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You have both coconut oil and palm kernel oil in your recipe. Both of those are cleaning oils which is why your cleaning is so high. You probably meant to use palm oil as opposed to palm kernel oil. Also, I don't know that it will make any difference to add your castor/almond at trace. I...

The escali brand of scales are good and inexpensive. I have this one : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007G ... ss_product It stays awake for long periods, so you have plenty of time to get your oils in and use the tare function.

Fortunately my g/f is a trooper and will try anything. She also knows I'm anal-rententive, and will take the time to understand what I'm doing. We just had one small disagreement with someone she knows who does melt-n-pour soaps and talked about how "bad" lye was. So I had to explain all of...

Ok, sounds reasonable. I'll try adding honey with the oil and see how that works out for me. Here are the pics of this failed batch. It looks like I could rebatch, but I've never done that before. The top/sides are fine. The bottom is burnt though. I had the soap sitting on a block of...

Thanks for the feedback.! I'll snap some pics of the soap in the mold and after cutting when I get home. So, is it possible to CPOP honey/milk soap? Do I have to do CP? So, the honey isn't oil soluble part makes good sense. I'm not expecting better integration/dissolving/etc. by adding...

If the soap looks good after cutting and passes the zap test is it reasonable to use it? I wouldn't give this soap out to anyone. I plan to make a fresh batch tonight with these changes. Does this sound reasonable : - I won't preheat the oven. - Mix honey with oils (Any scientific...

Ok, so tried to improve on a previous recipe, and it appears as though it separated a bit. I have about a good teaspoon of oil that came out of the soap and is sitting on the lip of the mold. Aside from that soap looks good, & smells good, but I haven't cut into it yet. The soap turned...

I was reading about babassu. I'd like to try it, but I'm new to soaping, so I'll keep it simple for now. I figure I'll learn quicker with fewer variables :o Thanks for the tip on % of co/pk. I'll be mixing up another batch of soap tomorrow :)

Given that palm kernel flakes is generally much cheaper than coconut oil, why use coconut oil at all (aside from the sustainability issues regarding palm products). I really curious as to what difference these 2 make in the final cured soap. Is one silkier? bigger bubbles? longer lasting...

If you haven't already, you should run your recipe through a soap calculator. It doesn't appear that any of your oils will contribute any real hardness to the soap. I've had good luck with : http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

I believe Cocoa Butter will give you a more beige/tan colored soap. I used 10% in my last batch. It has a very faint, but pleasant smell.

Ok, so I'm reworking a recipe. I used 25% coconut oil and found it to be too drying. I was planning to cut it down to 20%. I also have some palm kernel flakes and wanted to find out from some of the more experienced soapers what the difference between the 2 is. I've looked at the #'s in...

I hadn't considered having a problem w/clumping. Thanks!

If you use powdered goats milk, can you make your normal lye-water mixture and just add in the goats milk powder at thin trace? *OR* Should you make milk with the goats milk powder/water and from there use it as though it was normal liquid goats milk?

I didn't see mention of this, but if you are doing cpop, be sure to get an oven thermometer so that you can see the real temp. That way you can just open the door when needed to help cool things off. I'm new to cpop. However I've had good results with the following procedure : - Set oven...

In case you haven't already found a soap/lye calculator. I've been using this one : http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

The prices were $13.95 wed night. They were $20 thursday evening.

What can be done to help lift the oil out of the skin? I've found that wearing gloves was my only option (also cuts down on cuts). Without them, I have to scrub my hands like mad and still end up with places where I just have to let the oil/grease wear off over a few days.

I'm not trying to be funny with this suggestion, but buy him a decent set of mechanics gloves. If his gloves are old/dirty, then they are likely saturated in oil/fluids and his hands get filthy just putting the gloves on. I have to toss my gloves every few months and I'm just a shadetree...

Can the poly take the heat? I would wonder of the poly melted and the outer layer of the soap/poly mixed. I wonder what chemicals leeched into your soap... Have you tried scraping all of the soap off part of your mold to see if the poly coating is still intact? Gonna toss this idea out...