Recent content by soap_rat

Do you think the roaster pan is big enough and sturdy enough to sit a 50lb pail of fat into it?

sprklingsaphire, I would try to store the palm in the coolest location you can, and I would also buy some rosemary oleoresin extract (ROE) or some mixed tocopherols--vitamin E-- and add some to the melted palm. Maybe to just half of it if the price on the stuff seems too steep, and use the...

Candybee, I didn't know about stearic separation until my SECOND bulk pail of palm oil. I think we got lucky with the first pail unless we just failed to notice differences because we had just started soaping. With the second I could tell something weird was happening the first time I went to...

It is a PAIN IN THE BUTT. I may start using smaller jugs to avoid it. If it's truly roasting outside, keeping it in a car in the sun an entire day may do it, but I've only got a partial melt that way (and even with coconut oil which has a lower melting point). (I found a pail of coconut...

I mention that I do use lye, which all soapmakers must use, even the glycerin and all-natural ones. I say that lye is like baking soda, it's a chemical used up in the process of making the thing (see, now I'm gently telling them they eat chemicals all the time). And that I use food grade lye...

I only started wearing the dust mask when I started mixing the lye indoors. Prior to that I mixed it outdoors with no mask. Regarding contacts: http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/prevention/contact_len.html I hope your skin is feeling better soon.

newbie, it's the first one! it means wayyyyyyyyyy out in the sticks.

Where was your head/face while you were stirring the lye into the water? It should have been arm's length away. If you were leaning over the container that's definitely when you got burned, although I would also expect you to breathe in the fumes through your mask and cough and realize you...

I would collect a pile of nickels and check the weight again. The scale can't show you 4.85 grams, it's either 4 or 5. But if you have 10 or more nickels it will show you its accuracy more...accurately! After a few days you can do a finger-to-mouth zap test to make sure it's not lye heavy...

Where do you live? (general area, not looking to stalk you!). That's such a high shipping cost. When I started using SC I lived in Atlanta and I was so surprised at how little the shipping cost.

Avocado becomes yellow in CP soap (or mine did)

Hello and welcome! I am always humbled by anyone who speaks a second language better than I speak my second language (it's so hard! For me at least). What happened in your first batch? (that you could see during the making, and how it looks once finished) Giving us the exact recipe helps...

I think the Crazy Castile recipe can also be called a home crystal-growing project! I wonder if possibly higher water content in other recipes encourages ash? Or slow saponification? The Crazy Castile recipe has high water, but also slow reaction of the lye.

Wow! Milk chocolate in color, and a chemical smell? That is really strange. I have done the technique you did, of 50% lye solution then adding the excess water (Kirkland olive oil) , and I sure didn't get that. I let the batter rest a lot when I did this, I guess I was babying the emulsion...

Among the very weird things about this recipe is: soaping warm does not seem to help. This is what I've been playing around with, as I am a huge fan of adding heat in order to speed trace. Chemistry SAYS that heat speeds chemical reactions, right?? I've never messed with emulsions though...