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This is a story of sorts. It should give hesitant noobs and others great hope in their soaping endeavors. The pros here not so much. They might get a chuckle here and there and remember doing similar things when beginning but are more serious now that making money is involved.
My first batch in my cheap silicone log molds is complete. Rather than believe the capacity specs provided by Amazon in their product description I took my own measurements for oil capacity calculation. Now, admittedly I do not get terribly hung up on close tolerances. I'm a ball park kinda guy and it generally works out ok. My guesstimate came out to 33oz/mold. As there are two I weighed up 66oz of water in my mixing bowl to be relatively sure of my capacity. With a couple inches left at the top I felt pretty good about my chances of not making a mess. Moving along I weighed up the WalMart olive oil, WalMart shortening, coconut oil I found at WalMart and the almond oil from a 7lb bottle from Soaper's Choice lost in the back of the garage fridge. It's probably been in there for several years. Only a few ounces had been used before and it was forgotten as it was behind the stash of many gallons of milk kept there for the kids who are now not kids but young adults. When will they move out? Back to soaping. The colorant was a beautiful blue from BB. FO was Sex On The Beach from CandleScience. It was found in the back of a cabinet and was probably 5 or 6 years old. I don't know why I bought it but maybe it reminded me of those days at the beach bar and shots with the same name. Don't want to do that again! Adding the FO gave the batter a distinctive orange tint. Immediately there was this nagging thought that maybe colorant should not be added. It was a nice orange but the color was mixed and ready. Dumped it into the batter and of course it resulted in the most hideous dark green you've ever seen. When trace finally developed the pour went to the top of both molds. Filled em up all the way. My ball park measurements were good! Into the oven and the green became even uglier. Fast forward to the great unveiling the next night. Almost blue. Removal was a breeze. I'm not sure I like the size of the mold as it is deeper than it is wide. I'll adjust. Here's pic of the result. I am not unhappy with the batch, just not overjoyed. Will give it a try after several weeks and see how I like it.
Note: I did wear complete coverage safety glasses the entire time. I'm not rule of thumb about that. I was barefoot as the cat wouldn't get off my flip flops.
The molds are only $9 shipped with prime. Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DMFNLPP/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
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Busted! I really did forget an awful lot but it's coming back to me and the soap is really piling up again. (Sigh) :( The neighbors will love it.
Looked at your link to the mould you bought Dennis - says doesn't ship to Australia :mad:.
 
Looked at your link to the mould you bought Dennis - says doesn't ship to Australia :mad:.
uhoh. I'm sorry. :oops: :(

I found this on AliExpress. A little more expensive but they have a ton of vendors with the same product or similar with varying prices. I switched shipping to Australia/AUD before copying. Other than the time it takes it hasn't been bad. I've ordered a few things from them. They prove the old "slow boat to China" adage. I ordered a 750 lumen headlight for my touring bike when they first came out. $65US here, $9US on their site. Took 30 days to get here.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Fle...1a016ad&transAbTest=ae803_1&priceBeautifyAB=0
 
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Thanks for that, dh gets a lot from there and sometimes gets here in week, not so slow to Oz. When I looked at it, it still comes up in US dollars, so will have to add about 30% to that as the Aus dollar is running at 72 cents to the US rate. I'll have a look when I get time for some others selling the same product.
 
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You're right. I looked at the link and it had switched back to US$. At the right side top of the page where it says "Ship to" there are drop down menus for country and currency. At any rate when I changed it showed AU $16.38 total including shipping.
 
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