What soapy thing have you done today?

Took my shaving soap out of the molds today. Stuck it in the fridge for a few hours to firm it up enough to come out mostly intact, now it goes to the curing rack for a couple of weeks. And I'll have shaving soap for MONTHS.

Stearic acid 50%
Coconut oil 40%
Shea butter 10%

Added 15% PPO glycerin, and held out half the shea until after the cook. Most of the people who want my shaving soap are female, so I'm hoping the bar format will be easier to use.

Last night I put my soap paste in water to play with dilution rates. I think I used too much water, it seems very runny this morning. The boys will still use it in their bathroom, so I made a note for the next dilution "attempt". I packaged almost 100 bars of soap. Packaged 4 orders for the mail today, and 8 deliveries to do over the weekend. Sorted through the fragrances I pulled out the other night to put together my plan for March soaps. I'll be doing a few very small batches this time around to use up some FO's, which will leave my big molds open for my regular stock items. Double checked my "supplies needed" list and put together my WSP order. I will have to order NaOH this weekend as well as I am down to 3 containers. I did not get my masterbatching done, so I am going to try to do that tonight, but I have to clean the stove burners first because the hubs spilled sugar all over the stove so all of the burners are now flame throwers. (The kids thought it was cool, but I was not amused when making dinner last night, so I finally gave up on the stove and threw everything in the instant pot.) Hopefully if the weekend goes ok, I will get quite a bit of the March list done, lip balm, a batch of soap cupcakes, and tinkering with my idea for the February soap challenge. I have to make some soap dough, I think. Not sure I have enough of the colors I want to use.

amd said:

Last night I put my soap paste in water to play with dilution rates. I think I used too much water, it seems very runny this morning. The boys will still use it in their bathroom, so I made a note for the next dilution "attempt". I packaged almost 100 bars of soap. Packaged 4 orders for the mail today, and 8 deliveries to do over the weekend. Sorted through the fragrances I pulled out the other night to put together my plan for March soaps. I'll be doing a few very small batches this time around to use up some FO's, which will leave my big molds open for my regular stock items. Double checked my "supplies needed" list and put together my WSP order. I will have to order NaOH this weekend as well as I am down to 3 containers. I did not get my masterbatching done, so I am going to try to do that tonight, but I have to clean the stove burners first because the hubs spilled sugar all over the stove so all of the burners are now flame throwers. (The kids thought it was cool, but I was not amused when making dinner last night, so I finally gave up on the stove and threw everything in the instant pot.) Hopefully if the weekend goes ok, I will get quite a bit of the March list done, lip balm, a batch of soap cupcakes, and tinkering with my idea for the February soap challenge. I have to make some soap dough, I think. Not sure I have enough of the colors I want to use.

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And you said you were in a slump. Silly girl!

I bottled up a half-gallon of my Hog Wash (lard/PKO) Hair & Body Shampoo (Peppermint EO fragrance) that I made last August. I have another half gallon that I'm going to scent with small amounts of left over EO blends to see how they do in LS. We were out, so it's about time! LOL Planned on labeling today, but it's so nice out, I think I'll run away for a bit, and save the labeling for the weekend... we have another snow coming in.

These aren't my best effort, but I was playing with my new milk frother last night to see how it mixed colorants. Answer: very well, but I have to mix longer. These are colored with ultramarine blue (which spotted up a bit) and Nurture Soap's Green Vibrance mica, which performed perfectly. The scent is Essential Depot's Sun and Sand in the balls, which accelerated horribly, plus some pomegranate for a tropical overtone, which performed nicely.

That base bar is significantly whitened with a lot of titanium dioxide, but 3% oatmeal does tend to discolor things a bit!

Very pretty, Morpheous.

Zany, so nice to run away and enjoy the non-snow before the snow comes back again.


amd, when you get going, you really Go Girl! That's a lot!

Last night I cleared off some accumulation of soaping stuff from the DR table. So lazy latey! It is not like me to leave piles of stuff on the DR table at all. The plan was to make room for, no not dinner, but shrink wrapping and labeling. So this morning I did label two soaps, but that's as far as I got on that plan. I packaged them up for my husband's co-worker that Hubby said he had suggested try a specific soap I make.

