Soap Makers Help!

[WomanInTheWoods]

Turkey Day is always dh's day in the kitchen. He takes care of the turkey, I do the baking. This year I did a pumpkin soap, too. It overheated a bit, I think, it doesn't have any smell at all (I was really hoping for the cinn. to come through), but I just tested it (only a week in) and it lathers nicely and feels great. It's the right color, it'll be good for Turkey Day.

I'll let you know if boiling the beer makes a difference. The batch seized so fast I never even got a sb in it, I hand stirred it. During the pour into the mold it went from pourable to spoonable to mashable.

 

[itsy]

Quote:
I have some empty Pringles cans that I will be using to make my first ever soap..... but how do I get the block of soap out of the can to cut it? Will it slip out because of shrinkage or will I have to take the tube apart over the soap?

 

[ChicksterJo]

I had to rip my cans apart

I didn't have enough patience to put them in the freezer though!

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

Another pringles can ripper here. I used to have a jr high teacher that saved all his pringles cans for me (and he went through 3-5 a week!)

Besides just slicing soap from pringles can, you can make 'half-moon' soaps by slicing the round soap length-wise, then in 3"-4" lengths. Makes a wonderful soap shape (that twirls in your hand really good!)

re: turkeys

My DH will be processing a bird for me today that I will brine and cook up for our church's T-Day dinner. This next week will see a LOT of turkeys going through my kitchen. Freakonomics Radio aired a segment yesterday about turkeys ... yup, that's me being quoted in my 'getting ready to lose my voice' voice.

 

[WomanInTheWoods]

Okay, so I picked up two cans of Pringles while I was out last night, got 'em home, measured them, and would you believe they are THE EXACT MEASUREMENT I WANTED???

How often does that happen?
Cindi, I will definitely try the half-moon shaped bars, I love a good twirl! Maybe I'll do part of the batch I'm making for my sister's new house in one of the cans; I can put discs, half-moons, and rectangles in the basket for her. She'll love it! I'm going to try an ITP swirl, I bet that will work out nicely in the cans.

I am really tempted to try brining the turkey. I think you posted about it over on the "living frugal" thread (?) and I wrote it down. My dh uses the oven bags and lots of veggies and stuff in there and the turkey is just melt-in-your-mouth delicious! Maybe we'll brine the Christmas bird...

The AI turkey... lol... yeah, I don't like to think about it too much. I know I'd much rather have a heritage bird, but no way we can afford one. We are planning on raising some, hopefully next year. My uncle up in VT has raised his own TG birds the last few years. Last year their bird was so big it wouldn't fit in the oven! It was 40-some-odd pounds! My poor aunt had a heck of a time... lol We're taking our path to healthier, self-sustainable living one step at a time, and raising our own food is a big part of it. Our garden this year was better than last year's, but still far from what we want/need. We have a few chickens, but want/need more; the big coop isn't finished yet. Dh has been working so much overtime this fall that there's just not been any time. He did have a few days off recently, but getting him out there to work while on his vacation just wasn't happening.

(this annoys the crap outta me... when do I ever get a vacation? my job is 24/7/365... wouldn't I love to sit my arse down and have a few days off... sorry... ranting...I'll stop now)

Oh. And my MIL got a turkey. She told me all about how she and the woman in line were talking (b*tching) about me and my lack of concern that the turkeys were "flying outta there" and how the guy behind her in line bought four birds. I've never lived up to her standards before, why start now? Please God, let there be a 25 lb bird there when I get groceries this week...

Back to soap!~ I'm soaping tonight, but can't decide what to do first! I'm almost out of coffee bars, and that's a huge hit around here so I really need to make more of those, just not into it right now I guess... might have to push myself and get that done. I also need to do another shampoo bar, another shave bar, honeysuckle for mom (with calendula infuse oo), and blue/cream swirl for my sister... The last two are the ones I really want to do first, but the others really need to get done too! What to do?!?!

 

[ChicksterJo]

Well...I just purchased a simple handmade dress from etsy for my wedding. It's not going to be anything fancy. My fiance and I agree that we want to have something super small so that we can save money to buy land. I think we're pretty much decided on Tennessee. We want to live off the land, be as self-sufficient as possible, and I want to make a living selling what I produce. And of course all those chickens

Since I bought the dress I guess I will have to wait to buy a Kelsei mold. Sometimes I just want nice looking bars!

WitW, I used to not like turkey. In fact we made it once in my family and I didn't like the overpowering turkey taste. So we ate chicken for Thanksgiving for a looong time. Until my SO came along. His family always made turkey and his dad's girlfriend uses an Alton Brown recipe for brining the bird. We tried that a couple years ago for Christmas dinner and it was delicious.

Oh and I will make more soap today too

. I'm going to start volunteering next week at a hospital so I want to get as many batches done as possible. Today I'm thinking of another lavender but I just want to use up all that Smokey Mountain Christmas fragrance. It smells great but it wouldn't make sense to have the soap after Christmas. Or maybe it would lol. I love the Burberry type though. I always used that perfume since most others make me have sinus pain.

I like the sound of the honeysuckle bar. The coffee sounds interesting too. Did you use coffee grounds for exfoliation? If I ever use the herbal tea again I will need to grind it up even further. Otherwise the one I made should be for mechanics with super oily hands lol.

