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Hey All! Remember my other post on being gifted a ton of soap stuff from an awesome woman who stopped soaping? Well there is a bottle of Oleic acid (looks and feels like oil) and a bag of Myristic acid (powder form) among the stuff she gave me. In addition, she also gave me a copy of her...

If anyone remembers, a few weeks back I was gifted a ton of soaping supplies by a super awesome woman who was quitting her soaping business to follow her passion. She refused to accept money for her supplies so I convinced her to let me make her a pen, my other hobby. She accepted and gave me a...

Up until now, I’ve had mostly bad luck with colors and soap. This past weekend I decided to try a simple swirl for an oatmeal lavender soap I was working on. My intention was to keep the batch mostly it’s own natural color, but to add a few purple swirls in and around the center. As far as I’m...

As some of you know, I’m fairly new to SMF and soaping in general. I learn fast and improvise even faster, but that doesn’t mean I’m a master at it, especially since I’m sure I haven’t even begun to pay my dues to the soap gods/goddesses. Up until now I’ve been embarrassed to post a lot of my...

Dean posted about a rounded edge beveler and it got me thinking.... In addition to soap making, I’m also a woodworker. I’ve beveled wood edges with my router so why wouldn’t that work on soap? Well as it turns out, it did work! I used my drill press, attached a router bit, adjusted the...

Ok people, what’s the deal with the term “moisturizing” in soaps? I’ve been scolded and seen other noobs get scolded for associating that word with soap. Apparently soap cannot be moisturizing? In an FB soap group I was dang near burned at the stake for saying it a couple times. They’d say that...

I wasn’t gonna post this, for fear that people would think I’m just bragging, but I decided that it’s a feel good story that, if anything, should give hope, inspiration and happiness to all new soapers like myself: About a week ago I responded to an post on Reddit, by an ex-soapmaker. She was...

I was gifted a large bag of tussah silk, amongst other things, and the person who gave it to me emphasized on it quite a bit. Tonight I decided to add it to a batch of soap to see what the fuss is about. It scared me at first because she said to add a small amount to the lye mixture and it’ll...

Has anyone experienced an oily, sticky film in silicone molds? What about mica residue? lIf so, how do you go about cleaning it? I was gifted several silicone molds and a couple of them have that oily film that just regular washing doesn’t seem to clean off. The red silicone molds from...

I recently switched brands of lye and noticed that when I pour into my plastic bowl, some of the lye beads tend to gravitate to the sides of the bowl and stay there until I force it down with a spatula. The beads also seem to cling to the container it’s held in, forcing me to have to clean off...

Used a maple sugar FO with this pine tar recipe and it had a surprisingly great outcome. The bars smell just like old school butterscotch!

My goal was to complete both of these as well as a batch or two of soap this weekend but due to numerous setbacks I was only able to complete the HDPE mold and mostly finish the cutter (still needs a raised soap platform with cuts for the wires). All said and done, I’m pleased with the outcome...

Ugggghhhh! What should be a quick build (for me) just turned into a few day long project! Making a 20-22 bar wire cutter but thanks to unreliable parts I had to spend most the day just trying to use my Hawaiian ingenuity to make this work. 4 of the guitar tuning pegs came faulty and were...

I’m having a hard time understanding gelling. I know how to identify it when it happens, and it has something to do with water amounts, but what I don’t understand is what exactly is happening to it, is it a bad thing, why or why not?!? I read Auntie Clara’s blog about it and apparently you...

My latest addiction, which I do side by side with soap making, is pen making! It works perfectly for me because in between waiting for the lye mixture to cool or the hard soaps to melt, I can work on cutting, gluing and prepping the pen blanks to be shaped and put together. My lathe is just...

As the title says, Aloha! =) Relatively new soap maker, looking to learn as much as I can from you wonderful people. In addition to soap making, I also sew, crochet, make pens, do woodworking and about a thousand other random crafts and projects. To date I’ve done about 5 batches of soap. The...

Hello all! First post so please go easy on me! [emoji6] Is there an easy guide for new soap makers to formulate base oil usage? I’m looking to make a moisturizing bar with a good amount of suds but not too harsh in the skin. I currently have a decent amount of olive oil, coconut oil, rice...