A new Hobby Soap making Love it

[BamaChicken]

I can get all the ingredients locally except the palm oil. I went ahead and ordered a 50 lb pail from Columbusfoods and I had already ordered 10lbs of white unrefined shea butter. I keep it in the frig. I make body butter with it and use it on my face as moisturizer.
You can generally find lye/ sodium hydroxide at home depot /Ace hardware /or Lowes. make sure it is 100/%. it may cost a bit more than ordering from the LYEGUY but if you want to go ahead and try it before ordering much that would be the way to go.
I Had ordered palm oil in 7 lb containers twice before now and i still have a bit left but just wanted to get enough I didn't have to pay shipping again soon. I also ordered 7 lb of Castor oil. Got tired of the little bottles I was getting at Walmart. Walmart carries the LouAnn Coconut Oil that is a hard oil. It is 76 degree. That is what I was normally using. It is in the Oil section. SaveonScents has lots of nice fragrances and I get the Neroli Fragrance oil instead of the essential oil because the essential oils are pricey anywhere.

You can order the German Chamomille dry flowers online very inexpensively. I cook about 1 qt of them in 3 cups of Olive Oil to make a six lb batch.
Summer bee meadow has a recipe resizer so if you wanted to make a smaller version of this recipe that Joy gave me and others you can resize it to fit whatever mold you want. Joy's recipe obviously already has a lye discount and water discount.

Hope this helps

 

[justuschickens59]

I figured I would just post the Chamomile recipe here since several folks had asked for it. This is what I use for a 25 bar batch - double it for a 50 bar batch.

Dried Chamomile flowers - about 1 quart
Neroli pure essential oil - 2 tablespoons
Shea Butter - 3 oz
Dried Buttermilk - 2 oz.

I put my chamomile flowers with 30 oz of Olive Oil in the crock pot and cook it on low for about 2 hours. Strain it and grind up about 2 tablespoons of the chamomile. This infuses the olive oil and you get a much better scent to your soap. Use this olive oil in your base. I add the ground up chamomile, Neroli, Shea Butter and Dried Buttermilk at trace.

 

[justuschickens59]

Well, I got two 25 bar batches of my chamomile soap made yesterday evening. I was getting ready to start a batch of the Dragonsblood when the weather turned really bad. We had tornado warnings and the lightning was fierce. I decided to quit for the night - I didn't want to be in the middle and have the electric go out. Hopefully, I'll get the other 2 batches made this week sometime.

When I make the Dragonsblood and Moroccan Fig, it will be the first time I've used anything but essential oils. I'm all into natural, so not sure how well I'm going to like it, but will give it a try and see. I might get up the gumption to try to use some natural pigments for color and see what happens. I usually make soaps with my own herbs, and a lot of those give the soap color, so no pigment is needed. I like to cook my herbs in the oil and then crush up some of the dried herbs in the soap as well. It gives it a nice bit of color and texture and exfolliant.

 

[buffbeauty]

Quote:
Do you cook dried herbs or fresh in the oil? Then put some you dried yourself in at trace?

 

[BamaChicken]

Not Joy but she cooks dried.
Her 25 bar batch is a 6 lb mold size if anyone is looking to get a mold to fit.

I made some Medditerrainean Fig today and I think I am really going to like the Fragrance. I used my 4 lb loaf mold and went on SummerBee Meadows site and resized the 6lb batch to fit this mold. I will take pics tomorrow when I unmold it. The only thing i didn't put in it was the milk. I was working on a color that i don't think I got just right but i find milk causes my soaps to turn tan every time. If I don't use milk which I really like it stays neary completely white. I am talking about powdered BM or plain powdered milk.

 

[vanilla.exe]

Awesome thread. I'd like to make my own soaps but the start up is too expensive. For now we just buy organic home made soaps from people on e-bay or etsy and we have a bottle of Dr. Bronner's as well.

 

[buffbeauty]

Quote:
Thanks!!

 

[Majestic Lane Poultry]

Loving what I have read so far. Cannot wait to start someday. With dads cancer, moms knee replacement, my sisters wedding being pushed up due to dads declining health, my need to start raising ducks, etc. I have no extra funds for start up costs just yet. Do you know how expensive a wedding is? My sons are in the wedding and I am one of the photographers. We will be in a lot of the photos so it means new fancy duds for all. Dave is having heart palpatations, poor boy. Anyhoo, by the time I get started, you ladies will have taught me tons.

 

[BamaChicken]

Really I don't think you should spend to much to start with. Buy everything local you can. You can buy small amts of Shea butter on Ebay for a try. Just buy a lb. I have read where some people find palm oil that is like non hyrogenated Crisco. read labels.

I didn't have bought soap mold for six months. I stil use some cardboad boxes the size of cheeze box that I cut and cut a piece of card board for the lid. It is thick because something was shipped to me in it. I also made a slab mold with an old drawer. I lined them all with my freezer paper and by the time you trim them up they look as good as lot soap I have seen being sold. I will be glad to take pictures of my homemade molds if any one needs ideas.

I already had a stick blender which is essential to me. I had to buy a digital thermometer with a stainless steel probe and the kithchen scales. I had other stuff already here I could use. I don't think you would want to start out trying to color until you make a few plain batches. If you want to try soon go to Michaels and get there colors in the soap section. They have some fragrances too. Like Plummeria. I tryed that first and had fun doing it. I have only recently got the colorants from Brambleberry after reading the tutorial on Lovin Soap. I didn't buy everything at once either. I bought the scales one week and the thermometer the next. The lye the next. Took me a month and then I was ready to try for the first time.

I am still learning. i bought a book online on sale and was able to print for myself so I made myself a little notebook with my recipes and notes in it. What I am saying is you don't have to do it fancy. one of my fav youtube characters is Nancy Today. I think if she can make soap I know i can. She is hilarious..

 

[Morgaine]

Hi

Just checking in. I love to see all the soapies. Love the chamomile one!

For all you newbie soapers, check out the other soap thread, lots of good info in there. And I have a thread with a big list of suppliers in my signature.

Happy Soaping!