Your first soap

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I just unearthed a bar from what I think was my first batch. It was a recipe given to me by a friend/mentor that had steric acid in it and a water discount. I'm sure you can imagine...newbie with a stick blender in a soap pot with quickly tracing batter. But it was soap and I was totally mesmerized by it all. I can't discern any fragrance from this 2.5 year old bar, and there are a couple of DOS on it. But I will keep it. It didn't occur to me at the time to put a bar aside or take a picture of the batch. What a journey that little soap represents to me.
 
I thought I posted already but I can't find it. After a recommendation for handmade soap from our pediatrician for my youngest son's eczema & months of research, my first soap was a hand milled soap (because I was afraid of lye) using Ivory soap, lavender EO & crushed lavender buds. It was a lumpy, speckled, scratchy mess. When I finally got up the nerve to try soaping with lye (after several more months of research), I experimented with using a little grated non-toxic crayon for color. The soap smelled like crayons & I was afraid to let my son use it. Finally, I came across this forum, learned about soapcalc & a lot of other good stuff​, created a bastille recipe, made it in a blender (because the "crayon" soap took over an hour to trace stirring by hand & I hadn't learned about stick blenders yet) and BOOM! I had my first successful soap and I was hooked on soap making! It's hard to believe that was over 5 years ago. Over the years, that basic recipe 8% castor, 22% coconut, 60% olive and 10% palm, helped my son, me, my dad & several neighbors ease the itchiness of eczema (NOT a medical claim).
 
...so all of my first soaps were rebatched with alcohol, some transparent, some opaque. What can I say? I didn’t know transparents were one of the trickiest soaps to make. Who knew?! Those were the best soaps I ever made.
Ran across a couple of pics today. Here we go:
Pink & Blue.jpg
These were made for a lady who wanted pink & blue soap in her bathroom
Black Transprnt.jpg
I used the juice from frozen blueberries to create a black soap... that looked like root beer when the light shined through it.
Rose Soap.JPEG
Cabrini Rose transparent made for my Mom with water from the Mother Cabrini Shrine located in the foothills between Denver and Evergreen CO
 
Last edited by a moderator:
IMG_1396.JPG Hello all! My first soap was this month.
I usually order from my source from Etsy, and will continue to do so because she is so amazing, but I wanted to create something because she inspired me.
It's the standard 30/30/20 bar I think is how it is represented?
I am new here so not sure :)
Since then I have made more- just to share with friends and family. Will include a picture!
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1398.JPG
    IMG_1398.JPG
    1.6 MB · Views: 6
I discovered handmade soap when a friend brought me some as a gift after the birth of my daughter (circa 2007). I got into essential oils and finding better skin care in 2012-ish, and stumbled across numerous soap making recipes on Pinterest. I found a particularly well written "how to" blog post and read about lye... and then carried on purchasing soap from other people, including a friend of mine in Canada who had started making soap (although she just sent me some when she had too much on hand, she doesn't sell).

I couldn't shake the idea of making my own, and my friend, Courtney, encouraged me to read as much as possible. In (September? maybe) 2013 I bought a can of lye and procrastinated for months, clear into 2014. That blog post had really scared me. In February/March 2014 I made my first soap, 30% OO, 30% CO, 20% lard, 15% shea butter, and 5% castor oil, in a milkway mold! I still have one bar from that batch, under Courtney's advice to keep it for aging. In April 2014 Courtney came for a visit and we made soap together which was helpful to explain the process/terminology that I was still a touch confused on. I think that was what hooked me, when it finally all started to make sense. I used milkway molds for all of my "learning" batches, so I was making it 1lb at a time about once a month. On a scale that only went to one decimal place.

I spent the next year making plain unscented soaps and just tinkering with the recipe. I launched my business alongside experimenting with color and fragrance (hindsight: I would have waited another year if not two, but color and fragrances are expensive and my "single mom at the time" budget did NOT have room for it unless it could pay for itself.) I look back at those first colored soaps, made in milk cartons... thank goodness I've gotten better (some days)!
 
Yep, that's me and my husband Chris. We got married in July 2017, so still newlyweds. Maybe by year 5 I'll be sick of looking at our wedding pictures - it was just a wonderful day for us! (Morning wedding, brunch reception, and home taking a nap by 3, lol)
 
Gosh, my first soap was back in 2006? Holy Canoli that was 12 years ago!
I have the recipe in my binder, but not in front of me. I do know it was a recipe from Ann Watson. I remember the fragrance though, it was
"Soapy Clean" from Bramble Berry. That is such a nice soapy scent, need to get that again lol

I was so nervous that I made the soap in my kitchen, then put it in the basement in the mold to gel, wrapped up in 50 million towels in a
dark corner, hoping that if it exploded, it would be in a safe space to do that LOLOLOL. I wiped my entire kitchen down with vinegar
afterwards! Too funny.

My 2nd attempt at soapmaking was a red palm soap with rose petals on top. Lets just say that at first it was soooo pretty
with the bright yellow orange soap and those pretty red rose petals on the top. Then took that bad boy into the shower
after 4 weeks, and rose petals in the shower, plus they looked like brown crap pieces on top....so much for that lofty idea
of pretty rose petal tops and lavender buds! Ended up throwing that floral stuff away after while.

These days, I can whip up a batch in our empty rental next door, I don't even have vinegar nearby, and I rarely use towels to insulate
unless I want to gel. I also do not use flowers, lavender buds etc. I know I have pics somewhere on a removable drive. I should dig them
out someday.

Keep in mind, I am a hobbyist, and as of 2 weeks ago when I made 2 batches, I am now up to 167 batches of soap. That is a lot of
soap for a hobbyist LOL. I guess if you divide that by 12 years it's not too obsessive at 13 batches a year.
 
Well my first soap was only 2 weeks ago. Easy soapqueen recipe. Palm, olive, and coconut. I added some lavender eo because I had it. I also added mica but that didn't work. It is curing now. It cracked on top and got a bit of soda ash but seems ok. I purposely tried something really simple. Usually when I try a new hobby I go all in, fail miserably and then get disheartened. I figured I'd do the smart thing this time and start easy.

I'm making my second batch now. Just waiting for the lye water to cool down. Olive, palm, coconut, and a bit of cocoa butter. 5% superfat. Also a soapqueen recipe. They have a "back to basics" set of 4 recipes that seemed a good place to start. I'm going to do basic layers with a cocoa butter cashmere fragrance from bb.
 
Back
Top