Soap Makers Help!

[Morgaine]

I talked to BB about their vanilla choices and they reccomended the select. I ended up not ordering it because I couldn't spend too much at the time.

MLF~ I've always heard that Rice Bran was good for mature skin. I use it at 15% of my oils and love it. To me it acts much like olive oil but with out the slimy feel you can get from high OO soaps. I also think it gives the bars a slightly more shiny look than OO. I think it has more lather than soybean which was what I was using before. It has close to the same palmtic as avocado according to soap calc. It's so funny how everyones skin is different. I can't use anything with jojoba in it, even shampoo, or I break out, but my mom loves the stuff.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
Thanks for the Vanilla suggestion, Morgaine!

I'm looking forward to trying the rice bran. I ran my recipe through the soapcalc. RB made a harder bar, but was less conditioning than OO. It was higher in Linoleic and Palmitic and lower in Oleic than OO. I hope I can figure out what I did, but I managed to use both OO and RB, plus make a tweak here or there and came up with some of the changes I was hoping for in my soap. My current recipe is nicely balanced, but I was still hoping for more bubbles and a harder bar. I played around with all these options before placing my Soaper's Choice order, so that I knew I could make them work well for me.

 

[Morgaine]

I use about 25-35% OO in my soaps and 15% RBO. I started with 50% OO and liked it, but other people wanted more lather, so I started by slowly taking away the OO and added RBO and upped my shea butter and eliminated soybean oil. I'm pretty happy with my bars now, but I don't think I'll ever stop tinkering, hehe. I love playing around on soap calc too.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Soapcalc is pretty fun. I love being able to "try out" something before I even buy it.

OK, I got my log-in info for that scent review place. I got some things confirmed that I was leaning toward and came away more confused about others.

Vanilla is a tough one. People love it or hate it. The biggest complaint by those who don't like it is that it smells like play-dough or plastic.

Grapefruit was another problem. Some people said that it smelled like armpit smell. Geez. That's NOT something I'd want in a soap. Mixed with mint, people liked it, but on it's own, not so much.

If anyone has thoughts on this, please share. I'm not opposed to ordering from two places if I need to.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
Did you get your grapefruit at Save on Scents? If not, where? Is that EO or FO?

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Wooo hoooo! I went scent shopping! Here's what I bought:

The Scent Works:
Yuzu Japanese Grapefruit FO
Vaniglia del Madagascar FO
Silk fibers

Brambleberry:
Almond Cybilla FO
Bonsai FO
Energy FO
Sensuous Sandalwood FO(wanted to get that at TSC but they were backordered)
Litsea EO
Anise EO
Peppermint EO
Stearic Acid

All were selected after reading reviews. It took me forever to narrow my choices. I wanted to buy more!

 

[Morgaine]

I would love to hear about how you like energy. I can't believe that Lemon Verbena didn't have a very good review. It has been a big seller for me and a personal favorite. Yuzu Japanese Grapefruit sounds really good too.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
I'm really curious about the Energy. It has gotten really good reviews so I'm eager to try it. Several soapers said that it sells VERY well. I bought my Lemon Verbena at Camden Grey. It has been very successful in our line. Although the Lavender 40/42 is a big seller, the one people get excited about it the Lemon Verbena. I will sell that one out by Monday and even then could have made more to sell if I hadn't run out of Castor Oil.

I'm looking forward to the Yuzu. I had a request for Grapefruit but became concerned by all the B.O. comments about the various FOs. This one, on the other hand, is quite well received.

These ought to keep me going for a little while. My oils and such are coming on the 7th, so I'll probably soap a bit over the next couple of days after that arrives. Then we're going to have a soaping party and get several batches done. Should be fun!

I'm looking forward to the swap and all the great ideas I'm going to get from you guys!

 

[Morgaine]

Where do you get your lavender? The best price I have found is from essential oil university.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Quote:
I got mine at Camden Grey: http://www.camdengrey.com/essentialoil/LAV-40-16/

It is a little more than EOU. I'll have to check them out, too. I heard some good things about them. Too bad we didn't have this conversation before the swap. We could have exchanged sniffies!