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Hmm, instead of tea, maybe ginger juice might work ?

Best questions are ones that you answer yourself: http://suite101.com/article/photo-toxic ... ils-a69964 A great article about phototoxicity in essential oils.

Thanks, that's useful info. If you say it shouldn't be used in alkaline environement, I understand ROE doesn't avoid DOS in soap, just keeps your oils fresh. Which of course will delay DOS.

I'm not sure what you mean here ... If you're adding the ROE to oils and soap with those oils and soap heats up, we're going to find us in the same predicament. Do you happen to know what temperatures are those which are dangerous to ROE?

Hmm, I haven't heard of lavender or other EOs causing DOS either. On the other hand, certain EOs (lavender and others) are known to oxidize with time, so I guess it does make some sense. That being said, I wouldn't bet all my money on lavender causing DOS yet. It could be that something...

The curing issue lies in the scent. I remember that somebody was complaining from headaches from curing more batches of heavily scented soap in the same room.

For hot process, you don't need to highly heat the oils before, just the soap as it is cooking. Or you can do cold process and "rebatch" for the transparent part of the recipe. Also, if certain oils may be heat sensitive and don't like heating, soap is certainly more stable and isn't upset if...

It's relatively normal, happened often to me. Lye sometimes does have impurities. Yes, your batch will be ok, what I do sometimes when lye has impurities is slightly lower the superfat, by 1-2%.

What do you mean that the soap is melting ? Personally, I have noticed sweating, but no other side - effect. Just let them sweat and use them when I'm ready to use them.

First time I hear about this. Apparently, it's lemon flavored butter. (Cowmilk) butter isn't great to use of soap, because it stinks.

Yup, that's what I was saying.

When working with herbs, I infuse them in the main oil that I use for soaping. Which is calculated in the lye calculator as such.

Problem is that lye can burn your skin, and the same happens when adding too much lye for soap making. If you have used high purity lye and unless I am reading your recipe wrong, there is a good chance your soap is lye heavy and unsafe for use. Even if you're using lower purity or older lye...

Hasn't happened to me, but I always bring soap to trace before whipping. Also, I've heard people getting grainy butters and maybe this is what happened. And I am not sure grains would show up before the soap cools down.

Olive, but I don't think it matters. Yes, something like this. Fill a jar with mints and cover them with oil.

Here, we always use an excess oil (also called NaOH discount) of 5-7%. For your 2 recipes, we would use maybe 190-191 grams of NaOH instead of 198.5 - 198.8. Be careful about these things: 1. Check that your soap slurry is thick enough and mixed well and that it does not separate (like having...

The link you posted doesn't obviously hit me as a bar soap - and I read the description carefully. Might be a cream soap, for all I can tell. If you're after shaving soap, it helps putting that in the title of your topic. That being said, I'm wondering myself if adding KOH changes the texture...

My mint-lye infusion resulted in a minty soap. Haven't noticed any bad smell, but I didn't put my nose inside the container.

For your first zappy soap, if you say the solution looked clear, means the soap was damaged by some other mistake, it's not the lye's fault. Second (actually, third, if I'm reading your correctly) is a bit more tricky. Probably the stuff dissolved while it was hot, but as it cooled down, part...

Like I said above, only a part of the oil reacts with the lye, not all of it.