Soap Makers Help!

[NanaKat]

Morgaine, What about adding Rosemary to the Wheatberry and cream? That might make it kess cloying.
For the white willow and green tea, you might try either more Citrus or a mint.

Ametauss, Soapcrafters has a really good service department. I've never had a FO leak. Contact them about that leaky bottle.

 

[ametauss]

Just got off the phone w/Soapcrafters.... What nice people....

They're sending me out new FO today... wow!!

They said they've been having issues with them leaking so I guess they were sensititive to that....

There's still plenty to make soaps with next weekend!!!

Got my Lye yesterday so now I'm all set....

Does anyone use a hot plate to melt their oils???

I want to convert my Florida room into a craft room and it is far from the kitchen so I thought about searching around for an old hot plate like I used in College before the advent of microwaves....

hee hee....

 

[cheeptrick]

I'm in the process of readying my home for sale so I can buy a BIGGER house with BARN so I can house all my chickens and use part of it for SOAPING...this BYC forum has me so busy with all my hobbies I cannot think of anything much else.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

How cool cheeptrick! I'd love to do that but houses with barns are hard to come by in the OC.

There is exactly one for sale near me - shy half acre, 1300 sf house (smaller than mine and mine is small enough!), barn, for the low-low price of $1.5 million.

Naw, I'll stick with what I have.

I'm soaping right now - waiting for things to cool down. I'm just doing a standard lavender batch. It always sells out too fast so I need to restock. Will probably do another batch tomorrow using one of my new FOs!

 

[cheeptrick]

Quote:
MY lavender sells out so fast too...I use Chemistry Store Fresh Lavender. I just tweaked my basic soap recipe too...it now has 7 (for luck...I'm superstitious oils...and I adjust ONLY the fragrance in it...or exfoliants. The soap is so much nicer...I've soaped with the same recipe for about 2 years now and it was TIME to change.

I USED JOJOBA spheres in the Lavendar soap...I'm going to do that AGAIN...I love it...and all the colors are so pretty. I did one bar layered one side jojoba spheres other plain soap...it turned out very pretty.

I HOPE the house sells fast...then we can jump on this one house in the school district we need.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

I've also been using lots of oils in my recipe. I'm finding it really adds great things to the soap. I pulled out a bar of one of my earlier batches and found this to be much better.

Please post pictures of the jojoba spheres soap! I was looking at them the other day and thought they looked fun!

Good luck on the house!!!!

 

[NanaKat]

Ametauss, Glad to hear they treated you right.

Yes, I have used a hot plate to melt my oils. Mine made my counter surface too high for me to comfortably use. You will also have to watch your pan size...hotplates won't always accomodate a large pot.
I have an annex kitchenette without a stove in our hottub room. It's a great place to wash the veggies from the garden. I can use the hotplate there....will just have to use a lower table.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

I have a cocoa butter question. I bought some of the cocoa butter that has all of its cocoa butter scent (not deodorized). I'm ready to give it a try and have been playing around at SoapCalc to adjust my recipe.

Since it's going to impart a bit of scent, I was thinking of blending it with compatible scents (almond, vanilla, etc). I just got my Vaniglia del Madagascar from The Scent Works and it's a lighter scent than I thought it would be. Has anyone soaped with this scent and used cocoa butter? Will the CB overpower the Vanilla?

I was hoping to get a bit of a swirling action going so that the bar wasn't entirely a fudge brown color.

 

[NanaKat]

Anybody in South Carolina want to answer their questiona bout where to buy homemade soaps?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=161593

 

[Backyard Buddies]

I soaped again today. I made Almond Joy - an almond scented soap with cocoa butter, sweet almond oil, plus some silk fibers. I attempted to do the chocolate swirl but I have my doubts about how it'll come out in the log mold. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.