What soapy thing have you done today?

[Jersey Girl]

I realized a couple days ago that I totally missed my one year Soapaversary! I made my first batch of CP soap on January 31st of 2020. As we all know, 2020 turned out to be a crazy year and I am so happy to have immersed myself in all things soap as it has helped me get through a difficult time. The first picture is of my first week‘s creations. Second picture is one month later. I had been bitten by the soaping bug bad! I’ve come a long way in this journey and I give so much credit to the members here for sharing their knowledge and their friendship. Thank you all.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@Jersey Girl look at the Taiwan Swirls, in your first month no less! You’re a natural. Congratulations on the soap-aversary.

A friend at work stopped me in the hall today to tell me how much her grandkids love washing their hands when they come to visit her. I’ve given her a bunch of soap, and apparently the little ones are totally fascinated by a solid bar that makes bubbles with water.

I’m spending some time this month making confetti soap, including some in “exotic” (for me) color combinations. I just finished a batch that went into the mold I bought for the TC challenge. I used 1 divider, put confetti in 2/3 of the mold and batter without confetti in 1/3. I feel so clever, especially if I end up with a reasonably straight line between the layers.

 

[Vicki C]

@Jersey Girl

I’m spending some time this month making confetti soap, including some in “exotic” (for me) color combinations. I just finished a batch that went into the mold I bought for the TC challenge. I used 1 divider, put confetti in 2/3 of the mold and batter without confetti in 1/3. I feel so clever, especially if I end up with a reasonably straight line between the layers.

Can’t wait to see it! Am planning to make confetti soap myself...

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Your soap is beautiful' Happy SoapAnniversary...

Wanted to try out some new fragrance and mica so made a couple more shampoo and conditioner bars! Lol! The mica is Material Girl and fragrance is Persephone’s Kiss, both from Nurture Soap, love them both!

I’m twiddling my thumbs waiting for my WSP order I placed the 14th and it’s still not shipped...

Thinking about trying a rimmed round soap. I might try the kiss pour for the rimmed soap... shouldn’t be too hard!! Lol! Not!

I just need my order to get here!!!
View attachment 54482

Beautiful color' I just received this color from NS & I made soap using Persephone's Kiss NS for the first time, its a soft floral scent, I wish it was a little stronger.

 

[KimW]

I realized a couple days ago that I totally missed my one year Soapaversary! I made my first batch of CP soap on January 31st of 2020.

Happy Soapaversary!!

 

[Sudds]

I am in heaven. Received all my micas from Mad Micas today! Oh My, I want to sprinkle a little of each one on the floor and roll in them all! Yes, I know I am a little weird! They are so beauteous! Now to figure out how and where I am going to store them. I wish I could find a vertical spice rack!

 

[TashaBird]

Wanted to try out some new fragrance and mica so made a couple more shampoo and conditioner bars! Lol! The mica is Material Girl and fragrance is Persephone’s Kiss, both from Nurture Soap, love them both!

I’m twiddling my thumbs waiting for my WSP order I placed the 14th and it’s still not shipped...

Thinking about trying a rimmed round soap. I might try the kiss pour for the rimmed soap... shouldn’t be too hard!! Lol! Not!

I just need my order to get here!!!
View attachment 54482

Those are two of my fave NS products!

Happy Soapaversaary @Jersey Girl!
Today started out with a complete soap DOH! disaster. I sprained my wrist muscles trying to save it, then I gave up. When my favorite coping mechanism goes wrong, it can put me in a tail spin. But, I did a bunch of cleaning, and planning how to fix the soap DOH! issue in the future.
Finally I got around to making some soap with my new extruder discs. The bit of soap dough that I had on hand did not work with any of the designs I had planned. I wound up going totally rogue! It was very in the moment, not much of a plan, and it was super fun! It could be a awful, or awesome, either way, it was good therapy. #soapingiscoping
Also, figured a hack for using my regular size extrud3er discs with my new giant extruder and discs.
One fill of the chamber got me 4 lengths of my 18” mold! More embeds, less pumping!

 

[Jersey Girl]

@Jersey Girl look at the Taiwan Swirls, in your first month no less! You’re a natural. Congratulations on the soap-aversary.

A friend at work stopped me in the hall today to tell me how much her grandkids love washing their hands when they come to visit her. I’ve given her a bunch of soap, and apparently the little ones are totally fascinated by a solid bar that makes bubbles with water.

I’m spending some time this month making confetti soap, including some in “exotic” (for me) color combinations. I just finished a batch that went into the mold I bought for the TC challenge. I used 1 divider, put confetti in 2/3 of the mold and batter without confetti in 1/3. I feel so clever, especially if I end up with a reasonably straight line between the layers.

