Recent content by TomS

Uncooked white rice does a good job cleaning out your spice grinder. Put a spoonful or two of rice in the grinder and shake while grinding. Repeat with fresh rice until the ground rice is still white.

I bought one of these racks at Sam’s for $30. I cut a piece of shelf liner for each drawer to keep the soap in place. It can easily hold 250 bars. You can squeeze in more, but the drawers may start to sag. It is a good, inexpensive solution that takes up very little space. Uploaded...

Check out this site, it will give you a good start. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soapmakingoils/tp/qualitiesofsoapmakingoils.htm

For the briefcase mailers you can try uline.com or cheepcheepboxes.com.

I like these briefcase mailer boxes. They fit my soap perfectly, hold over 50 bars each, are strong enough to stack, and have a handle so they can be carried around like a briefcase. Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I'm very curious how the mega cutter worked out. Please give us an update. Thanks.

I would really like to understand more about pH levels in CP soap generally, and in goat’s milk (gm) soap in particular. I have read that the pH of the average person’s skin is 5.5, and most fall in the range of 5.2 – 6.2. The pH of a typical CP soap is in the 9.5 – 10.5 range. The pH of gm...

I’m not sure how it will work either. I am sure that you have to love anything that looks that cool and is made with that much stainless steel!! Pretty awesome.

I like the outdoor, woodsy scents like cedar, pine, and juniper. I also like orange, peppermint, eucalyptus, and vanilla.

I started out using roughly equal amounts of coconut, olive, and palm (with a little castor). Over time I made some test bars using 75 to 100 percent coconut oil. I wasn’t really planning on using these bars but when I did I thought they were great. I find myself paying less attention to the...

I think the answer to the discrepancy in the calculations is that SoapCalc uses more accurate SAP numbers in their calculations compared to the figures that are displayed to the user on the screen. If you run SoapCalc for 1 lb. of a 100% coconut oil soap with 0% superfat, the resulting lye...

I use plastic covered cardboard also but then I tape some freezer paper over that. I make sure the freezer paper is long enough to fold at the bottom so that part of it extends to the bottom of the mold, sealing the bottom. You can do the same thing on the sides for a little extra insurance. I...

I live in Texas and my palm oil stays in a viscous state throughout the (long) summer months. We have multiple climate zones in our house and my oils are in a room that we keep at about 78-80F. What could be happening is that the stearic acid in the palm oil is settling to the bottom. You...

I have to admit that I’m obsessing just a bit (yet again) about the little things. Soap making does that to me sometimes. Bukawww, thank you for the information you have shared – it has given me the push I needed to go ahead and order the cutter. I don’t make that much soap, but I like to...

I also use the WSP green silicone molds. I use 28 oz. of oil per batch and most often a 33% lye solution. My loafs usually weigh 38 - 41 ounces right out of the mold. I would estimate a 15 -18% evaporation rate. The loafs are not quite 8” long, they are short of this by about 1 – 2/16” of an...