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Soapeysoaps

Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2019
Messages
9
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Location
Emsworth, UK
Hi everyone!, I’m Zoe and I’m from the UK, down south near the coast, (near Portsmouth), and I’m near to soap making. I wanted a different hobby/craft that could earn me some “pocket money” I guess and making soap was the next idea.
(I tried bows before but didn’t get anywhere with that, plus everyone seems to be doing them).
I remembered one of my kids soaps that was gifted to them from Basin in Florida, it was one of their Mickey Mouse clear soaps with little Mickey embeds and thought I’d love to do that and maybe make some with little toys in. Well, after scouring them net as you do I found plenty of inspiration. I’ve made some melt and pour soaps which the whole family love but I’d love to try Cold Process a bit more. Just tried one last night
 
Welcome, Zoe!

Melt & Pour soap is great for selling right away if you want to make pocket money, but you'll definitely want to hold off on selling the lye-based soaps you make from scratch via the cold process or hot process soaps right away. They're such that they need a good bit of R & D. Each formula you make will need to be cured and then watched over a period of time to make sure it can stand the test of time. The generally advocated recommendation is to give each CP or HP formula a year of challenge testing before selling, because so many things can go wrong in the weeks and/or months after making and curing. Adverse things such as scent morphing, color morphing, DOS (i.e., 'dreaded orange spots, aka rancidity) don't normally show their ugly head until a few months have gone by after making it.

Here's a great thread we have made into a sticky about all the things to consider before selling soap: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/are-you-ready-to-sell-your-soap.16002/


IrishLass :)
 
Welcome! Mosey on over to the Beginner's Forum and find the Sticky "Beginner's Learn to Soap Online". Lots of good info there to get you started. Take a cuppa along and scroll down to Lovin' Soap Studio to get a handle on most of the stuff we talk about here.

Most of the equipment you need you probably already have in your kitchen, with the exception of a stick blender which you might find at a thrift store or Walmart, Target, etc. You can use a whisk to bring soap to trace, but a stick blender is faster.

For very little expense, you can buy lard at the grocery store which makes a fine bar of soap all by itself. I wouldn't recommend 100% olive oil (Castile) soap to start with... it takes a long time to trace and requires a long cure.

Make a few 1 lb batches to get the hang of it before tackling a goat's milk soap -- goat's milk contains sugar which causes the soap to heat up so it requires special handling.

DeeAnna's Soapy Stuff is a good read for Newbies & experienced soapers alike.
https://classicbells.com/soap/soapyStuff.asp

This thread is a fun read about what pitfalls await Newbies:
What advice would you give to your beginning soaping self?
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...ou-give-to-your-beginning-soaping-self.62916/

The best way to search SMF: GOOGLE
(type your keywords here) site:soapmakingforum.com
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HAPPY SOAPING! :dance:
 
Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!
IrishLass thanks for the advice I don’t plan on making too many CP soaps it all looks like expensive stuff at the end of the day and I don’t have a great budget anyways. All the different oils to start with then the amount of fragrance needed would probably cost me at least £100 to do one small batch of oh maybe 6 or 7 one inch soaps. I don’t have a loaf mold yet but want one for my melt and pour.
I’m sticking to MP for now as that’s affordable and so easy to do, I’d feel happy letting others have those.
Welcome Zoe :).
 
Welcome, Zoe.

You don't have to buy an expensive loaf mold. You can use any plastic container you happen to have in your kitchen that fits the size you might want to try. For a beginner, using what you already have on hand rather than investing your hard-earned money on expensive equipment is really an affordable way to go. Not to say that I don't love a pretty mold. But in the beginning, I used margarine tubs and all sorts of stuff that normally goes into my recycle bin.
 
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