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I do love ghost swirls. I'm too cheap to buy colours, and the ghost swirl always looks nice. You have done a marvelous job!

At what % do you use Lanolin? At what point does it go wrong?

I stack mine like a Jenga tower until they are used up. On the front soap bar I write the date and name with a sharpie. I have some two year old soaps in there with no issues.

Thanks TDG. I ordered some sodium acetate from ebay early this week, and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

I find it starts getting good enough to use after six weeks. Especially if there is 2% salt in the recipe. The salt just helps them stay stiff as they are used up. My salt free bars are six months old, and they are reasonably hard until they are about half used up. At that point I just fold them...

Since I brew beer, I have a bottle of 88% lactic acid handy. I would like to add sodium lactate to my soap. Here is the calculation I performed to calculate the amount of 88% acid solution I would require to make a 2kg batch of soap. I based this on the example Topofmurrayhill showed here...

One of the reasons I love RBO is that it is available everywhere and it is dirt cheap. I knew that I could order fats and butters online, but for me that was a bridge too far. Thanks for telling me about Frymasta. It meets my soapmaking fat criteria.

Thanks Zany. Does anyone know if Sodium Lactate or Sodium Acetate sting in a cut or abrasion like table salt (Sodium Chloride) does?

Thanks! I have tried a number of different oil combinations. Palm oil is hard to obtain here in Perth, and the lard I can buy here seems to increase the chance of DOS. Additionally, I found that I prefer the lather from the simple bar, and I can share it with vegans. I'm hoping to keep the same...

Hello, I've made several batches of soap using a simple recipe that I'm happy with. It's 95% Ricebran oil, and 5% Castor. To this I add 0.5% EDTA and 0.05% BHT Previously I added 2% salt. And I got a lovely lathering bar that was hard in the shower until the whole bar wore away. Except my wife...

I've used it at 3% oil weight with good results. The TTO smell is very strong at first, then fades to almost nothing after 18 months or so.

I cut up a 2kg batch that I'm going to need to throw away. Has big grey chunks in it that zap pretty hard. I don't think they are pure lye, just very lye-ey ash? I was trying for a ghost swirl, which I have done successfully in the past. For that I use a 1:1 lye water concentration(I went...

Aluminum oxide is also used in sandpaper, sand blasting media, and heat sink compound. It's pretty inert, I don't think you'd have trouble with lye. Make sure your get a fine enough grade of oxide, I wouldn't want sand paper soap

Good post Earlene! It is good to see someone else's opinion on RBO soap. I've made many soaps with a majority of RBO, since it is one of the cheapest oils in my grocery ($9 for 3L). Like you, I find that it performs best when messed with the least. Here is the conclusions I've arrived at for my...

So happy with my ghost swirl. It came out better than I had hoped. I didn't get to add fragrance since I only got about a minute of working time, but it is hand soap and I prefer that plain anyways

The Silver Fox recipe lathers like a dream. It feels truly amazing. I should not be so proud that I do not use a proven recipe before trying to reinvent the wheel. I've chucked out my previous shave soap attempts, as they are nowhere near the same level. Has anyone used the BB sensuous...

Good idea to preserve the longevity of your soap. At what rate do you add your BHT? I purchased some a long time ago, but haven't used it yet.

Thanks for the input guys. I tried the original recipe today, having obtained some shea butter at an absurdly high cost. Lucky the recipe only uses a little. The only change I made to the recipe was adding citric acid to help with my hard water, then additional KOH to balance out the CA. I...

Thanks DeeAnna for the breath of common sense. The only way I can imagine the lye being completely used up by the stearic is if the purity was not what it said on the new bottle, which is a low likelihood scenario (Or I mismeasured the lye). It is more likely that it took more time than I...

I made a shaving soap based loosely on the article found here. I subbed Avocado oil, since I didn't have Shea butter. I know avo makes a nice hard soap bar, and didn't think much of it. Recipe: Oil % Avocado Oil 10 Coconut Oil, 76 deg 15 Lanolin liquid Wax 5 Stearic...