Recent content by dimitris

So I have done 2 things to make these crusties disappear. First of all, I set the crock pot to Low. Otherwise, if set to high, the soap on the sides of the crock pots solidifies and we get these crusties. I also used a towel between the bowl and cover, to make sure that water doesn't escape too...

Thanks for the help! It is soap crusties. I searched around the forum and found out that I should have set my crock pot to LOW and also used a towel to insulate it better and stop water from evaporating! Nonetheless, I am in love with my crock pot!

I recently bought a small crock pot and tried Kaleb's Honey and Oat Castile recipe. This is the result: What are these spots? I have never come across them in CP soaps! At some point, when I opened the lid to mix the batter, I noticed that the sides of the crock pot had some white hard...

Skatergirl, your lather looks excellent. The trick is to get lather that doesn't fade away after a few minutes and provides adequate protection, lubrication, glide and moisture. Your soap seems to have done the trick! Well done.

The top swirl was an accident, albeit a nice one. The batter reached thick trace quicker than I expected so I used a skewer to swirl the top. I was planning a more defined swirl by the way. There is little reaction between the coffee and the lye. The colour remains, the only downside is the...

I also use Evernote and find it indispensable, not only for soaping. I use the desktop version, the clipper and also the mobile apps, which allows me to carry my recipes and notes with me at all times. A nifty feature is the new check lists which is handy for shopping and to do items.

Well the ingredients are: Vegetable fats and oils, hydrogenated vegetable fats, butter flavouring, vitamin A&D, B-caroten (colourant). This is most probably palm oil, something like 99%. I am thinking of using this for a laundry soap, but I have no idea how to calculate it's SAP value. Could I...

I recently came across a recipe that involves vegetable shortening, or in other words Crisco in the US. I hope that's right. I live in Greece and we have a similar product which is made of vegetable fats but also includes "butter flavouring". Is it possible to use it, or will the soap have a...

Yes, you can buy stearin (stearic acid) in most places you find soapmaking supplies.

16 for stearic is way too low. You basically need to add stearic acid to increase the lather stability and thickness. In my experience, stearic needs to be at least 55 to work.

I soaped yesterday at emulsion. I used a SB and the batter barely thickened, but made sure it had mixed well. The soap gelled 7 hours after molding and has a bad case of soda ash but other than that, it looks fine.

As far as I understand, the chemical reaction starts as soon as you pour your lye into your oils. I know what Juiceman wrote before, but he hasn't written why this is correct.

Lets get back to the topic of discussion. I still haven't read a conclusive answer to illustrate why trace is a critical element of saponification, rather than a simple indication that it has started. If the batter is mixed well enough and has surely reached emulsion, is trace necessary?

Thanks for all the answers, point taken about emulsion and trace. Juiceman, I was under the impression that trace is a result of the saponification process which is going to happen anyway. As far as emulsion and a very good mix of lye/oils has been reached, isn't emulsion enough from your...

I have a few questions about trace. I know that answers for these are probably scattered around the forum, but I can't reach a solid conclusion so here goes. 1) To slow down trace, use full water. This seems to help slow down things for advanced techniques (swirling etc). Is this right? 2) I...