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  1. John Harris

    What soapy thing have you done today?

    Hi All! Been kind of busy here. Made two 40-bar batches of soap. Mixed, poured and cut. Now drying in my forced-air, ventilated drying tower. What a lot of work. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures. One batch was called Love Spell (from Windy Point in Canada) and the other was The Perfect...
  2. John Harris

    Oh Ya! Now I remember! (Botanicals)

    I made soap for a few years in the 1990s and 2000s. Then life changed and I stopped for a long time. Then life changed again and I started again, but I couldn't remember a lot of things about how I used to do it. Once thing I noticed a couple of years ago, as I unearthed all my equipment, was...
  3. John Harris

    Shea Butter - Refined or unrefined?

    Hi Boys and Girls! I'm looking to buy some shea butter. The place I want to buy from offers it in unrefined form with it's concomitant ivory color and nutty, smoking odor. Will it make that much difference in in the product? Or should I stick to refined only? It makes up only 7% of the oils...
  4. John Harris

    OMG!! Sticker shock!!

    As I have mentioned, I am returning after an extended break in soap making. Last time I made soap was well before Covid. I went to the supermarket to do some informal pricing. I never expected the shock! A pound of lard used to cost 2.85. It now costs 4.79!! Olive oil was 19.00 for 3...
  5. John Harris

    Back In The Saddle Again

    Hi All! I am not really a newbie, but I have been away for a year or more. I disappeared about the time our beloved Owl went missing. (Don't suppose he/she has reappeared, has he/she?) When my bar inventory reached 200, I thought it was time to take a break. Been living off the fat of the...
  6. John Harris

    Liquid Wash

    I have been absent for a few months. I haven't made any soap in that time because I have MOUNTAINS of soap around my house! I stopped by just to glance around a bit. In the back of my mind, "Has the Owl been around at all?"
  7. John Harris

    Liquid Wash

    @Zany_in_CO "You may want to keep your account open until @Resolveable Owl returns. " So this means the Owl will be back in the future?
  8. John Harris

    Usage rate for VCS ?

    Now that you say it ... Yes! I recall! Thanks so much!
  9. John Harris

    Usage rate for VCS ?

    Does anyone know the usage rate of Vanilla Color Stabilizer? I should know cuz I just used it last month, but I didn't write it down and now I have no idea. Thanks in advance!
  10. John Harris

    Soap and the Blood Taker

    Went to have my blood drawn this morning. The blood taker asked, "What is that scent you are wearing?" I had showered with OMH earlier. I told him the whole soap making story and he was fascinated. So, to make a long story short, guess who is coming to my house on Monday to buy soap!
  11. John Harris

    Lye for months to come!

    Some good news I did the lye purity test from DeeAnna's Classic Bells page on the 50 pound bag of 24 year old lye I have. I did three trials and averaged them, as she recommends. The stuff came out 99% pure! I am amazed! I'm going to store it in a 5 gallon air-tight bucket I got on Amazon...
  12. John Harris

    Please Please Please, help with my math. My head is spinning.

    I'm too embarrassed to share my math problems on here. I find it on the internet somehow! The Monty Python skit from Holy Grail on identifying a witch is like me and doing math for soap projects.
  13. John Harris

    What soapy thing have you done today?

    @ResolvableOwl Your absence was definitely noticed! Welcome back!!
  14. John Harris

    Has the Owl flown the coop?

    @ResolvableOwl I was hoping you'd say you have been on some Caribbean beach for a couple of weeks! Nice to see you back!
  15. John Harris

    Introducing...

    11 days later... The Vanilla Color Stabilizer seems to be doing its stuff. The bars are not getting any darker. The brown that you see is the ITP swirl I did to give the sense of vanilla BEAN. So far so good!
  16. John Harris

    Lye for months to come!

    I knew I had it somewhere in the basement. It was just a matter of moving some stuff around. Fortunately, the storage container (a heavy-plastic bag) was intact. I will have to examine the lye more closely and test it for purity.
  17. John Harris

    Lye for months to come!

    5129 grams of oils. I make 40 hefty sized bars at a time.
  18. John Harris

    Lye for months to come!

    @shylanair The chemist's name is Kevin Dunn and here is the link to the video! (Don't be put off by the name "chemist". He is lots of fun.) DeeAnna also has a video of it which is very clear.
  19. John Harris

    Lye for months to come!

    Hi Shy! Your lye is probably just fine. I'm going to guess 95% pure. I just test mine cuz it's so old. Some of mine tested at 78% pure and some other at 85%. You just make up the difference as specified on DeeAnna's webpage. All of my soap has come out perfectly when it comes to lye-related...
  20. John Harris

    Lye for months to come!

    I just dug out a 50 pound heavy-plastic bag of lye from storage. It is 24 years old but seems to be intact. I will be doing DeeAnna's purity test so as to make allowances for any deterioration. (It's kind of a fun exercise. Makes me feel like a chemist.) You can see the test description at...
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