Soap Makers Help!

[Morgaine]

Quote:
I've just read the ingredients from bramble berries site. I'm not even sure I would know what the detergents were listed as, I just saw that it had sodium hydroxide on there.

List of ingredients for the clear melt and pour base.
Glycerine, Palm Oil, Coconut Oil, Lauric Acid, Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sorbitol, Triethanolamine, Sodium Chloride, EDTA

Bolded is the cold process soap.

Underlined is the detergent

Sorbitol is sugar, sodium chloride is salt, lauric acid is a fatty acid, glycerin is a byproduct of saponification, don't know off hand what triethanolamine is, suspect it is an alcohol

Ok, I thought SLS was just for added lather, did not know that it was an actual detergent.

I'm going to make another batch of green Cucumber Melon today. I had passes some of my soaps arounds to the teachers at my son's school and one of them wanted to buy 25 bars! I told her they wouldn'y be ready till after Christmas and she said she didn't care and still wanted them. I have 85 bars made right now as Christmas presents, and I thinking of selling her 25 of those and then bumping the number of bars everyone gets down. Most were going to get three to four, but I think I might bump it down to two to three bars each. Then I can buy some different scents with the money. I was also going to include scented salt baths and a scubby. I just wish Christmas wasn't so lean this year!

 

[chiknwhisperer]

I feel the same. My MIL wants to buy some for the ladyies that she works with but the ones that I wouldn't mind selling right now won't be ready in time. I have a few I could sell from my other batches but I would prefer to sell from this last batch because I think they are the best so far.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Quote:
Do you want to use all the GM? All your coconut? Or both?

You can always keep your GM in the freezer use it later.

Using all 4 oz of coconut and making that 25% of the recipe, you would need 12 oz of lard, .

12 oz lard
4 oz coconut

5.3 - 6.0 oz frozen GM
2.2 oz lye

If you have some soybean oil around the house (AKA Vegetable Oil on label), you can:

12 oz lard
5.5 oz soybean oil
4 oz coconut


7.1 - 8 oz frozen GM
2.9 oz lye

I.. I have read on here lots of times that only milk is hard you have to add the lye real slow and keep the temperature down..

Nah ... all I make is 100% milk soaps and I dump my lye into the milk and always get light colored soap.

The trick is to have all your oils weighed, melted and combined before you even mess with the lye solution.

You milk should be frozen and in 1" chunks.

Weigh out your frozen milk in a container and place it in a bath of cold water (I use the sink)

Measure out your lye in another container.

I dump about 1/3 of the lye into the frozen milk & stire to start it melting. Then add about 1/2 of what lye is left and continue stirring well. Then dump the rest of the lye in, stir some more and then use my stick blender to make sure all the milk cubes have melted and the lye incorporated.

POUR IMMEDIATELY into the waiting oils.

I alway make sure my soaps go through a thorough gel by wrapping them in a couple layers of wool blankets and putting them on top of the running clothes dryer.

Never fails.

Quote:
Have you ever heard of master batching? If you're doing large batches, it's the way to go!

It's simply putting together all your oils for, let's say, a 30lb, batch. Mix it well and store it away. When you're ready to soap, just weigh out the premeasured oils for the batch you're making, make up the lye solution and wambo-bambo, you're done!

Of course, you can do this same thing making a smaller master batch. Let's say your mold holds 2#. Why not weigh all your oils for 10#, store 8# of it and use the 2# for your soap. Next time you want to make soap, you only need to pull out your master batch bucket & weigh that instead of weighing all the individual oils. Makes it so much faster!!!​

 

[MissPrissy]

Quote:
I have done that in the past.

My problem here in this house is lack of real storage space for my 5 gal buckets and things. I need a building all to myself that I can do these things in.

I need one big building with heat and air and a big kitchen and a fireplace. LOL

One room for soaping and one for sewing!

And a lock on the door to keep everyone OUT!

 

[cheeptrick]

Remember my twice flubbed chlorophyll soap? Well here it is after oven process rebatching and then MICROWAVE rebatching. I'm happy to report my eo's stayed intact although I added more just for a good kick in the nose. I rebatched the second time in the microwave and EVEN added more liquid chlorophyll. It came out very nice! I put a layer of poppy seeds in between batches...will NOT do that again...it made the soap break in half at the poppy seed layer.
THIS IS only 8 bars of cold process soap grated....got 17 bars appx after whipping.

THIS SOAP REALLY FLOATS!

whipped in the bowl

BANGED in the mold

hardened in the freezer

cut (the little whipped cream topping fell off...so I removed them all...do not like that it looks like food)

Got to feed the kids now!

 

[chiknwhisperer]

Quote:
I have done that in the past.

My problem here in this house is lack of real storage space for my 5 gal buckets and things. I need a building all to myself that I can do these things in.

I need one big building with heat and air and a big kitchen and a fireplace. LOL

One room for soaping and one for sewing!

And a lock on the door to keep everyone OUT!

That is such a great idea! I am going to have to do that. It would save so much time. I also want my own buiding with all those lovely extras to go with it lol. I told DH I only want to spend 5 years here and then we need to move to a bigger house farther away from people. Its just getting to small inside and out with 6 of us here and my animal addiction has had to come to a halt because our yard just doesn't agree with how many animals I want. Although I have permission lol from hubby that I can order more chicks in the spring and that I can have meat chickens again

He doesn't know it yet lol but I'm going to by a bator to hehe. Between all my addictions I don't know how I have time to do anything

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Cheeptrick,
Those are gorgeous!!

 

[chiknwhisperer]

I am trying to put together Chrismas presents for the women that will be at the family Christmas party. What do you think? Is there anything that you would change? I still have to go and get the wrapping for it.

 

[smom1976]

very nice.. my mom thought it would be a great addition to add a loofa sponge to my soap gifts..

 

[chiknwhisperer]

That sounds like a great idea! I don't know what to add to mine. I know about four of the ladies will like them and use them but the other one's are snotty and will probably throw them out. DH said I can't pass out the gifts to all the ladies except them because it would cause hard feelings. Noone likes them much anyway but the get invited every year becasue they are family, which I do understand but I don't like wasting my time and money giving things to people who are just going to get rid of them. DH's aunt made a sugar scrub last year and they left theirs behind. Didn't even take it with them.