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This. Muggins here learnt this the hard way.... 🤦‍♀️

I buy all my fragrances online and everytime I will always get one scent that smells stinky. Sometimes I find the scent mellows post cure. Sometimes my husband will like it so he uses it. Sometimes I give them away. Sometimes I just leave them out in the open so the scent gradually fades. Or I...

I mixed up my lye and after doing so, realised I'd used enough water and sodium hydroxide for a full loaf, not the half batch I wanted. Not to worry, I made up the right quantities and carried on. But now I have this lye left and whats a girl to do but make some more soap?! However, I use...

Lisa from I Dream in Soap has a wonderful guide to making the right amount of soap for your mould.

I use about 50% lard. I spend a good amount of time stirring with a few short bursts on the blender. If I stop at emulsion I have a good 20 mins to faff around with measuring out, colouring etc before it starts to reach trace, sometimes longer depending on what temperature I'm soaping at and the...

I've checked my notes and I used it at 25%, 20% and then 10%. DOS was an issue at 25% and 20% but not at 10%. If you're asking whether I know it was the rapeseed vs the other oils that also contributed to oleic profile then I don't for sure. This was a good couple of years ago and my recipes...

Yup, I used it a fair bit as a replacement for olive oil which I don't like. DOS was an issue but I was using it at around 20%. I didn't notice much slime except when I did a predominantly liquid oil batch (was around 75% liquid oils). I haven't noticed any particular qualities it brings to the...

Me too! I think I once made a loaf in honor of Mayhem Miller's black barbie look on Drag Race But to answer OP, I read here somewhere that it does take a couple of uses before the bar gets really good - see @Bubble Agent's comment here: How Do You "test" Your Soap?

I have done a quick search but struggling to pin down an answer so apologies if it's been asked before. I've made some soap dough embeds for the top of my soap, I'd like to colour these gold. What's the best carrier / medium? A light weight oil or alcohol? I'm veering towards alcohol because...

Me!! I do!! I use it at a lower percentage, 13% as one of my substitutions for OO which I don't like. My DOS issue comes from hard water but even so, I don't like to go above 15%. I haven't noticed any specific properties from it at such low % but I'm fairly happy with it. Not sure that helps much

I've tried a couple of different methods of creating mica lines (dusting using a tea strainer, dissolving in isopropyl alcohol and spraying) but I find that it can lead to my bars splitting between the layers where the lines are. Cutting thicker bars would probably help but I like thin bars that...

Beautiful soap and a lovely colour. I quite like glycerin rivers. I tend to soap at 38% lye concentration and will occasionally add additional water just to get rivers in certain portions of my soap. These bars are really quite stunning, imo.

Holy moly, that's a staggering difference! Definitely to the back of the shelf they go then. Maybe I just assumed they needed less of a cure due to the salt? High praise indeed! I'll give @Obsidian's recipe a whirl. I was so excited to try them and have to say I was really disappointed - I'm...

Do you use olive oil for a specific reason or more because it's accessible, cheap (or used to be) etc? I think I'd probably switch out for rapeseed or another liquid assuming it doesn't push linoleics too high as I'm not a massive fan. I may just do a tiny batch with olive oil and see where that...

Looks good to me. I tend to find that I don't really notice the shea unless I add at around 7 - 10% I find palm gives me decent bubbles and quite like palm in soap (although tend to use lard for a myriad of reasons). It looks very similar to recipes I've used before, minus the soy.

Full disclosure, I've never used a salt bar so maybe I just don't know what they're supposed to be like / don't like them. My salt bars seem to lather weirdly. There are some large bubbles to begin with (although we're in a hard water area and I wouldn't say they're massively bigger / bubblier...

No, I've not found it to get better after curing. I tend to use soaps with colourful lather in the kitchen sink rather than bathroom to avoid having to wash the bath/ shower daily. Activated charcoal is the worst offender, closely followed by a red with lots of oxide in. I've had batches that...

Will citric acid dissolve in my lye solution or do I need to add to water before sodium hydroxide?

I've had mixed results- I definitely prefer it to just loose powder but when I spritz its definitely less concentrated that a 2:1 ratio

Lard, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil are good and cheap options. Olive oil as well. I often use sunflower as a replacement for olive oil because I dont like the feel of olive oil in my soaps but I do have issues with DoS if I don't use high oleic or use in large quantities.