Recent content by carebear

Have any of you made bar soap (NaOH) using glycerin to dissolve the lye? I do it for liquid soap but got to thinking...

Sounds like you became sensitized to one of the ingredients. Unfortunately, a single patch test won't tell you if that's going to happen. Was the fragrance oil skin safe for a leave-on product?

Ooooh if I'd known it was already Christmas here I'd have thought twice LOL. I barely made it through Halloween!

It's been eons since I stormed or snuck off (depending on your perspective LOL) and ended up taking quite a hiatus from soapmaking and candles (tho I stayed on forums for a bit). Anyway I've been messing around with the glycerin LS method and found a bunch of info here and thought I'd say...

Ancient thread, but regardless - I've been using an immersion blender for soapmaking for almost 20 years. This is not a new method - though her proportions might be different, the concepts are far from new.

frosting is a white haze on the top and sides. i've never ever had flaking.

typically in the US - flammable is used for something that catches fire easily and inflammable for the opposite. but technically both mean something that catches fire easily - go figure. but enough with the back and forth. it's about communicating, here, not about who is right and in case...

if you'd saved the other part I'd say you can cook it all together and either consider it HP or then mix it into another batch. without that zappy part I'd say you can consider the stuff you have as mostly oils - BUT then how would you know how much lye to use in your soap? sadly I cannot...

You missed a big part of it. Not just lather. Curing also increases mildness and as well hardness/lastingness.

you need to first understand the meaning and definition of "organic" before making decisions about what you can or cannot use or do. else you are putting the cart before the horse.

well, now - I've never heard that most people use 8%. learn something new every day, I do.

overheating - yes. plus it may be that your SB is indeed acting up. If it's an Oster brand, just throw it away - I hate that brand. But actually any brand can lose a seal somewhere and start adding bubbles to your soap.

until you factor in the cost of the gas/electricity, the clean up water/materials, and your own time - of course. I've discovered cost is way more complex than I first thought.

make sure you have it absolutely and completely melted. and keep in mind that kokum can go grainy - just like other butters. if you haven't had a problem in the past with the recipe & beeswax it could be that the increased temp required for the candelilla causes graininess in the kokum.

take the units out of the equation - so to speak. that's about 4.5%