Soap Makers Help!

[ChicksterJo]

That sounds fabulous!!

That peppermint choco soap would be great for holidays coming up. Please post pics if you decide to do that

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

YeeHaw! Wheee! I see what y'all meant by 'move fast". I slowed the Peppermint batch down by having the oils at 100* and the lye/milk mix down to 80*, and it was a cool and controllled pour.
The Bayberry batch, oils were 100*, but the lye/milk mix wasn't cooling fast enough to suit me, I should have cooled it, or been more patient... I don't know.
At any rate, it 'moved fast' and nearly left me with 2 tubs of set-up soap. Took a spatula to finish plopping it out. Too hot for the 'water reduction'
But I get the 'move fast' thing now. Lesson learned.

 

[Morgaine]

I always bang my mold down on the table few times if it was thick going in the mold. And I often have to use a spatula to get soap out lol.

 

[ChicksterJo]

Whew! At least it wasn't botched and you still learned something...that's one of my favorite ways to learn a lesson! I went to check my Chocolate swirl this morning and it was hard enough for me to slice so I went ahead and did it. I guess the swirls went down far enough but I'll keep trying to get them right! Oh and the flakes are from the raspberry herbal tea, which funnily turned a nice burgundy color but the smell isn't there. I'm just waiting for my FO's now...

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

It came out BEAUTIFUL! Love the chocolate swirls!

Lisa

 

[WomanInTheWoods]

Ooooo, Dipsy, I got that giggly kinda panic going on just reading that!

ChicksterJo, they look great! That one at the very top is my favorite, but they are all just beautiful!

I did my plain batch of OMH last night (I keep trying to type "omg" there...

) I was expecting it to move much faster than it did. I had my oats and warm honey sitting beside the pot, so when I got to light trace I added in the honey, sb'd a couple pulses, added in the oats, sb'd a few pulses, then chickened out and stirred by hand with a ss spoon. A half hour later I sb'd off and on for 5 minutes, hit med trace and poured. I put a light cover over the top and put it in the oven (not preheated on account of the honey) with the light on overnight. It's cooling now, I'll cut it this afternoon and post pictures.

My UPS guy came early today! He usually gets here in the afternoon, but today it was 10 a.m. when he knocked on my door.

Now, if that FedEx guy would move his rump my day would be made!

I get to try my hand at making shampoo bars tonight!

 

[ChicksterJo]

Thank you, Dipsy & WITW!

WITW, sounds like you did great. I can't wait to see your bars when you cut em! (I always end up typing OHM instead of OMH lol) I'm not sure if I want to try a milk based soap today...it kind of scares me. Maybe I'll try a honey one?
My FO order is on hold because apparently one of the FO's was out of stock. So I subbed the orig. Eucalyptus & Spearmint with Lemongrass & Sage. I hope I subbed the right FO lol.

Oh & please post pics of your shampoo bars!! I want to make one because I am sick of using the shampoo from the store and having my hair dry OR oily anyway.

 

[WomanInTheWoods]

I'm excited about the shampoo bars~ I've had an open beer going flat for over a week now (it's in the fridge) and just got the hemp & avacado oils from the UPS guy. I found a key that I'm hoping will make all the difference. We have hard (well) water here, so I'll be adding 1/2 tsp salt ppo to my recipes from now on. It's suppose to make all the difference with hard water. We've got several bars we've tried on our hair so far (none are exclusively s'poo bars). A few have been horrible, but a couple have been pretty okay. The coffee bar wasn't bad, my dh likes the cucumber one for his face and hair, and the Dr. Bronner's bar we have in there was okay, too. The best so far has been the Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap, though. BTW... how on earth to they call their soap castile? It's got way more in it than just olive oil...

Next new thing after shampoo bars will be shaving soaps! (I got Bentonite & Kaolin clays today, too!) One thing at a time... there's just not enough soaping hours in a day!

 

[ChicksterJo]

That is interesting about the salt...our water here is very chlorinated, so much so that you could smell it out of the tap.

So I use the water that goes through the refrigerator water filter because I don't want to buy distilled. I just read a post on a website about how adding a bit of sugar makes the bar smoother. I would like to do that once I get my FO's. I am trying to experiment with water discounting and no discounting, more lard in a soap versus less, etc.
I want to try castile someday because it might be good for my hair. I got those clays too! lol My SO needs shaving bars because he has to shave daily or every other day. I am currently unemployed and using my $ from my royalties, which isn't much LOL. I'm waiting on a volunteer coordinator to give me the ok with my background check but other than that, just been applying to jobs here and there and soaping!

 

[WomanInTheWoods]

Quote:
Ick! I've been to homes with chlorinated tap water, you're right, it's not very drinkable! I would drink from the filter, too. I'm using distilled water for my soaps, I meant the salt added to the recipe is suppose to help while you're in the shower, kind of like a water softener. The bars are suppose to lather better. You can add up to 1 tsp salt ppo. As for the sugar, I read that it's suppose to increase lather and can be added at 1-2 Tbsp ppo, and you can use both sugar and salt in the same recipe. Just watch that you take into account what kind of liquid is being used, it could already have sugars in it. With the shampoo bars, the beer has sugar in it and is suppose to make a great lather, hopefully adding the salt will combat the hard water issue and I'll end up with a great bar!

I would love to get one of those Zero water purifiers. For now it would be just one more thing to find a place for. Too much clutter around here. I'm in one of those moods lately where I want to back up a truck and empty everything out. Ugh! Too much stuff! Right now the biggest thing is schoolbooks everywhere. They never seem to make it back to the bookshelf where they belong. Plus I've still got some of the wrong grade books left about that I've got to get organized and put up. Dh is suppose to be putting up more shelves for me while on vacation. My dad has a personal lumber mill, and I've got a log drying in the back yard. If I can get a few good men up here to get that monster log up onto the back of my truck, I might just get some shelves! (I refuse to go spend $$ on shelves when I've got the resources here to make them myself.. well, kinda... for free!) I've got some leftover stain, too.

So let's see... hubby's honey-do list for his "vacation" is growing by the minute. So far he's taking a much needed trip to the dump (maybe I'll get him to drop off some Goodwill items, too), fixing/installing some window screens, making/installing shelves, keeping the kids while I take some bonus soaping time... Sounds good to me so far!

(don't worry, he'll still have plenty of time for football

)