Here are some of mine

[marghewitt]

Absolutely gorgeous! The hanger swirl is amazing and my favorite as well. I have never wanted to try that technique till now. How do you like that scent?

 

[melstan775]

Wow you really have been busy. You have nice stuff there. Which is your favorite?

 

[hlee]

You have lucky friends!

 

[Timber]

Absolutely gorgeous! The hanger swirl is amazing and my favorite as well. I have never wanted to try that technique till now. How do you like that scent?

The Kentish Rain smells delightful. I really like it, although if I breathe too much of it, it makes me sneeze. I must have a slight allergy to one of the ingredients. I intend to use it again though, it smells too good not to. Brambleberry's FO description invokes images of rain, ocean and greenery...hence my color scheme.

Thanks for the compliments everyone, it's great encouragement to keep going. I have had a few failures too, of course: for example a goat milk/vanilla/honey batch that turned into a soft separated weeping mess, got rebatched twice and is still not hard 7 weeks later. I think that one is getting chalked up to the cost of education.

 

[Timber]

Gorgeous soaps! I've never worked with tallow before, I might have to give it a go

I think tallow is brilliant stuff, but sadly not very easy or cheap. I paid $25 for 10 lbs of fatty scraps at the butcher, which then took over a day to render down to about 3 lbs of tallow and drove my family out of the house in the process . But it does make a beautiful hard soap bar.

 

[Badger]

Wow Timber! Those are beautiful, and you have some very lucky friends. I hope I can make things half that nice in six months time!

 

[marghewitt]

I think tallow is brilliant stuff, but sadly not very easy or cheap. I paid $25 for 10 lbs of fatty scraps at the butcher, which then took over a day to render down to about 3 lbs of tallow and drove my family out of the house in the process . But it does make a beautiful hard soap bar.

Wow where do you buy your scraps from? I go into the local grocery store butcher and tell them that I would like to buy the fat they cut off of their meat. I tell them I want to make soap with it and they usually just give it to me. I sometimes get charged .10 cents a pound but never more than that. I also make sure to give the butcher a bar or two ;-) I love old fashioned tallow soap and still make it for two of my Aunts regularly.

It does smell a bit when you render it. You could always cook it in a pot of water outside on an open fire!

 

[Timber]

Wow where do you buy your scraps from? I go into the local grocery store butcher and tell them that I would like to buy the fat they cut off of their meat. I tell them I want to make soap with it and they usually just give it to me. I sometimes get charged .10 cents a pound but never more than that. I also make sure to give the butcher a bar or two ;-) I love old fashioned tallow soap and still make it for two of my Aunts regularly.

It does smell a bit when you render it. You could always cook it in a pot of water outside on an open fire!

I tried numerous butchers and grocery stores and only one was even willing to sell it, much less give it away, and they want $2.50/lb.

 

[Rhon]

Hi, just a suggestion for procuring tallow. I was going to render my own also and could actually get the fat scraps for about ten cents a pound. Then I found COLUMBUSFOODS.COM. They are an oil supply place for almost anything "oil". They have a "soaper's choice" page and there it lists tallow for 86 cents/pound. I can't render it myself for that if my time is worth anything. I purchased some coconut oil at a bulk foods store that came from this company and am quite pleased with it. I'll probably order all my oils from there unless someone can give me a reason for not doing so.

 

[Relle]

I tried numerous butchers and grocery stores and only one was even willing to sell it, much less give it away, and they want $2.50/lb.

We use to have a butcher shop and the reason its not given away is because its picked up by the bone -ies - they take the fat and bone away and you get paid a small amount for it. You pay top dollar for the meat which of course includes the fat, bone etc and at least you get something back to counteract the cost.

 

[Shannon_m]

I'll probably order all my oils from there unless someone can give me a reason for not doing so.

That's who I just ordered all my oils from... well not the olive oil, it's cheaper to buy that from Costco (which I live right next to)... the relative cost is almost the same (about a dollar less for 7 lbs) but since I won't have to ship it and the gas cost to drive there and back is minimal I can't see ordering it online.

 

[Timber]

Here is what I did this past weekend Same recipe for both with equal parts coconut, lard and pomace olive, 6% castor oil and 1% sodium lactate.

The bars on the left are scented with Bramble Berry "Baby Powder" FO. The colors are M&P dyes I got at the hobby store on a whim. It was weird because the blue completely vanished for the first two days and then returned, presumably as the pH dropped I guess? This batch went in the freezer, no gel.

The other batch has french green clay with activated charcoal and a couple pinches of Mt. St. Helens volcanic ash for good measure, and geranium and lavender essential oils. CPOP on this one.

Both batches were layered pours with attempted hanger swirls.

 

[Badger]

Oh, the one with the activated charcoal is gorgeous! I like that you added some volcanic ash to it as well for a personal touch The swirls on the Baby Powder are nice as well, but they didn't catch my eye like the charcoal does.

 

[melstan775]

I think they both look beautiful. Where on earth did you find volcanic ash? Did you climb up to Mt. St. Helens and get it? ;-)

 

[Timber]

I think they both look beautiful. Where on earth did you find volcanic ash? Did you climb up to Mt. St. Helens and get it? ;-)

haha, not quite. I still have a jar of the stuff that my dad saved for me from the 1980 eruption. They were in the ash fall zone.

 

[melstan775]

haha, not quite. I still have a jar of the stuff that my dad saved for me from the 1980 eruption. They were in the ash fall zone.

That's both wow and scary, but the ash fall was a few hundred miles around. I was in the ash fall zone too, but I was barely a year old, and in Northern California. My mother told me she was pissed when that happened because they had just bought a new Mustang and had a Ford LTD (my parents could roll, yo), and the ash started falling and they had to wash those new cars so carefully to prevent scratches....

 

[Marilyna]

Timber,

Your soaps are lovely and I think you have quite a knack for coloring and swirling. I wish I had that knack. My colors have not been thrilling me.

 

[SueSoap]

Wow! Lovely-looking soap. You've been busy!

 

[crysvan]

the soaps are so pretty!!

 

[Lion Of Judah]

lovely array of soaps , just so inviting ..... love your use of color. what type of colorants you work with the most?