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I think it is more of a personal thing for me. I grew up raising bees, I guess I am just in love with the smell of beeswax and the thought of adding it to my soaps. I'm not so sure that the wax is the issue, it appeared to blend just fine with my oils. Also, I forgot to mention that my...

I'm not really familiar with the hot process method, but I thought it creates sort of "goopy" soap that would be difficult to pour and doesn't look as smooth and even as CP soap. Am I wrong?

I have been soaping at no higher than 120 degrees F

I thought about trying this. Maybe I will try putting the FO in a more basic recipe. I really don't want to give up on this scent! Come to think of it, every time I have tried it, even with tweaking a few things, it either traces very quickly or overheats. I don't know if that would affect...

okay, you've got me thinking because all of my failed batches have been with this fragrance oil. Before that, I wasn't having any issues. The oldest batch I had was about a month old. Even though the smell wasn't what I wanted, it wasn't as awful as when I unmolded it.

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, but I have now failed 3 times trying to make the same type of soap. I have been trying to make a honey, coconut milk soap. Every time I have made it (3 times now!) it looks great on the outside but doesn't smell like the fragrance oil. I have been using the...

Thanks for the info! I cannot tell you how often I have been frustrating waiting for everything to be within a few degree of each other!

I wait until everything is around 110 degree before combining. I am wondering about freezing the milk and using it in place of the water in my lye mixture but the issue I have had with that technique is that it cools the lye down way too much.

I am also having difficulty with milk soaps. I have used the "split method". I am adding the milk to the oil, not at trace. The issue is, once I add the lye water to the oil mixture, the whole thing immediately turns dark orange. I think I am still scorching the milk!

I think you are right. I remembered later on that the first soap that came out beautifully did not start that way. It had cracked, I smoothed the crack out, placed it in the freezer and it looked great the next day. I agree, I think a 36% lye concentration is too high. I am going to try a...

So, does that mean discounting does not impact heat?

Hi everyone, I posted recently about a failed batch of honey/milk soap, it came out crumbly and stinky. My conclusion was that I may have soaped too cool and that the frozen milk got scorched by the lye. I tried the recipe again, using the "split method", soaping a bit warmer and not putting...

UPDATE: I attempted the same recipe again with some of the changes that you all recommended. This time, instead of soaping at 94 degrees F, I soaped at 104 degrees. I used the "split method" instead of using frozen milk in the lye. Instead of everything not heating up enough, now it heated...

I just tried using a different lye calculator from MMS. The calculator shows different ranges for the lye. I used 3.7 oz. lye which according to this is a 3% superfat and the website notes to "proceed with caution" when using this amount of lye. The safer ranges for lye that are noted are...

3% SF was recommended in the original Brambleberry recipe. It worked perfectly the 1st time (before batch with additives). I'm not sure what you mean by "the split method" for the milk. Thanks DeeAnna, I think you are right. I usually soap around 110 but I also have never worked with honey...

The fragrance oil is made for cp soap use.

Hello, I recently used a Brambleberry basic soap recipe. I was trying to find a base that I could add to and this one came out perfectly. So, I tried it again but this time halved the recipe, subbed 1/2 of the water for frozen oat milk, and added small amounts of honey and turmeric (for...

Hi, I had a recipe that went terribly wrong. I am looking for any help anyone could offer. How do I create a new thread or forum? So far, I can only figure out how to respond to posts