Then I watched more soapmaking videos. Man are there some talented people out there in youtubeland! Some were soap dough videos and they were quite inspiring. Some were rimmed soaps and a variety of swirled soaps. I even watched some unicorn soaps, and I am not a unicorn type of gal by any means, but they were fun and this one was so gorgeous it was worth the watch for sure.

I just finished cleaning up after putting together a soap rim soap, which is now in the oven to gel. I plan to make a small rimmed soap using an empty Tazo Tea box since Hubby hasn't bought any half & half lately. He's so picky about half & half; if he can't find the kind he likes, he simply goes without. Anyway, it'll be a rectangular bar and I think I can get about 4 or 5 bars out of a Tazo Tea Box. I'll do the rest of it in the morning after Hubby goes to work. I just have to keep an eye on the thin slab to make sure it gels. I should probably put a box over the top to insulate it further, as it is totally uncovered due to it being so flat. ETA: Done. I rescued the perfect sized box from recycle, cut off the flaps & inverted it over the thin slab. Guess I'll keep it for this purpose in case I choose to do more rimmed soaps in future.

Ha! I wish I could say I'm over my slump, but those were all soaps I made in November and December. The suggestion made here to try new things, has helped me get some excitement back, but we'll see how it actually goes for making soap this weekend.

earlene, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I've been thinking about rimmed soaps for a while now but haven't gathered up the courage yet. I'd like to do a round one; I have access to some cardboard rolls that would be the perfect size (cores from rolls of blueprint paper).

Nothing
My old cat climbed on my lap and I have been stuck here ALL DAY !
I was suppose to start soaping today and it is already 2:30.
I can't even go get something to eat.
Good thing I have a roll of powdered donuts, a box of Cheerios and a Gatorade :mrgreen:

I made 2 rimmed soaps and started on a third. I almost forgot I was going to save some of the extra soap batter for soap dough and had started putting it into a one pound mold, then remembered. So now I have 3 little baggies of colored soap batter in the fridge. I need to read about soap dough and see if I did that right, and how to proceed.

My back and feet hurt so I needed a break, then I'll come back to the third rimmed soap. It's going to be a bit more intricate in it's design with mosaic type blocks evenly spaced throughout. I have cut them already from the same flat slab I used for the rim.

It's actually kind of fun doing rectangular or square rimmed soap because when cut to size and the edges cut at a 45° angle, a mitred corner is created and it looks so well planned, like good furniture. Anyway, it's working out pretty well, I think.

I did run into one problem, but not with the rim, that went very smoothly. It was the fill batter. I almost forgot the fragrance, and perhaps that would have been best. It caused the batter to thicken much faster than desired and toward the end of the first soap, was almost too thick to finish my design. By the time I was ready to fill the second soap it was too thick for anything but a globular like swirl using two of the colors. More like an ITP swirl, but in the mold. Still, I think they're both going to be fine. It was Plumeria by Rustic Ecsentuals. I haven't used it in CP before, only HP over a year or two ago and had only vaguely remembered to be careful with it. Well next time I want to do anything fancy, it's not going to be the FO of choice.

Lin19687 said:

Nothing
My old cat climbed on my lap and I have been stuck here ALL DAY !
I was suppose to start soaping today and it is already 2:30.
I can't even go get something to eat.
Good thing I have a roll of powdered donuts, a box of Cheerios and a Gatorade :mrgreen:

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Ah, but there's not much that's more comforting than a cat curled up asleep in your lap. Well, until bladder pressure builds, anyway.

Seeing salt bars mentioned in another thread reminded me that I have a small scrap that was the leftover batter after I filled my molds, so I tried it out. Wow! Lathered up straight away, and left my hands feeling nicely soft. That's at less than a week old. And this stuff gets better as it cures? So far the only thing I don't like about it is the strong soap smell, but that's easy enough to fix in the next batch- just add some fragrance.

