Recent content by Jamison

Perfect. I was going to be fine with wrapping the side pieces since I didn't see a solution for that. I'm tired of cutting that bottom piece in freezer paper to make it fit. I bought the bottom insert piece because they said I should get it. I have no idea what purposes it serves. I only use...

So you bought strips and glued them together? How's that holding up?

Brambleberry offers silicone liners for their smaller molds, but not for the 36 bar mold. They don't have a recommendation for me of where to go to get one. I've searched a bit and it's not really a solution I can easily come up with. Has anyone done this before? I'd sure like to reduce the...

I add ground oats and cinnamon. Never had an issue with either of those. But I wanted to experiment with some new ones for a slight color change. My recipe is mostly olive oil and that yellowish color isn't appropriate for all scents.

Do herbs have to be added at trace? What happens if it's done earlier? /I searched and read many threads on this

What's the difference with a shampoo bar? Was there peppermint in the shampoo bar? That will accelerate it.

I recall looking for all the sources I could that stated how much EO to use. I averaged them. Lavender and tea tree, huh? That seems like an interesting combo. I thought about mixing it with eucalyptus, but I'm not really a fan of eucalyptus. Reminds me of medicine. Although tea tree...

It's been a while since I wrote my recipe... Is that 2% of the total batch yield or just the veg oil weight? Looks like I'm using around 4% of the oil weight. Around 2.5% of the total batch yield.

I make double-batches and pour into two molds. I pour into the first mold at light trace due to the extra time that's needed to get that all situation before I pour the second mold. Do you see this as a problem since it'll take some time before I can pour? I previously have had issue with...

I've been making soap for a number of years w/ out this issue. The only variable now is the essential oil blend. Before (in this thread) we concluded it was because I was mixing the oils/lye at too high of a temperature. But that turned out to not be the case because it still happened at room...

I tried again at room temperature. It happened again. It was slower to happen, but it happened. :-/

Not usually. I've just done other things while it's cooling. How do you calculate for the ice?

Tea tree.

What about tea tree or peppermint? Sounds like it could be a combo of those particular essential oils and the temperature I'm mixing at. Thanks for the help.

Interesting. It's never caused an issue other than those mentioned times. I'd rather masterbatch the lye. It would save time when making soap (since I wait around for it to cool to 120 now). I looked into changing my method a while back. One method I tried was using the hot lye water to melt...