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I am just wondering if there is anything like super-geling your soap? I can only think of one con and that is soap drying out. However, if you cover it well with Saran wrap to avoid water evaporation, should you worry about anything else? Thanks

So I was distracted while making soap and instead of pouring my lye solution in my oils, I poured my oils in the lye solution. I was worried my soap will not turn out well but before I finished pouring the oils, the soap was nicely emulsified. I will not repeat it again but I was amazed how...

I do enjoy charcoal and clay in soaps. However, when I combine the two, I get an ugly color. My solution? I infused charcoal and clay in water for four weeks and had a clear solution. This gave me a very lovely white soap. If you decide to do this, be aware that charcoal will not readily...

Why will some formulations use glycerin and others require propylene glycol or a mixture of both? Is one better than the other?

I am trying to get the saponification value for a fat that is not on any soap calculator. Allanblackia fat acts like no other fat so all the saponification values I tried were by scientists who are not soap makers and are more interested in its use in food. Unilever uses it in margarine. I...

Someone wanted to sell me a lot of vegetable oil. Her claim is that it has a low free fatty acid. Is this good or bad ? Will this be good for soapmaking? Thanks for your usual help. Allane

I do hp soaps exclusively. I have nothing against cold process but I am not as patient as some of our talented soapmakers here. Lately, I have been reading a lot about how we should avoid over-cooked soap. My question is that if the monster lye has done all the damage it can during the...

I have used both refined and unrefined butters in my products. Lately, I have only used unrefined. This is my personal opinion but I feel like there is something missing in the refined butters. May it be the high heat used or the chemicals stripping the oils and butters of some beneficial or...

I bought a bag of lye and unfortunately did not realize it said 99% on the bag. I realized my soap which is normally superfatted at 10% did not feel the same way. I rebatched it and added 5% of shea butter. It feels the same like my other soaps, but i will not sell it. Is there a lye calculator...

If you are like me and you soap with hot oils, you are bound to get a volcano sooner or later. Have a piece of old soap around and just throw it in the hot barter and the volcano stops. Allane

I am on a mission to find new oils and butters for soapmaking. I have so far found three butters and one oil which make very nice soaps. All these nuts drop to the floor and go to waste. I am working with the university here to research more into them. My goal is to branch out of my country...

I am on a mission to use underutilized oils to make soap and i am doing quiet well. I have however come across an oil called oil of inoy kernel or pogo eleosa. Information about it is very scarce but there was an entry in a 1906 article that the saponification value is 304 and iodine number is...

Most of the soaps we make use our basic oils/fats namely; coconut, olive, PKO shea, cocoa butter. We know what that brings to the soap making process. However, there are tons of oils in this world that nobody uses. These are what i call orphan oils. I have used a few of them like andiroba oil...