpose soap:

Component %​ Grams​ Coconut Oil 30​ 150​ Tallow 30​ 150​ Grapeseed 30​ 150​ Castor 10​ 50​ ​ ​ ​ Total oils: (500)​ ​ ​ Kaolin Clay ​ 10​ Water ​ 123​ Lye ​ 72​ Scent ​ Litsea: 9 grams | Lavender: 15 grams​ Sodium Citrate ​ 10​

Calculator​	Lye Grams​	​	Water Grams​	Ratio:​
SoapCalc​	72.4​	​	123​	1.7:1​

If you're wondering about the fragrance, I did a split batch at trace, with half getting the Litsea Cubeba and the other half getting Bulgarian Lavender. I was trying to avoid them getting too hard too fast, so only hand-whipped the batter after adding the scent, and sadly may have underdone that; it appears the EO may not have blended completely. Such a delicate balance between blending enough and too much.

 

[Jorah]

Made a special request soap for a friend yesterday and cut it today. It’s scented with Eucalyptus & Mint from NS.
View attachment 74119

That looks great!

 

[micheleinwa]

Made a special request soap for a friend yesterday and cut it today. It’s scented with Eucalyptus & Mint from NS.
View attachment 74119

So pretty! Can I ask what colors you used please

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

I tweaked it by adding a generous amount of grapeseed oil

I would be cautious about grapeseed oil, @Jorah. The soap calculator lists it as having 68% linoleic acid. Doesn’t that make it more prone to DOS than say a high oleic sunflower or safflower oil? Keep us posted on your results.

Have fun with Franklin’s Crown Soap and the bayberry wax. The original thread about Crown Soap is here. Crown Soap, Ben Franklin’s Family Recipe
I still have one more Crown Soap experiment to do using KOH to see if it creates a solid soap bar. Jane Franklin Mecom gave info that she cut her soap into bars, while other soap made from animal fat and wood ashes were a soft paste. I noticed that Ben gave Jane advice on how to improve her soap, although he didn’t make it himself.

 

[Jorah]

I would be cautious about grapeseed oil, @Jorah. The soap calculator lists it as having 68% linoleic acid. Doesn’t that make it more prone to DOS than say a high oleic sunflower or safflower oil? Keep us posted on your results.

Yeah, I have a bunch of oils I bought in the heady days of hey, can I make soap with that? I'll be cutting way, way back over the next few months, that's for sure. And, indeed, these bars have only been out of the mold for a few hours and they already have orange spots growing on them.

Have fun with Franklin’s Crown Soap and the bayberry wax. The original thread about Crown Soap is here. Crown Soap, Ben Franklin’s Family Recipe
I still have one more Crown Soap experiment to do using KOH to see if it creates a solid soap bar. Jane Franklin Mecom gave info that she cut her soap into bars, while other soap made from animal fat and wood ashes were a soft paste. I noticed that Ben gave Jane advice on how to improve her soap, although he didn’t make it himself.

Old Ben... 'Not always right, but never in doubt,' as we said about know-it-alls in my house, growing up.

 

[dmcgee5034]

So pretty! Can I ask what colors you used please

Of course, @micheleinwa - they are all from NS: Siren’s Song blue, Enchantment green and Orange Vibrance.

 

[Zing]

Made soap today for the first since April. I felt so out of practice that I was nervous to try! All went well, and I've already cut it, around 5 hours later Despite a few air bubbles and some soda ash, I'm relieved to find that it turned out nice. The fragrance is lilac.
View attachment 74114

Wowza! I love solid and swirled layers. And that mica line is ELECTRIC! Stunning work there.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

indeed, these bars have only been out of the mold for a few hours and they already have orange spots growing on them.

Oh no, already??? 20+ years ago I made a soap with grapeseed oil that got DOS and actually developed a rancid smell. I hoped your experience would be better. On the bright side, even a soap failure has value in developing our learning curve.

