Recent content by LyeSoap

I tried bring a batch of cp to trace with a spoon. It took forever and I regretted every minute of it. The next batch I used a stick blender and will never ever use a spoon again. Unless the world loses all sources of electric power and people need my soap.

Why wouldn't you want your soap to gel? I thought you wanted it to gel so all the lye was used in saponification. If you aren't gelling do you have to let it cure longer? Where you someone read more about gelling? Thanks in advance.

Phone some chemical suppliers. Sometimes they sell hobby amounts through hobby stores or other small companies. Unless you want some in bulk then I'm sure they would sell it to you.

Freezing in Edmonton right now. I hope to move to BC as soon as possible. Vancouver is an amazing city, was there over the summer and fell in love with the pace of things there.

Just an update on this method: I used it and it appears that my soap is no longer caustic. The distilled water / alcohol combo yielded a clear solution on both my first and second batch. I'm going to take this as a sign of it's neutrality. Not too sure why the phenolphthaline will turn...

Thanks again for your help Lovehound. The book recommends phenolphthalein, but once its gone I'm going to stick with test strips.

So I ordered 1L of phenolphthaline 1% solution to test the pH level of my soap. I'm not really sure how to use it. I took a small shaving of my batch, put it in a bowl and applied a few drops of the solution to the soap. As far as I could see the liquid didn't turn pink, I even used a q-tip...

So do you just use beer in place of water and leave everything else the same?

I really want to make a beer and pine tar soap; however, the legend of their pungent smell holds me back.

Im new to the whole soap making thing as well, but I use pyrex measures from wal-mart to do everything with. I bought a huge pyrex bowl, but my measuring cups are sufficient for my 1lb batches. The molds I use now are the silicon bread molds with some towels wrapped around them. Everything...

Thanks for the info Paul you made my day. I will be making soap again this weekend, and my last batch is nearly hard as a rock and ready for use!

I can't seem to find palm oil anywhere in town and the recipes I have in my book call for it. Do I have to use palm oil or can I get by with something else? Same question for palm kernel oil. Thanks in advance for any advice! :P

Good luck with your next batch. I will be trying to add scent to my second batch this coming weekend.

whoa! thats a hell of a first batch. One day I will be a master level soap maker like yourself.

Haha you guessed it! 1L milk carton. My only regret is that I didn't put any scent in it. I should have used something other then nothing. Right now I am thinking something with tea tree or peppermint. Maybe both, don't know how it would turn out though. Thanks for the kind words :P