Soap Makers Help!

[smom1976]

Quote:
I just did this soap so it is only like 1 hour in the mold..

The story behind the sent..

So I brought back 5 really cool sents with me (on the plain in my cary on, they had no problem with that but had a problem with a boot that wouldnt fit in my luggage so I tied it in my stroller to gate check, go figure

) from my trip to otion store.. They were in a baggie and I could have sworn that I put them with my oil box..

I had just started mixing it (thought I had a ton of time) let my husband hold the mixer while I went and looked.. came back with no luck and it was already at a light trace.. that sucker traced to a full trace 2 min later..

I was shocked... so this one is UNSENTED lol... tomorrow I will make another that is sented.. I got the best sent ... grapefruit.. it is awsome! I also got lemon .. I am going to make a bar with a bit of lemon rind in it.. and lemon sent.. that will be cool. then I am going to try my hand at glycerin soap... My mom got me these three AWSOME books..

 

[chiknwhisperer]

The soap looks great! I just cut 2 pounds of soap earlier today. I used orange essential oil and pumice in it. It smells great. I used the frozen juice cans that I had. DH had been alking to a guy at work about my soap. The guy asked him if I worked and he told hi I stay home with our kids and that I have been making soap. The guy told DH that he will pay me five bucks for a bar that has pumice in it! And my MIL is my best client lol. I think I am going to have to inform almost all the women I gave those soaps to that they are not decoration and that they should use them. I spoke to one of them today and she JUST tarted using one of the bars yesterday. She said they looked so good she didn't want to use them. I spoke with another lady the other day and she hasn't used hers at all. She said she has them in her bathroom on the soap dish but hasn't had time to use them yet. How do you not have time to wash your hands in the bathroom?

 

[smom1976]

it has been two hours since I put it in the mold.. did not insulate it at all.. just stuck it on top of the washer... (not running) the whole thing gelled?? is that normal.. someone please help..

I remember this in the thread from before and someone said to stir it up so I did .. someone help..

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Leave it be.

Gelling is fine. I always make sure my soaps go through a complete gel. Gel is what happens during saponification. It is an exothermic reaction, meaning that it gives off heat.

The larger the batch, the more heat it gives off.

You're only really in trouble with gelling if you use some HOT essential or fragrance oils (like cinnamon or clove EO, I've had a few FO overheat on me) or if you're using honey.

Usually, you might get a crack on top of the soap - cosmetic only. One time when using honey, I got 'tunnelling' through my log of soap. That was pretty horrific at first, then I sliced it, took some copper and gold mica and painted the inside of the tunnels with the mica and charged extra for it. I haven't been able to repeat it.


Stirring when gelling....this usually happens if you're doing Hot Process. You don't need to bother to stir a gel in Cold Process.

Relax, enjoy your evening, plan tomorrow's batch and check this one in the morning.

 

[smom1976]

ok so relaxing ....

having a bit of coffee.. LOL

planning my next batch...

can I use mineral oil?

I have an entire 14 oz bottle of baby oil lavender sented...

if I was to make another batch of soap and add this entire bottle in at trace.. will it work?

I did not see mineral oil on MMS or my soap 9 calc.. for sap values..

I did however see baby oil as an additive possibly at trace.. in one of my books.. (it read a bit confusing tho

)

I never did use baby oil so this would be a great way to use this bottle..

 

[Scrambled Egg]

Well, I have a long and thorough list of all the things I need to get this project going smoothly but will have to wait two weeks to gather it all!! Paid and broke in the same day today!!! Bills and some no-restraint craft spending in other areas and my soap venture will have to wait a bit!! I am very excited about it though!! I do have a question about "tallow"..instead of getting the suet and rendering the tallow, can lard be substituted? If not, is there a substitute for the tallow? Probably a stupid question but I have looked for tha answer elsewhere and couldn't find it and knew that you all would know. Thanks!

 

[chiknwhisperer]

Well today i am oof to make a cucumber soap

I hope it goes well. So far I have added oatmeal to one soap and pumice to another but thats it. I'm really excited about the cucumber soap but also a little nervous. I emailed a bunch of people last night letting them know that the soaps aren't cosmetic. One lady started using hers. She started with the chocolate soap I made and her one daughter has very sensitive skin. So everytime they have something new her skin gets a rash. So now she has a rash on her hand. She said shes not sure if its the soap or something else. I told her to try using the buttermilk soap that I gave her and hopefully that one will be okay. I hope it wasnt the soap. It was just chocolate, olive oil, coconut oil, and soy oil. Of course the girl does breakout in a rash at just about anything so

 

[mirecipes]

I -believe- that tallow is beef fat..While lard is pork fat..
I could be wrong

But I do know that beef fat is a lot harder than the pork fat

Quote:

 

[smom1976]

hey all this was in a PM from Mullers lane.. she is awsome in the info dept..

But as for the lard.. I would love to try it to compare.. My husband just got a deer and so did his friend and so they saved the tallow for me to render.. (oh how fun!) Have you ever used deer tallow? Is it much different than beef?
okay, basic terminology:

There are two types of fat in hooved animals, the SUET which is the hard fat around the organs. This is the prime fat to render. The muscle fat is the rest of the fat that is around the meat. It is a softer fat. Still makes great soap, but the Suet is cleaner and produces a harder soap.

Before the fat is rendered, it is called Suet or Fat. After it is rendered into oil, it is tallow or lard.

So....what's the difference between tallow and lard??? Not much except lard is from rendered pork fat (suet in pork is called leaf fat) and any other rendered oil from a hooved animal (beef, goat, deer, sheep, moose, elk, et al) is called tallow.

So.... why is lard called lard and tallow called tallow?? Because back in the days of chandlers (soap & candle makers), the fat of pork was kept separate from the fat of other animals. The lard was used for soap and the tallow was used for candles since it produced a harder oil.

Rendering isn't as messy or smelly as a lot of folks make it out to be. I dry render my oils. I have been asked how to render so many times, I made a pictorial

You'll like using deer tallow, it has a higher amount of lauric fatty acid in it than other tallows so it adds to the lather!


the bold was my original question..

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Quote:
Lard is tallow, but tallow is not lard.

It goes back to the days of chandlers (soap & candle maker).

Women folk would collect the beef & pork suet, the hard fat around the organs (pork suet is called leaf fat) for the local chandler. Tallow has a lot more stearic fatty acid in it so it would make better candles. Lard is a little softer oil so was used for soap making.

The easiest way for the women folk & chandler to know which oil they were speaking of gave lard a different name.

Tallow is ANY oil rendered from animals - deer, bison, elk, pig, goat, sheep, et al

Personally, I like lard better than tallow in soaps and won't make a soap without lard.

You don't even have to render your own tallow. You know that cheap, generic, all-meat, creamed shortening sitting next to the Crisco??? Yup, 97% tallow, 3% soybean oil. You can use that.

eta:

Dang, I wish I saw SMom1976's post before I posted this!!!

SMom - did you unmold you soap yet?? We want pics!!!