 

[Vicki C]

I'm makiing Pine Tar soap this morning. Just waiting for my lye water to cool down a bit. It never ceases to amaze me just how popular this one is. I scent it with Cedarwood and Lavender.

Really? I’m going to try this - I made unscented pine tar soap - just the nice pine tar smell - and it’s not a big seller.
Interestingly I had two people at two different markets tell me the pine tar soap reminded them of Estonia. (Did I already say that here?)
I have been busy with markets and trying to get ready for fall / winter markets. A while back I started making “stone soaps” with molds I made out of three nice round rocks and two part silicone. (I entered them in an SMF challenge - was it March?) Anywho they have been popular - I actually can’t quite make them fast enough - but I can only make 12 per day because I have twelve molds. Yesterday I decided to make three more but make them vertical molds so I could make “lucky stones” with a stripe in the middle. I made three small boxes with corrugated plastic to fit the stones. But - I stupidly/tragically did not seal the seams well enough. Cue the silicone leaking out everywhere and me frantically trying to fix the situation with rubber bands and painters tape. Lesson learned!

 

[Jorah]

Really? I’m going to try this - I made unscented pine tar soap - just the nice pine tar smell - and it’s not a big seller.
Interestingly I had two people at two different markets tell me the pine tar soap reminded them of Estonia. (Did I already say that here?)
I have been busy with markets and trying to get ready for fall / winter markets. A while back I started making “stone soaps” with molds I made out of three nice round rocks and two part silicone. (I entered them in an SMF challenge - was it March?) Anywho they have been popular - I actually can’t quite make them fast enough - but I can only make 12 per day because I have twelve molds. Yesterday I decided to make three more but make them vertical molds so I could make “lucky stones” with a stripe in the middle. I made three small boxes with corrugated plastic to fit the stones. But - I stupidly/tragically did not seal the seams well enough. Cue the silicone leaking out everywhere and me frantically trying to fix the situation with rubber bands and painters tape. Lesson learned!

You're among good company. Leaking molds are unfortunately common even among professionals. Imagine the stuff leaking out to be 1,600 degree molten aluminum... that will focus your attention, let me tell you...

 

[Jorah]

Note to self: take a photo of every batch with the batch card in view, put the photo in your recipe sheet, and note the batch name and date in Google Photos. Future-Jorah will thank you.
-=-

First photos of my Sunday adventures in soapmaking...

Batch 31, with honey weighing 10% of total oils.



Batch 32, also with 10% honey, but a different recipe.



Half of batch 33, with lavender EO



The other half of batch 33, this part with Litsea EO. Fascinating to me, how different the color turned out.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Note to self: take a photo of every batch with the batch card in view, put the photo in your recipe sheet, and note the batch name and date in Google Photos. Future-Jorah will thank you.

This is a great tip, @Jorah!

If it isn’t there already, this advice with pics should go to top sticky posts of the beginners forum. Or for people like me, in the tips for the perpetually disorganized forum. Wait . . . I see that forum doesn’t exist, but I need it.

Thank you!

Edit to add: In addition to a soap sub-folder in my pictures, I will start to save pictures like this in my soap calculator recipes.

 

[Jorah]

This is a great tip, @Jorah!

If it isn’t there already, this advice with pics should go to top sticky posts of the beginners forum. Or for people like me, in the tips for the perpetually disorganized forum. Wait . . . I see that forum doesn’t exist, but I need it.

Thank you!

Edit to add: In addition to a soap sub-folder in my pictures, I will start to save pictures like this in my soap calculator recipes.

My lovely wife, who worked keeping executives and lawyers and doctors organized for much of her life, has joined my soap enterprise and is working to bring some focus and organization to the mess, for which I'm very grateful.

 

[Vicki C]

My lovely wife, who worked keeping executives and lawyers and doctors organized for much of her life, has joined my soap enterprise and is working to bring some focus and organization to the mess, for which I'm very grateful.

Is she available for hire?