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I finally got to use my brand new pressure cooker. Started off with a simple beef stew. It was awesome, fast and easy to use. I can't wait to try more recipes in it! Anyone got any good pressure cooker recipes?

Who knew it would be so hard to get my soap out of my slab mold? I've never had it stick like this before! To get the sides off I ended up accidentally ripping chunks out of the soap. I was able to press the chunks back in and hope they stay put. Not sure where or how I cut my finger but I...

Last week I tried my hand at whipped soap. I had success in that A) It's soap (non zappy & hard) and B) it floats. The failure came on the creative side of the equation. Since the soap was supposed to be for my girl children and a few friends that also have girl children, I wanted to color...

I just made my first attempt at an emulsifying sugar scrub. Can't wait to try it out tomorrow. Since I used 5% cocoa butter, it's got a bit of a chocolaty smell coming through the Island Nectar Dupe FO I used. Oh well. Next time I'll either use more FO (not too much) or try refined cocoa butter.

For my second attempt at CP OMH soap I decided to stick the mold in the freezer before and after my pour. And I still ended up with a tunnel of oozing oils in the middle. Gah! I'm about ready to quit. I jokingly said I'd stick to HP'ing OMH from now on but I really prefer the look of CP...

Well after three years of soaping I finally had a bad batch - and it went bad with a bang! I was making an OMH soap for my mother. The badness started when I was blending the soap with my stick blender. After mixing, I put the blender in the little plastic cup thing that came with it...

First Pine Tar - Updated - Pics page 2! So I made my first batch of pine tar soap for my husband's skin issues (he finally started using my soap!!!! YAY!!!!). I did a lot of research first and the biggest thing seemed to be how fast it moved so I was prepared. I mostly used the Soaping 101...

I am never going to get swirling down! Gah!!!! I thought today would be no sweat. I made Genny's shampoo recipe, minus the shea butter so it was all soft oils. Let the lye cool to almost room temp, mixed to very light trace, divided the batter and when I was adding my pre-mixed color I...

About a week and a half ago I made liquid soap using the glycerin method: 185 gr Olive Oil 22 gr Avocado Oil 22 gr Castor oil 43 gr KOH (0% superfat) 129 gr glycerin Didn't have any problems making the soap, let it dilute overnight. The next day I scented and bottled once cooled. I stuck...

For my second attempt at making liquid soap I'm attempting the glycerin method. Woohoo! Got it the pot now. I'm still going to cook it for longer then the 1.5 hours that is in the soapmaking 101 video but I'm looking forward to this new method. Last time I made liquid soap I used a recipe...

Has anyone who makes their own laundry powder used it on cloth diapers? How well does it work? Do you get water repelling? I want to make a 100% CO bar with 0% SF and add in baking soda, washing soda, and I'm up in the air on oxyclean or citric acid (NO BORAX!!). Google has a lot of homemade...

Yay, I made my first lotion the other day and it came out awesome! I did the basic recipe on swiftcraft's website. I also used a bit of the little Meyer Lemon FO sample I got from Brambleberry. **** you BB, now I need to buy more of this FO! The thing I really like about this lotion is the...

I've got probably 20-30 batches of soap under my belt but any colored soaps I've made are all solid color bars, usually from natural sources (beer, coffee, vanilla fo, etc) and I'd like to try to start using some colorants and get some pretty swirls. I've read how to do an ITP swirl and a...

Sorry this is a bit long. So last night I made a salt soap. I tried to do a swirl so I essentially made two full batches, then swirled them. Didn't seem to hold due to the milk. Oh well. My question is that there are parts that are different colored then the rest of the soap that are zappy...

Is there something wrong with the search function? I know there are tons of topics on shaving soap and it keeps saying "no results". A friend of mine has started doing the old fashioned shaving with a brush and straight razor. I want to make a shaving soap for him. Can someone point me in...

I'm getting back into soaping after a six month break. This is a 100% olive oil, 100% buttermilk soap. It looks so good! I used my new brambleberry 12 bar silicone mold. That is awesome. I'm not sure if the soap gelled or not. I never saw any change in the color as I checked on it. I...

And I think it turned out okay. I had a moment of panic but let it sit over night and it looked great this morning! Tried some on my hands and it feels really nice. I used a really basic recipie, basically falling David Fisher's technique. I used 70% olive oil and 30% coconut oil. I did a...

For those of you that make liquid soap, how do you determine if a FO will work in liquid soap? I'm particularly looking for a vanilla scented FO and most reviews discuss CP or HP soap so not sure if these will also work in liquid soap. Any advice appreciated!

Can I buy KOH locally or can you only realy buy it from a supplier? I get my NaOH from a local hardware store sold as a drain cleaner. Does KOH come in some kind of locally available form like that?

For whatever reason my husband doesn't like bar soap so when he found out I can make liquid soap he wanted me to try. I bought the book by Catherine Failor and have been reasearching on this forum and the web. In the book, Ms. Failor has a seperate section with different recipies for shower...