Soap Makers Help!

[Morgaine]

Quote:
Morgaine, where do you get the mineral oil from?

I get it from walmart. Where the rubbing alcohol is. I use a silicone pastry brush to put it on(it's what I had around the house)

I've got a bunch of stuff coming in Friday and next week. I bought ren costumes for Dh and Ds from etsy that should be coming in. another 25 pounds of Shea butter and another moonworks order. Dh wants his shampoo to be scented with the tropical element, lol.

I also wanted to remind everyone that swap boxes have to be to me by October 14 not September. That way if we had any who signed up close to the deadline there would be cure time. But you can send in your boxes whenever you want, early is fine.

I'm alsp placing an order to TKB for some micas and pigments, if someone wants to order some, let me know and I can put it in your swap box. We can work the details out in pm's.
www.tkbtrading.com

 

[dun chick]

Quote:
Yes...you scorched it. BUT this is still usable soap...do not throw out. I do not insulate. I ground the oats into a flour in a coffee grinder. I also STIR as it is setting up preventing the DARK gel that happens...it prevents the caramel color in oatmeal/honey/milk soaps. Looks like you've got a little DOS too in there which shows you overheated also. The soap just overheated... I also float my honey in a pot of warm water to warm it up slightly.

I also...do not use the frozen milk method. Which could also attribute to your darker color. I add 8 ozs chilled gm at trace or directly into the lye water at 95-100 degrees...however I'm feeling that night. (-;

Are we right in assuming you insulated this soap??

This was an all milk recipe. So it will be darker...MUCH darker if you insulated. Buttermilk soaps tend to be darker....I've noticed. If you desire a lighter color...I'd switch 2/3 of the buttermilk with distilled water.

I used full buttermilk, store bought. Wish I had a goat milk to use, DH HATES goats though. I'll try the partial method with adding the milk at trace and see how that works next time. I didn't insulate, just poured into a small plastic "storage" box and left on the counter. so much to learn, but ya'll are GREAT help. Thanks so much already

When you did your milk with the lye was it frozen or just slushy. I put the lye in very slowly with frozen(very hard) and then put in fridge to cool down. It usually does not take that long to get to temp for mixing. I then put it in my deep freeze so it does not burn after putting it in the mold. It has worked really well for me using buttermilk and this method.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Alrighty . . .

As promised . . . some pix!

This is what Yellowdock root looks like. I tried to take a picture of the bag to show you that the dust is yellowish, but all I got was flash.

And here's a picture of the Black Raspberry Cream soap that I made, using the Yellowdock Root to color half of the batch. See how much lighter it is than Morgaine's batch? She used 12% of her total oils as the infused yellow dock. I did only 12% of my OO, which was one of quite a few oils in the batch, even if it is my oil with the highest percentage. Still, you can see that the color is toward a pinkish tone rather than yellow or brown. I'll try it again and do it correctly next time.

 

[Morgaine]

Shelly, you still got a nice soft marble look to it, I like it. I bet it smells good though, Love BRC!

How long did you infuse your oil and how dark was it? Mine is so dark you can't see through it. I was just wondering if my infusion was stronger?

We had a fall scent talk and now I'm starting to plan for my Christmas scents. I would like to see what others are planing for the holidays. I don't have any definite ones yet, but I'm thinking of doing these types:

a peppermint, maybe mixed with something sweet like chocolate?

Orange/cinnamon/clove blend

Some kind of Pine/Christmas tree blend

Pomegranate

Some kind of vanilla foody scent

Anyone have any recs for any of these scents? Any more experienced soapers know what sells well at this time? I'd like to be able to start selling these around the middle of November.

 

[cheeptrick]

BB...that looks absolutely lovely. I prefer the natural colored soaps to the darker colored ones.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Quote:
Aussie, Did you let your milk/lye solution sit while you weighed/melted your oils?? If so, that is what caused the lye solution to scorch.

Next time, have your oils all ready to go before you make up your milk & lye solution. You don't even have to pour the lye r-e-a-l-l-y slow into the partially frozen milk cubes. pour about 1/3 of the lye onto your frozen milk chunks, stir to start the melting, pour about half of the rest of the lye, stir, stir, stir, then pour in the rest of the lye. Most of the time I still have frozen milk when all the lye is dissolved and have to use my stick blender to break up the frozen milk (be sure to keep the SB immersed!!) Pour your milk/lye solution IMMEDIATELY into your waiting oils.

Quote:
CT, I always use the frozen milk method (all milk) and always gel my soaps. According to your comments, I should always have MUCH darker soaps than what I do ... This is just one of many full milk, heavily insulated (2 heavy wool blankets on top of running clothes dryer) soaps.

I used TD in this picture for the stark white swirl.

For honey, I will thin it out with a bit of water & add to soap pot after the mixture has started to emulsify (before trace).

Oatmeal: Unless I want something scrubby, I use baby food oatmeal.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

dbl post

 

[cheeptrick]

^^^ MLF uses tallow...which always gels whiter. Vegetable based soaps...not so much.

IF you desire a BRIGHT white soap...you can use Titanium dioxide or the whiter based Tallow oils.


MLF has 10 years experience with tallow based soaps!! I'd definitely use her methods....she is a wealth of information.

Cheers!!

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Good point, CT. The choice of oils you used has a direct impact of the final color of your soap. For an all vegetable soap, you can use a vegetable shortening instead of palm oil. Palm is a big culprit in yellow based soaps as is some olive oils.

Darker liquid oils, such as corn, will result in a creamy colored soap much more than a lighter colored liquid oil such as sunflower, safflower of soy.

I use Lard in all my soaps (except the 100% OO).

fwiw, something for folks to scratch their head about

all lard is tallow, but not all tallow is lard!!!

 

[dun chick]

That's really interesting. I was wondering why I haven't gotten to a white soap yet. I might have to reformulate my recipe. So instead of palm I can use mored lard or tallow? I use a 20% palm right now and a 25% lard.