OMG!!!

[cwayneu]

Here's a message they need to get.

Here would be my suggestion for a message, being as polite as possible. :evil:

Lisa Bower's article called "How To Make Soap Without Lye" was nice, but misleading. Yes lye can be dangerous and you must take care with handling. However, you cannot make soap without lye. Lye produces a chemical reaction with the fats and oils in the soap formula called saponification. Without this process, all you have is a bowl full of fats and oils. Even Ivory soap is made with lye, so if you are melting existing soap down to make your own (called melt and pour), you may not be handling lye, but it still had its genesis from lye.

 

[Toady]

Oh the ignorance!!

I know it's an old thread but saves starting one of my own. Today I was saying on another forum that I make my own CP soaps (not glycerin!) and explaining to this person that lye disappears and isn't in the final soap and likened it to using baking soda in baking a cake... their reply "Last I heard ‘soda’ doesn’t eat away at your skin if you spill it on you though" Then asks about 'food grade lye' for making pretzels... is there even such a thing as food grade lye'!? :roll:

 

[TessC]

Yup, there is such a thing as food grade lye:

http://www.aaa-chemicals.com/sodium-hydroxide.html

It's used when making pretzels and curing olives, among other things.

 

[Maria]

I clicked on flag article and chose factually incorrect as the reason then told them why. If enough people do this, maybe they will pull it down.

 

[roadannii]

Great idea - I just flagged it too. They probably couldnt give a hoot but I couldnt just sit there and read it without getting angry. It just gives us soapmakers a bad rap.

 

[carebear]

lye is used in many foods. and in many other things - even toothpaste and eye drops (as a pH modifier).

people can be so stupid it makes me want to cry.

 

[Cuckoo Bananas]

Like care bear's siggie says..."You can't cure stupid". I flagged the article as well but really why bother, if someone is silly enough or gullible enough to take that info as gospel then let the be, there's more than enough sensible correct info out there to balance that out.

 

[cwayneu]

Re: Oh the ignorance!!

I know it's an old thread but saves starting one of my own. Today I was saying on another forum that I make my own CP soaps (not glycerin!) and explaining to this person that lye disappears and isn't in the final soap and likened it to using baking soda in baking a cake... their reply "Last I heard ‘soda’ doesn’t eat away at your skin if you spill it on you though" Then asks about 'food grade lye' for making pretzels... is there even such a thing as food grade lye'!? :roll:

The person you were dealing with obviously has no understanding of chemistry and/or molecules. Our wonderful water molecule is two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Before this molecule is formed, hydrogen and oxygen would be a very explosive environment, and yet we drink water, wash our face with it, and OMG use it to put out fires. Their argument makes no sense at all. Molecules formed after a chemical reaction often have completely different characteristics than their pre-reaction components.

 

[Toady]

I know cwayneu, just like sodium is an unstable explosive and chlorine is dangerous yet together they make salt! I don't care what others think, I love my soap making WITH the ever so OMG IT'S SOOO DANGEROUS lye

 

[cwayneu]

Yes, I just love CP and my evil lye.

 

[siobhan1011]

another article on the same site that says to use a wooden spoon for stirring!!!!
http://www.life123.com/hobbies/candles- ... soap.shtml

 

[younglivingmargo]

misleading article

As a newbie to the art of soap making I find this very irritating. At the moment alot of what I do is experimental because I'm still feeling my way and so to read something like this can waste alot of my ingredience because i trust what the article is saying and know no better.
It can be costly and time wasting.
Good on you for saying something. Hopefully in the future they will research the facts first.

Thanks,

Margo

 

[cwayneu]

another article on the same site that says to use a wooden spoon for stirring!!!!
http://www.life123.com/hobbies/candles- ... soap.shtml

I actually do not see an issue with the wooden spoon. I have used wood myself, although I prefer plastic or stainless steel. It is aluminum that is an issue, because it will react with lye.

I do see different issues. They do not make it clear that you use the 5 oz of distilled water with the lye mixture, and the 5 oz of plain water with the sugar, although I would use distilled for both. They do not mention to mix the lye into the water, and not the other way around (very dangerous). They also never give a clue about how much soap this will make, and therefore the soap mold size is completely ignored. Looks to me like this will produce about 2 3/4 pounds of soap, or about 7 to 8 bars.

So, not a very complete article to be putting out to the general public, although it looks like the recipe will work.

 

[debbism]

Their contact info is [email protected]

So maybe it is a good idea to advise them to either take down their soap making tutorials or at least edit and elaborate on them since the articles, as written, are misleading and some of the info or omitted info is rather dangerous.

Disturbing. Whenever I do craft shows I always explain the lye issue to at least 3 or 4 people as most non-soapers are not familiar with the chemistry of soap making.

 

[cwayneu]

Their contact info is [email protected]

So maybe it is a good idea to advise them to either take down their soap making tutorials or at least edit and elaborate on them since the articles, as written, are misleading and some of the info or omitted info is rather dangerous.

Disturbing. Whenever I do craft shows I always explain the lye issue to at least 3 or 4 people as most non-soapers are not familiar with the chemistry of soap making.

Good point. I will write them.

 

[cwayneu]

Their contact info is [email protected]

So maybe it is a good idea to advise them to either take down their soap making tutorials or at least edit and elaborate on them since the articles, as written, are misleading and some of the info or omitted info is rather dangerous.

Disturbing. Whenever I do craft shows I always explain the lye issue to at least 3 or 4 people as most non-soapers are not familiar with the chemistry of soap making.

Good point. I will write them.

UPDATE

I guess I won't contact them. The email address above, and about 10 others I tried, were all rejected. In fact there is no "contact us" information anywhere that I could find on the Life123 website. I guess they really do not want any feedback. ;-)

 

[JackiK]

Did anyone notice this thread began in 2009? If their information was that bad, they're probably not around anymore.

 

[cwayneu]

Did anyone notice this thread began in 2009? If their information was that bad, they're probably not around anymore.

Yes, but this article is still out there for people to stumble across, and the webpage has a 2012 copy right on it. Although there is no date on the article itself. The point was, if it is out there they should maintain it or take it down. However, there seems to be no way to contact them.

 

[Maythorn]

I think in this case writing them would have been a waste of time. You don't have to deal with lye with melt and pour soap and that's the gist, even if the wording was a little shifty. Maybe they would have reworded it upon being asked to and maybe not.

I've never had to argue the point about lye. A couple of people have asked me if it's really necessary and I say yes, or soap wouldn't be soap it would just be fat and fragrance, a lotion bar pretty much.

 

[carebear]

another article on the same site that says to use a wooden spoon for stirring!!!!
http://www.life123.com/hobbies/candles- ... soap.shtml

I actually do not see an issue with the wooden spoon. I have used wood myself, although I prefer plastic or stainless steel. It is aluminum that is an issue, because it will react with lye.

Wood isn't a big deal except that it degrades fairly quickly and you can end up with soft splinters in your soap. And of course it's porous so you could have residual lye and/or oils (especially fragrance oils). I have used them but they become worthless quickly.