Recent content by Natalie

Ice box? My mother always called the fridge the ice box. You do mean fridge, right? Or do you have an actual box you store ice in? I store my base wrapped in plastic where ever I have space to store it in. No fridge or freezer for me, when I first started out making m&P I put some in the...

Thanks artisan soaps and kwahlne, stainless steel sounds good. There's no way that will melt. Hmm, I think I even have a stainless steel mixing bowl around here somewhere. Last night I finished up with another plastic measuring cup I had hanging around (I sometimes use it to seperate soap to...

I am going to try this out with some difficult FO's I have, normally I add FO after trace.

When I started soaping I was mixing my lye solution in an old pyrex measuring cup, a big one. After many batches I noticed a crack in the bottom so I threw it out. I think I remember reading here everyone uses plastic, or was that rubber? Rubbermaid pitchers? I went the plastic route...

"You have to use equal parts FO as stabilizer though which can be a decent amount more liquid so make sure you use the stabilizer amount as part of your water. Ask me how I found that out....lol." Ok, I'll ask, what happened? I've used their stablizer several times and didn't deduct any...

That soap is beautiful, Melissa! I wish mine came out like that, or close to it, or even halfway decent. So I made the soap without the coffee, just added the grounds and FO at trace. Ugh, it siezed up, I quickly glopped it into the mold. Then it heated up and cracked slightly down the...

Maybe I'll just use water instead, use the grounds and the hazlenut FO. I'm not in the mood for making a big stink from mixing lye and coffee tonight. When I made beer soap the smell was horrible, I've heard coffee is worse!

Thanks for the fast reply! I was thinking of using Hazlenut Coffee FO..... Now I going backwards, if the lye is going to take away the scent of the coffee water, then what is the point of substituting coffee for water? I've heard of people doing this, but is there a benefit of using coffee?

Say I was to make a CP soap and used (chilled)brewed coffee instead of water, and added coffee grounds at trace. If I added in an FO at trace would the coffee/lye solution and/or coffee grounds kill the FO's scent? Does that make any sense? I've never made a soap with coffee and have been...

Yes, like that Madpiano! Cute, looks like Chocolate Cherries. Soap balls in the traced soap?

I've been using an old large pyrex measuring cup, I got it at a thrift shop so it's old school pyrex. Recently I noticed there's a crack in the bottom, just like a split in the glass, nothing leaks from it. I don't remember the crack being there when I started, so it looks like I'm on the...

I can't really say, but I recently made a beer soap with Michelob Ultra. It's what we drink in the house and I had a bottle that hubby didn't finish and left it out for a weeks to let it become flat. Plus, I stirred it up before using to make sure it was flat. Maybe I stirred some bubbles back...

I've seen bars of hot process soaps with polka dots. Instead of swirls they're decorated with dots. They're really cute. How on earth do you do that? Could it be melt and pour, molded in a long small pipe mold and placed in the mold while pouring the HP? That's the only way I can think of...

I have purchased both palm oil and palm kernal oil from Columbus foods. Yes, the melt and stir palm. First time using it I didn't melt and stir before before putting it in with the rest of my oils, the soap was a mess. 2nd time I soaped with it, I melted and stirred first, soap came out a little...

Thanks everyone for your input! It must be from not stirring the palm, it seems. Tomorrow night I'll be soaping again and will melt and stir it this time. How do you all stir, by hand or a mixer? And yes, I knew there was a difference if I change PKO for the regular palm, and ran it...