What soapy thing have you done today?

[psfred]

You're probably right. I'm enjoying doing whatever I want, finally mostly recovered from that blasted broken ankle. No meetings after work this week, so I can get the yard work done more or less undisturbed.

Have a sampler set on the way from Brambleberry, so will be making more soap too, want to test some scents for shaving soap.

 

[earlene]

Psfred, be careful with the stick blender. Short bursts are better on the motor. They are not made for prolonged use. Many a soaper has had a stick blender motor give out from overheating the motor at the most inopportune time.

 

[Kittish]

I carved soap. And now I have a dilemma, which one to enter for the challenge. :razz:

 

[Soapstars]

I cut my rebatched rose & chamomile soap with curiosity. It was hard enough to cut next morning. Not as disappointed as I expected with the result below but couldn't do any swirls which I need to practice with.

Then I cut my triple coconut soap which was an experiment...it is 100% coconut oil (1000g)with 20% superfat, plus half coconut milk (from iced cubes) to the water allotted to the recipe. Plus a coconut fragrance. The coconut milk has 194g of fat in the 200ml I used. I was wanting to make a really creamy moisturising soap. I could see some oil around the edges of the loaf and it feels quite oily. It cut well and the texture is fine but it looks greasy. I made one like this a couple of weeks ago but with no fragrance and put honey and oatmeal in it too and the oil from that one is nicely re-absorbing now. Hope this will too....anyone have any comments on this soap please? Do you know how much superfat it becomes with the extra 19.4g of fat in the coconut milk please?

Have a good day everyone. 11:06 here in the uk but very early I guess where most of you come from?

Below is my rebatch Rose & Chamomile soap (pink) and the next one is my Triple Coconut experiment soap.

 

[Soapstars]

Just looked at a clever soapers answer (HappyHenrySoap) to my superfatting question a while ago - using his calculation it looks like 22% superfat and people do up to 25% superfat don't they? So why does mine look oily I wonder? I used soapcalc for the correct measurements of lye, liquid and oils. Is this what you would expect?

 

[Debs]

A frustrated start to the day as I infused some nettle powder last night with a view to using it today to make some CP soap. This morning, without thinking, I took out the jars full of newly infused oil and gave it a good shake!! WHAT!! so my planned day of making Ti Tree & Peppermint soap will have to wait to another day until it all settles down again lol!! :???:

 

[earlene]

Soap on a stick. My very first one! Well, I did manage to get 80% of it into the mold and hopefully smooshed together enough to stick to itself okay. The other 20% is just going to have to finish gelling in the cup! 10 grams of oil are missing from that cup as it was the last one & I was barely able to get the 4th one colored (somewhat), so I left this one as is out on the counter to watch. It was a 5 color (meant to be a swirl) batch and the first portion got colored fine, but from there on out it was a major rush to finish just so I could get them into the loaf mold. I hope CPOP helps it soften enough to settle and that I won't end up with humungous air pockets.

I really know better now with this recipe (which I love) than to use a [40% Lye Concentration]. When I made it with high and low water, I did not run into these issues at all! Well, there was one minor change. I used RBO instead of Soy Oil, because I don't really want to use soy anymore and that little bit was only about 8% of the recipe anyway. But I do know I love this soap when I made it with that little bit of soy, so I am hoping it will be just as satisfying with this change. But I won't be doing it with such a high lye concentration again.

 

[jod58]

I did but didn't seem right but I did it. After I ran it threw the soap cal from brambleberry and lye came out less. Might have messed up with super fat! So can I put in crockpot and just add more oil?

 

[jod58]

Beautiful bubble bars!

 

[Kittish]

I did but didn't seem right but I did it. After I ran it threw the soap cal from brambleberry and lye came out less. Might have messed up with super fat! So can I put in crockpot and just add more oil?

