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Mrsserena, I regularly soap at 40% lye concentration and in my experience, it does not affect trace. I stick blend only to emulsion before separating for colors, and soap between 75-85 degrees, so that helps as well.

I've only used Vanilla Bean from NG and love it. I also use their OMH and it's very nice. A tad lighter than Brambleberry's but just as sweet and delicious-smelling. It's one of my top sellers.

Are you using any fragrances? Some fragrances are notorious for causing ash.

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I'm going to decrease the palm, slightly increase the PKO, and adjust the others as suggested. Teresa-T, thank you for suggesting lard, and while I do looove me some lard soap, the customer was very specific about the oils she wanted. I'll update with...

Hi everyone! A customer has asked me to make her a custom batch of soap with no olive or coconut oil, no fragrance, and no color. She is allergic to many things, but has confirmed that she is ok with Palm, Avocado, and Rice Bran. She doesn't care if the soap doesn't lather well, and she'd also...

GSE, Vitamin E, and Beeswax are NOT preservatives. It does look like grainy shea butter in the pic, but even so, that lotion is not preserved and probably already full of bacteria. Sorry.

Thank you both!

I mean lye concentration. I like to use as little liquid as possible - it helps me prevent ash - so I normally soap at 35% or 40% lye concentration. I'm just not sure if this is ok to do with beer due to acceleration issues.

Good morning everyone! Over the years I've made many batches of HP beer soap, using a lye concentration of 30%. This past year I've gradually converted almost all of my formulas to CP, using a lye concentration of 35-40% and room temp oils and lye. Today I'll be doing CP beer soap for the...

Ash is one of those mysteries that I will try to solve until my dying day! I always thought it had to do with the temp of the soap when molded and the temp of the air around it. However, lately I've been piping the tops of almost all of my soaps, using a separate recipe/batch. My base recipe...

WSP's Cannabis smells like real weed "in the bag". I took 100 one-ounce bars to a soap show I did on a college campus and they sold out in under an hour. Many people commented that they'd never wash with it - it was definitely a novelty soap.

I'm guessing you want your soap to be blue? If so, watch out for vanilla and sandalwood as they can discolor to brown. For a soap called Blue Skies, I think peppermint and violet or ylang ylang would be pretty. Also, please don't take offense and I don't mean to be a grammar nazi, but if you're...

I've used the WSP Gain FO in some MP I made for my daughter. It smells just like the real thing, but I can't vouch for how it might behave in CP.

Nature's Garden has these clear vinyl zippered bags that come with a quilted sponge. They're only 50 cents each, and I love them because they require no further bag or wrapping...

I've done a lot of searching and reading about soda ash and how to prevent it, since most of my soaps have decorative tops and can't be covered or rinsed off. There really doesn't seem to be any definitive answer on the subject, but my interpretation of what I've read suggests that ash formation...

I have the same scale, and just checked it. Mine does go to 15+ lbs. Try reseating the tray - maybe it's not on properly. Maybe also try recalibrating it, and replacing the batteries.

Same as the others, I've had no luck selling sets at craft shows, no matter how pretty I think they are, lol. I do have a few customers that like to custom-order sets for gift-giving, but at craft shows they don't sell at all, even right before holidays. Go figure.

In my experience, adding the misbehaving FO to the oils first made the situation worse. I think it's because the FO was in contact with the batter for much longer than usual by the time I got my batter separated and colors blended in. I tend to take a while with the colors as I adjust shades and...

I tried that with MP once, using a "trick" I read somewhere online. It said to freeze the perfume in a small container, so that the water portion would freeze, allowing me to pour off the oils. I added the oil portion to MP base, about 1 tsp per lb. The finished soap seemed ok at first but after...

Congratulations! How exciting!