Cleaning up is a pain in my butt :( Help!

[Mona719]

So now that im making soap again I hate the cleaning part.
Was wondering what you guys do to make it a bit easier? I try to clean it right away but it's still a pain. The bowls are all oily and no matter how many times I scrub I cant get them clean :/ They still feel all oily and nasty. Also if I wait a day is it safe to put my bowls in the dishwasher with other dishes? I hope I made sense lol I'm just frustrated :/:-x

 

[nebetmiw]

I rinse in hot running water everything. Then put bowl in dishwasher and run it when it is full. Never had any problems.

 

[RocknRoll]

A trick I use involes a lot of paper towells but it's worth saving hassle, time and clogged drains! Immediately after soaping I wipe off all my soaping equipment, mixing bowl, spatula, stick blender, measuring spoons etc. That way the mess goes in the garbage and not down my kitchen sick where it will lurk like a monster. Then I use Dawn dish soap which seems to cut through any residue left. I also use parchment paper on top of my workspace so any mess is easily discarded.

 

[kerianne]

I use cling wrap to cover my kitchen counter. Then when I'm done, I put all the dirty things (except the lye pitcher) into the stainless steel mixing bowl, then pour boiling water over it. Then I just let it sit until a couple of minutes, and it scrubs off really easily.

 

[Shannon_m]

we just throw most of our stuff in the dishwasher.. we don't wait however... it's always a good idea to wash your eating/cooking stuff separately because you won't ever get your fragrance oils off plastic stuff... ask me how I know.. lol

 

[cerelife]

I usually soap 4 batches once a week, and over time I've come up with a fairly painless system that works for me. This has cut down drastically on my clean-up time
I cover my kitchen counters with a plastic tablecloth that I cut to make a good fit. When I'm done for the day, I rinse my lye pitchers out with cold water and I wash my measuring cups, etc. that only held oils with lots of Dawn. I just use paper towels to wipe all the soap off my stick blender. Then I wipe down the tablecloth with vinegar and roll it up until the next week.
I have about 20+ heavy plastic Wypall buckets that I soap in and I rotate those out. The day after I make soap I wash the four oldest used soap buckets, so the soap is nice and mild and easy to remove. That way I always have 5-6 clean soap buckets. I also have a ton of log molds, since my husband makes them for me. But I do reline the used ones every week just out of habit.
Now that I'm getting into using colors, I'm having to wash the little containers (I've been using Talenti Gelato clear plastic pint containers) that held the colored soap every week and I hate it!! I told the DH we're gonna have to eat more gelato...

 

[melstan775]

A trick I use involes a lot of paper towells but it's worth saving hassle, time and clogged drains! Immediately after soaping I wipe off all my soaping equipment, mixing bowl, spatula, stick blender, measuring spoons etc. That way the mess goes in the garbage and not down my kitchen sick where it will lurk like a monster. Then I use Dawn dish soap which seems to cut through any residue left. I also use parchment paper on top of my workspace so any mess is easily discarded.

This is exactly what I do. I also use high pressure hot water and dilute the heck out the residue before I spill it down the drain. I figure if it's almost water going down the drain, it won't clog. Don't know if it's true or not. Just saying.

 

[RocknRoll]

This is exactly what I do. I also use high pressure hot water and dilute the heck out the residue before I spill it down the drain. I figure if it's almost water going down the drain, it won't clog. Don't know if it's true or not. Just saying.

I shudder to think of what I may have done to the piping at my old apartment complex lol, i didnt wipe anything, I just put it down the sink. After this forum I read that it can cause septic problems and clogged pipes. Woops! Now I'm real careful. I'm with you, I think it's diluted enough at this point, hot water works wonders

 

[melstan775]

Something else I did was buy Dixie Cups - the red drinking ones, and the little mouthwash ones. The drinking cups I use to pour off colors, and the small ones I mix the colorants in. I also bought craft sticks to stir the colorants, but I usually end up using a spoon. When I clean up all the cups holding colorants and colored soaps just go straight into the trash. This helped cut my cleanup time A LOT. Stress free, easy peasey.

 

[Genny]

Since we don't use paper towels in our house, I use old bath towels to wipe out as much soap batter as possible. I leave the towels in our dirty towel basket until the next day & leave my soaping equipment on the cupboard until the next day. Then I throw the all our towels in the wash & use less laundry detergent, because the ones already have soap on them.
I rinse out the soaping bowls, spoons, molds, etc just a bit & then throw them in the dishwasher. A lot of times I don't have to add dishwash soap, since the bowls & everything already have soap on them.

 

[lsg]

I put warm water with dish detergent in my mixing container. First I run my stick blender in the soapy water, wipe off the residue, rinse and put in the dish drainer. Then I give my other soaping equipment a preliminary wash in the sudsy water, then into the dishwasher with all the prewashed dishwasher safe equipment. I use a paper towel to make sure the soap residue is all removed from the mixing container and then dump the wash up water on our gravel driveway, never down the sink. I do a second wash of the mixing container and any equipment that does not go into the dishwasher.

 

[misskat22]

I just use hot water and dish soap to clean up everything, I haven't really had a problem.

 

[jcandleattic]

I have silicone spatulas that I use when soaping and that gets most all of the soap out of the bowl and into the molds, so I don't have much waste and not much to wipe down. I leave them sit a few hours to a day or so, so that they are not as oily, then I use extremely hot water with Dawn dish soap and do the dishes by hand. Never have a greasy/oily film and they get clean and I'm ready to go again.

 

[christinak]

Now I am scared. I rent and I just wash everything in the sink with hot water....am I ruining the plumbing? I will be in serious trouble.

 

[lsg]

Wipe all of the excess raw soap off your soaping equipment before you wash it, then you should be OK.

 

[christinak]

Will do. Hopefully I haven't done any damage yet!

 

[Badger]

Yeah, I am thinking the same thing... Our disposal unit died fairly recently, but I am pretty sure it was before I started making soap... I just haven't gotten around to calling the landlord about it. I should probably do that...

 

[jcandleattic]

Will do. Hopefully I haven't done any damage yet!

Probably not much serious damage, however what happens is the soap 'residue' will start to saponify, or thicken up and eventually there will be enough collected in the drain pipes to cause a clog.
I really try not to get raw soap down the drains, and I do as lsg says and wipe everything down first (but there is hardly anything left over in my soaping equipement) but I wash my dishes in my sink also, so about once every couple months I run a tablespoon or so, of pure lye down the drain with cold running water. (like you would draino or something)
I have no idea if this helps, but to my thinking, it can't hurt.

 

[lizflowers42]

I've been scraping as much out as possible and wiping with old t-shirt rags. Then I let it sit overnight, and the next day I fill up my soaping bucket with everything, spray it with hot water and let it sit for another day. I'm lucky that I can keep this out of sight in my basement utility sink. Then I unfortunately forget about it until the next time I am ready to soap and everything has loosened up enough to spray out. Like Genny mentioned the rags just get tossed into the wash along with a sheet that I lay across my kitchen counter top when I mix. Anything that lands on the sheet also gets washed up in its own soap. I don't worry so much about adding any laundry detergent to this load because it's only being used for soaping and it's clean enough!

 

[Shannon_m]

I don't usually have much residue left over from my batches anyway because I scrape the heck out of my tubs with a rubber spatula. I also use solo and dixie cups for mixing colors etc and that helps tremendously!! I usually soap in the morning and wash my "dishes" late at night and sometimes the next day (depending on how lazy I'm feeling).