I had my soap all planned out. I was going to call it Ice Queen. It was supposed to be a pale blue with white swirls, topped with blue dyed sea salt and opal glitter, and scented with lemongrass, lavender, and peppermint. Everything went according to plan except for one thing.

My blue turned pink! I used FD&C blue and it turned pink. I couldn't put blue salt on a pink soap so I switched it out for pink Himalayan salt. Now, I don't know what to call it.

Misschief said:

I had my soap all planned out. I was going to call it Ice Queen. It was supposed to be a pale blue with white swirls, topped with blue dyed sea salt and opal glitter, and scented with lemongrass, lavender, and peppermint. Everything went according to plan except for one thing.

My blue turned pink! I used FD&C blue and it turned pink. I couldn't put blue salt on a pink soap so I switched it out for pink Himalayan salt. Now, I don't know what to call it.

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Spring Queen? That might work even if it morphs on to purple.

Lin19687 said:

Nothing
My old cat climbed on my lap and I have been stuck here ALL DAY !
I was suppose to start soaping today and it is already 2:30.
I can't even go get something to eat.
Good thing I have a roll of powdered donuts, a box of Cheerios and a Gatorade :mrgreen:

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donuts and cheerios sound like food to me! ha ha.

I had a cucumber fragrance that was soon to expire, and made today a 1 pound batch. Very simple, will post pictures when I cut.

Kittish said:

Spring Queen? That might work even if it morphs on to purple.

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If it stays pink, I was leaning towards Rose Quartz. It's almost the same colour (right now) as the chunk of rose quartz on my shelf.

Mischief, is pretty! I would love to see it cut, and it might still change. I have had that happened.

I weighed out my ingredients for a new recipe I want to test. I'll soap at room temp tomorrow. My soap will have lard, 4 butters, colloidal oats, kaolin clay, coconut milk and I'm using tumeric, spirulina & a pink mica for my colors.
I also tried my first handmade syndet bar. A friend bought it locally for me from a flea market she goes to sometimes. I don't think I like it. It's pretty & it smells very nice but it made my hands feel dry & tight as soon as I rinsed it off. I don't think I'll tell her that part, she seemed so excited when she gave it to me.

Finally got said Cat off lap .

I got to try Salt bar CP, Wow it took a while to start to trace and I only wanted a light trace because I was afraid of it setting up too fast.
80% CO, 20% lard, 20% SF, this is just for me as a starter back to soaping.
added cooled down Lye, warmer oils.

Put in warm oven and it took almost 4 hours to harden enough to cut.
I should have cut earlier but was watching a movie and waited for commercial
:headbanging:

Crumbly but that is ok.... now the wait lol

Lin19687 said:

I should have cut earlier but was watching a movie and waited for commercial
:headbanging:

Crumbly but that is ok.... now the wait lol

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That's why I always make mine in individual molds. So much easier and no cutting involved.

I'll be making soap salt today. Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday and I promised her a batch of salt soap. The batch I made at the end of November is (technically) ready to use now and I'll be giving her all but one bar. I'm almost out of my last bar and November's batch was double what I usually make.

I removed 3 of the 4 soaps I made from the oven & their molds this morning. I am very pleased with how the rimmed soaps look so far (uncut.) They are sitting out to get some air on a rack and plastic mesh to facilitate air flow to dry out some more.

The Tazo Tea Box soap had some leakage around the outside of the rim because I began at emulsion to color the soap and the base color was quite liquid as I began. Also that was the first rimmed soap, so I had not yet perfected a tightly fitting mitred corner like I did in the third soap. In fact, as I progressed from the first to the second to the third, the tightly joined mitred corners improved progressively. For one thing, I wasn't sure about how much pressure I could put on the rim soap at first to force a tight joint, but obviously that takes practice.

Having done the mitred corners, I am of the belief that even a round soap would benefit from that same type of slant joint rather than a straight cut joint. What I mean is by doing a 45° or even a 90°angle cut at each jointing edge and overlapping the slant cut, it would be a smoother edge with less a less noticeable seam. I believe it's called a 'scarf joint' in woodworking terms. This is what I am talking about for a scarf joint: