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I use clay, mainly for nice earthy colours (I have used red, pink, green and white clays), but also for their health properties (pink tones, green detoxes, white for dry & sensitive skin etc). I put it in after I add the lye mix to the oils, but before trace. I have no idea when I add it then...

Lovely cloud juice! We live too far away from town to get their water, so rainwater is all we drink/wash in/ water the garden with/ use in our soaps! Regarding the 'roof goo', I don't know what your roof looks like, but I'd prefer to drink my roof goo than the chemicals they pour into the water...

Hi All, I'm looking for a shampoo bar recipe, and have found a couple, but I'm wondering what is the difference between a shampoo bar and a bar of soap? The oils seem a bit richer maybe, and most have a bit of jojoba oil. Is there a particular formula I should aim for if making my own recipe...

:lol: My husband's reaction wasn't much different when I started making soaps! It didn't help that my first few batches were a little too experimental! (I cut up a heap of lemongrass and added it to the mix for exfoliation/smell/loveliness ~ but it remained hard and very uncomfortable and...

check out my post on 'alternatives to palm oil' for yet another angle! using palm oil for biodiesel may not be as eco-friendly as it sounds! :?

How do you render lard? Do you just boil the meat and scoop the fat off the top? Is that what lard is - straight animal fat? What part of the animal do you use? I mean, if you were killing your own animal, could you use the bits that you don't want to eat? Whats the difference between tallow and...

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Actually I have adjusted my previous recipe, and even though the soaps seemed too gooey and soft to start with, even after a week or so, they have gradually hardened up. I haven't used any of the new "Palm oil free" ones, but they look great, and they did...

Hi All, Recently I heard that the growing of Palm Oil plantations is responsible for large amounts of rainforest clearing in Malaysia. This is decreasing the amount of habitat available for orangutans, which are a precious and endangered species. Actually I was horrified, because I love to...

Tabitha, your soaps look lovely! I've never seen a tube mold before, I've been using novelty shaped muffin trays to get hearts and stars etc, but if the soap goes to trace too fast, it's hard to get the backs looking neat. These tubes look like the way to go! How did you get the stars inside the...

Faithy, how do you calculate these figures? You all seem to have a different method for making your soaps than I use. I didn't realize there was another way ~ I mix the lye & water, then let it cool to about 45degrees Celsius, while I melt my oils and waxes, then when they are both about 45C...

Thanks for your help, everyone! :D I'm not sure why this batch didn't turn out, except that I changed from my usual recipe that has beeswax in it, because I ran out. With my usual recipe I can pop the soaps out of the molds and cut them after 24-48hrs. This lots been in the mold for more than a...

I have an unsuccessful soap that I made last week, but it's still really soft (softer than my usual soaps, although I usually use beeswax which I ran out of this time). So what is rebatching? Do I just melt it all over again and try to rectify the error? I thought maybe because we're having very...