Recent content by Rachael

I'm getting frustrated this morning. :) Does anyone have tips and tricks for getting a straight line with a crinkle cutter? I don't play around with my crinkle cutter often but I decided to crinkle cut the sides of my latest batch of soap to add interest. I love the way it looks! BUT no...

I want to make a lemon soap and to my surprise I am not coming up with too much for a 100% straight up lemon EO or FO. Plenty of lemon blends, sure but nothing completely lemon. I found a Meyer Lemon one on Bramble Berry but it gets kind of mediocre reviews. Anyone know of a trusted supplier/a...

Thank you all for the great suggestions! I ended up going with poppy seeds, while not quite what I had in mind I ended up liking the final result. Next time I will keep in mind coffee grounds and cocoa too... now that I think of it I did an oatmeal soap once that may have worked here too...

Hi all, I want to make a layered soap maybe with activated charcoal. I'd like each layer to look a little bit textured and rustic... specks on each layer of soap to give it a little more interest. I am wondering if I can achieve this with a little bit of activated charcoal mixed in at trace (not...

thanks all for your suggestions, for next time I'll have the mini mixer but I am pleased to report that I switched up the pattern a bit and mixed larger layers, that way I could use my immersion blender. I think it might have been OK hand mixing though as it set up very quickly. I will...

Hi all, I made a batch of soap yesterday and I have about 10 oz leftover from trimming it up. It is about probably 30 hours old now and is crumbly and sticky but will stick and hold if I really squish it together. It still is a little crumbly though from drying out a bit. I managed to roll it...

Well I was thinking that might work but there are a couple of other layers that need to go on top and set before I use the color of the small batch again. I think I will have to mix the layers separately in that case, or the rest of the batch might thicken too quick in the container while I...

Hi all, I found a soap design with layering. I am looking forward to testing it out but one of the layers is very small, like 1 ounce of batter. I only have a large stick blender so that's not going to work. I'm wondering if anyone has had luck hand mixing a small layer like this with a spoon in...

Man, I'm disappointed! Last night I made a batch of pure white unscented soap to use as soap curls. It turned out great and I had carefully placed intricate soap curls in my mold after curling them all up on a pencil. I was then creating a second batch of soap to fill in around the curls to...

Hello all. I'd be willing to bet this question has been asked before and I apologize, my Google-fu apparently needs some work. My question is, I would love to try making a slanted layer soap with different colors, I think it looks so pretty. Knowing me though, if I try to pour layer upon layer...

Hi everyone. I'd like to do a hot process soap this week and use GM as the liquid. Is this possible however? I've done a little looking around online and some guides suggested adding milk at the end of the cook and mixing it in and they've had success that way, but I wonder if this would be the...

Thanks a lot for the replies, all. Of course, I wouldn't donate it to anyone while it's like this, I only thinking a larger company may be able to rebatch it into something good if they grind down, mix up, and test all their soaps anyway, etc. I know it's not lye heavy or anything like that, it...

Hopefully this is the right forum for this. :) I've got three failed batches I need to do something with. Nothing seriously wrong with them other than the fact that I learned about cleansing value a little too late and they're all hovering at about a 24, oops. They are very harsh on my skin. I...

Thank you all for the great ideas! I ended up doing an orange, patchouli, and cedarwood at about 6:3:1 to use up the patchouli and orange I had on hand. I really like it but I wish I wouldn't have added the cedarwood, I've found that I'm not really a cedarwood person and I can smell it even in...

Hi all, I'm thinking about doing a 21% coconut, 44% olive, 32% palm and 3% castor soap. Cleansing looks like it will be 14 and conditioning 57 and hardness 40. I did a very similar palm/olive/coco recipe before and got great feedback, personally really liked it. I branched out recently and did...