Recent content by samj

the recipe I used was 800g olive oil, 400g coconut oil, 200g shea butter, 42g essential lavender oil, 197g lye, and 441g distilled water. The lye calculation and fragrance calculation came from Brambleberry.com. I let the batch sit in the mold for two days thinking that would be enough time; I...

I made a loaf of soap and let it sit for two days. It unmolded from the silicone mold just fine but when I cut it into bars I saw that it had not completely gelled at the top. In fact, the bars seemed to be sweating oil. I left the bars on a drying rack for a few days thinking that would...

OK, I found out what went wrong and I feel really stupid but I am fairly new to this hobby. I have made soap only a couple of times in the past and had never used shea butter. I thought I had bought shea butter but upon closer inspection I found out I had bought shea butter soap base...

I used Make Market essential oil from Michaels. I think I may have put too much in. Based on soapcalc, 43g of fragrance oil was suggested for 1400g of fat. It seemed high to me. Thanks for advice! I just ended up throwing the whole batch out. Next time I'll try to smooth it out.

I was making a soap with olive oil, coconut oil, and shea butter. Everything was going well until I added the fragrance oil near the end of blending. The batter turned into something that looked curdled hollandaise sauce. Did I add it too late? How do I prevent that from happening again?