Pretty much, yes. You'll probably want to add the oil in smallish increments, let it go for a bit, then zap test. Repeat until it no longer zaps. I'd keep a close eye on the crockpot, I've noticed that in mine even on the low setting it's hot enough to scorch soap if I leave it very long. The warm setting seems to work pretty well, though.

 

[earlene]

So, getting the soap hot in the oven and pressing down on it to try to remove any unseen air bubbles did not seem to eliminate all of them, but it worked better than I could possibly have hoped! The big ugly craters of air bubbles that I saw from the sides when I first unmolded don't carry through to the inside of the soap! If it wasn't for the fact that I may still use this for my challenge entry this month, I would post pictures.

Unmolded; cut; sit out to air flow for a couple of days; still too soon for carving.

Next up: masterbatch my 50% NaOH solution. I used up the last of my masterbatched lye with yesterday's soap. I had just the right amount with less than 5 grams excess, which I simply poured down the drain so I could clean the container and let it dry overnight in preparation for making more.

 

[jewels621]

I finished my challenge soap this morning. I finally had a chance to soap yesterday after a too-long hiatus (for me anyway). Sometimes you just need to scratch that itch to make soap! I also made more laundry soap, stain sticks, and my first ever shampoo bar. The "work" soaps are done.....now I can play again.

 

[Sonya-m]

Today I started to think about making soap again - it's been a while!!

 

[psfred]

Made a 12 bar mold yesterday for testing fragrances, 3/4" by 2" by 3" bars. Will post a pic sometime, want to make my first batch of CP lard soap tonight to test my "masculine scents" sampler from Brambleberry.

I'll post my impressions of the FOs in the fragrance review section soon. Mostly I'm not, impressed that is. Half of them are variations on Axe body spray, which I find revolting. Some of the rest are quite nice though, I just hope the reek from the ones I dislike morphs during soaping into something better.

 

[DeeAnna]

I took a big leap today and purchased a 35 pound container of high oleic sunflower and a 50 lb cube of lard from Soapers Choice. Yes, it will take me some time to use this up, but I suspect it will go faster than I think. You know how some things in life creep up on you, and suddenly one day you realize how much things have changed? That realization hit me this weekend as I made a 10 kg (22 lb) master batch of fats with the plan to use all of it in soap this week. And I also realized I'm been routinely storing 25 lb or more of lard and tallow in my pantry refrigerator and4 to 6 of the Soapers Choice 7 pound containers of HO sunflower, avocado, and other oils on my pantry shelves ... so what's a little more? Surely DH won't notice as 50 lb of lard fills the fridge shelves and nestles next to his beer. (Not!) And, gee, I can save a little money too if I buy in bulk. Right? At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Oh, and I also ordered a 7 lb bottle of neem to try.

 

[SunRiseArts]

I made my Halloween soap today! :headbanging: Had LOTS of mishaps, so I can't wait to cut it.

 

[SunRiseArts]

DeAnna I never used neem, please let me know what you think about it!

 

[penelopejane]

I have made two successful and one pretty successful (it was the swirls that didn't work not the soap) soaps in a row with my new molds. Feeling happy!
The one today was complex and took an hour and a half and I am hoping it looks great. Fingers crossed.

 

[biarine]

DeAnna I never used neem, please let me know what you think about it!

I used neem before for my shampoo and after 3 months starting to get brown spot and 6 months later it's turn brown. Maybe the neem I use isn't good quality.

 

[lauratryingsoap]

I made soap in a square ice cream container...all my other mixing bowls seemed to disappear into thin air. The strangest thing happened. It didn't trace! And I know for sure that I had everything right. It was the trusty 30% coconut 30% palm 30% olive and 10% castor. Absolutely strange. I made a batch in the same container previously and that one with 30min SB it got to thin trace. So I just poured it. That one has been a month now and it is extremely soft! It almost seems like it hasn't even saponified (not cured but not saponified). Absolutely crazy. I'm thinking it HAS to be the square mixing bowl. Anyone else exprienced this?