 

[WomanInTheWoods]

Congrats on the dress!!!!

I cringe when I see women spend thousands on a dress they'll wear just one time. When I think of the money thrown away on these big weddings and what could have been done with it instead... oy... lol So when is the big day? Tennessee sounds good, aren't you on the other side of the country right now? I'm in Virginia, so we'll practically be neighbors! lol

Smokey Mountain Christmas sounds so nice! I would use it before/during/after Christmas... after all, there's plenty of winter left after Christmas...

Yes, I did use coffee grounds for exfoliation. It is a really rough exfoliator, I'll be reserving that for the guys' bars from now on and finding something a bit more gentle for the women. For the upcoming coffee bars I'm thinking I want to do two batches at the same time, one using coffee for the liquid and one using milk, then swirling them together for a coffee and cream bar. No exfoliators for this one. I used a quad strength coffee brew last time, I think I'll do a double strength this time. The quad strength kicks butt & we love it, but it does sometimes show some coffee in the sink. lol I'll probably try a triple strength next time on the straight coffee bars.

 

[ChicksterJo]

Ooh that coffee/cream bar would be gorgeous! I've been using the remnant end from my third batch with the cocoa...and for its cure time it is good so far. The lather is just slightly light tan but not bad. If you make that coffee/cream bar could you post pics? I will try to get some pics up of the batches I've made so far. Many of the bars have soda ash though. I'll clean 'em up once I find the alcohol that I need.

My dress and the bolero cost me less than $80 lol. I LOVE the way the dress looks. It's not quite blue and not quite green. I would have asked my mom to make it for me but she sold her sewing machine and she's only got a serger. I haven't machine sewed in a long time. The date has not been set but we'd like it early next spring. I suggested early May, like May 5. I know it's crazy to have the dress before the date is set but we're spontaneous like that lol. We've known each other for a long time and been together for 4 years. It's basically just the ceremony; we agree we feel like we're married already. Oh and yes we live in California right now. We've been to Tennessee..just not the side we want to eventually be in. We went down to Memphis a couple of years ago on a "on a whim trip." It was when the gas prices were low enough that we wanted to take a little trip right after Thanksgiving dinner (in fact, two hours after dinner

). We went through Missouri to get there and we would've gone on to Nashville had we more time. My SO's dad takes motorcycle trips and he says the mountains of E. Tennessee are really beautiful. From pics, I def. agree. It will be a little strange living in such a "new" place but I get adjusted to my new surroundings pretty quickly. I met some pretty friendly people in the W. Tennessee side.

Ok, I'm going to start making soap and I'll try to post pics of my curing soaps afterwards.

 

[WomanInTheWoods]

Not crazy at all... my dh and I felt the same way. The wedding was almost just a formality.

The mountains over here burrow deep into your heart fast! I couldn't ever move away from them. They make me so happy, give me such a feeling of peace. You'll love it!

I'll post pics when I get the batch done~ I just ordered some vanilla stabilizer yesterday. The cream part of the bar will have some sw. almond & sugar cookie fo's in it, so I'll wait on the stabilizer to hopefully keep that part of the bar nice and creamy.

MILK SOAPERS~ I've used gm, but the canned milk is kinda dark, has like a pinkish/orange tinge to it. I got some whole (cow) milk and froze it. Same quality? I'm hoping it will yield a whiter bar.

I think I'm leaning towards the honeysuckle tonight... yellow sounds so happy right now, I need a little happy...

(think I'll add a bit of turmeric for a touch of yellow...)

So what's on the soaping menu for today?!?! Pics please! I need some inspiration to boot my butt into gear...

 

[ChicksterJo]

You know that turmeric swirled soap I made? It had a funky smell to it and I think it was because of my milk (I'd read about others having that ammonia smell to their milk soaps). Maybe that ammonia smell would have gone away after a full cure but I grated that batch and remolded it. I like the thought of milk but I don't know if that smell will go away. I did freeze the milk into ice cubes. Discoloration was no problem. The milk/lye solution stayed white.

From left to right: The cucumber soap I made a couple days ago, using cucumber melon & green tea FO and one cuke; my rose clay soap with no fragrance; my lavender soap with rose clay, white sugar, lavender FO and a bit of 1982 blue mica; my cocoa/herbal raspberry tea soap made with mostly lard; and my spiced soap, no fragrance, just a bit of cinnamon sticks infused in the OO, bit of powdered nutmeg, etc. I love that one and it is mildly exfoliating.

This is the one I made yesterday with the Burberry FO and 1982 blue mica swirled in.

Here's a pic of where I'm keeping the curing soaps. The blue soaps in the back (round) are my "Blue Moon." They have a few discoloration spots (!!

) because of the FO. Totally forgot that it would discolor it. It's almond, milk, & honey FO; the smell is divine and so is the color, but there's soda ash around the sides. I want to redo this one and get it right. And the ones on the right are the Smokey Mountain Christmas Tree soaps I made last week. Those smell soo good! Like a piney forest. I am sure I will love the mountains of E. Tennessee..they're like the mountains here, except with a lot more trees

I decided to make some Smokey Mountain Xmas Tree soap with a bit of olive leaf powder and a little rhassoul clay.