Did you know lye is *kinda* burn-y on the skin???

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PuddinAndPeanuts

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Mental note- when stick blending a 1/4 pound batch in a tiny bowl you have to hold by the rim- WEAR GLOVES. I am such an idiot...

Been concentrating mostly on body butter and bath bombs- things where clean hands are a must, but gloves are optional. It's been ages since I made soap. Lesson learned.
 
When I set out everything to start making a batch of soap, I lay my gloves over the top of the lye bottles so that I will not forget to put them on before opening those bottles. Works for me.
 
OUCH! But, yeah, why were you making such a small amount? Why not make a decent sized batch?


I'm making test batches of shaving soap- I only want one change per batch, and I know I've got at least one or two tweaks before I get to even a possibility of a final recipe. Don't want to waste materials.
 
I use a mini whisk for really small batches.
Think boy scout starting a fire. I get the handle of the mini lined up between my hands and use a rubbing motion to spin that little sucker. It develops enough shear to get batter to trace with minimal splatter.

I fried my big SB doing a high water and lye Olive oil recipe and learned this trick on the fly.
Saved the batch and added one more soaping lesson to the arsenal.


I'm making test batches of shaving soap- I only want one change per batch, and I know I've got at least one or two tweaks before I get to even a possibility of a final recipe. Don't want to waste materials.
 
I'm making test batches of shaving soap- I only want one change per batch, and I know I've got at least one or two tweaks before I get to even a possibility of a final recipe. Don't want to waste materials.

I understand not wanting to waste resources but if you're gonna take risks, making no lower than a 1/2 lb batch or 300g is safer. Better to be safe than sorry. And don't stickblend a smaller batch than a lb unless you have it in a narrower container. The more area you have, the more of a splatter risk you have.
 
I use a mini whisk for really small batches.
Think boy scout starting a fire. I get the handle of the mini lined up between my hands and use a rubbing motion to spin that little sucker. It develops enough shear to get batter to trace with minimal splatter.

I fried my big SB doing a high water and lye Olive oil recipe and learned this trick on the fly.
Saved the batch and added one more soaping lesson to the arsenal.

My hand mixer has mini whisk attachments. I would be guilty of using that for ultra-small batches.
 
I use my mini Badger paint mixer for my mini batches, but in a pinch I sometimes do the same with a mini-whisk as what Steve does with his.

Arimara makes a good point about not going too small with mini-batches. The smaller the batch, the greater the chance that even the tiniest discrepancy in the lye weight will throw things off by exponential leaps and bounds. The smallest batches I make are 8oz/227g (and only with my .01g scale).


IrishLass :)
 
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