I am in heaven. Received all my micas from Mad Micas today! Oh My, I want to sprinkle a little of each one on the floor and roll in them all! Yes, I know I am a little weird! They are so beauteous! Now to figure out how and where I am going to store them. I wish I could find a vertical spice rack!

I love Mad Micas

Beautiful color' I just received this color from NS & I made soap using Persephone's Kiss NS for the first time, its a soft floral scent, I wish it was a little stronger.

I love Persephone’s Kiss. It’s a lovely feminine scent that sticks well.

 

[TashaBird]

I love Persephone’s Kiss. It’s a lovely feminine scent that sticks well.

I was using that FO tonight and didn’t have enough so I mixed some litsea EO with it. It smelled different, but also nice!

 

[violets2217]

Those are two of my fave NS products!

I also got the Frangipani Jasmine... it’s really sweet and I’m hoping it calms down a bit in the soap! And I got a SMALL (it’s really expensive!) bottle of Oudh wood! I absolutely love it and am saving it for something special! I’m quite enamored with Nurture Soap right now!

Beautiful color' I just received this color from NS & I made soap using Persephone's Kiss NS for the first time, its a soft floral scent, I wish it was a little stronger.

It was pretty strong in the shampoo and conditioner bars @ 1.5%... but I’ve not tried it in soap yet! Their micas are powerful! The shampoo bar sudds up a pretty pink, so the 1/4 teaspoon I used was maybe too much... but it’s a beautiful color!

 

[rdc1978]

@Jersey Girl look at the Taiwan Swirls, in your first month no less! You’re a natural. Congratulations on the soap-aversary.

A friend at work stopped me in the hall today to tell me how much her grandkids love washing their hands when they come to visit her. I’ve given her a bunch of soap, and apparently the little ones are totally fascinated by a solid bar that makes bubbles with water.

I’m spending some time this month making confetti soap, including some in “exotic” (for me) color combinations. I just finished a batch that went into the mold I bought for the TC challenge. I used 1 divider, put confetti in 2/3 of the mold and batter without confetti in 1/3. I feel so clever, especially if I end up with a reasonably straight line between the layers.

My friend's five year old was on Zoom saying that her family "only uses handmade soap"

My friend is concerned that everyone thinks they are snobs now. LOL.

 

[Basil]

@linne1gi we are in Idaho. Due to lower housing costs, low regulation, and low cost of living (not to mention beautiful scenery and outdoor recreation), people are moving into this state like crazy. Lots of Californian are cashing out and migrating here to escape the taxes. They are bringing lots of cash, and that drives the prices up so fast.

It's sad, because wages here haven't caught up, and many folks who have lived here for a long time can no longer afford to buy anything. I'm very thankful we bought when we did.

Congratulations on your move! I’m sorry about your chickens , I understand. But so nice they’re going to a good home. Same thing is happening here as well. Long timers are having trouble affording to buy and moving to other states. Our daughter and husband left to Kansas for that reason . He’s a fireman. That’s the sad part, you’re right. Altho it has helped others who’ve been here a long time just like you. It’ll be fun to hear how soaping goes in your new home!

Same here, except the fixers are going for $400k - small lots with HOA, too. Just nuts.

Ditto here!

 

[GemstonePony]

Waiting for voting results, and holding off on additional soaping until the next challenge comes out. Meanwhile, I've made a hair conditioner bar, my first foray into e-wax with an emulsified body butter (thick, creamy lotion), some lotion bars(that aren't lotion) that I'm trying some new ingredients in, and I've got phase 1 of a lotion warming on the stove. Still waiting on a delivery before starting lip balms, and bath bombs are also on the docket. Ah, the weekend!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Yesterday I Created This Raw "Potato Juice" Soap. It's natural in color' FO used NG Banana nut bread, Maple Walnut Fudge & BB Pumpkin Soufflé, The scent smells a bit strange but in a good way' smells like yeast bread & little pungent. bawhaha all FO behaved well maybe slight discoloration. The soap has a soft creamy conditioning feel which I would contribute that to the PJ though I only used 2oz I could tell in the soap batter as I was mixing' it felt & looked more creamy then other soaps iv'e made as of late. Can't wait for a month to cure i'll see more of the soaps true characteristics. Happy soaping

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best. The green soap has a bit more, maybe 25% of total batch weight and seems “overcrowded”. I think a higher proportion of smaller chunks would work better at 25% confetti. The one on the right is my “exotic” color scheme and was layered using my new mold with one divider. I‘m happy enough with the layering, the proportions and the size of the confetti, but I’m not sure what I think about the contrasting colors. All of this confetti is from different parts of my first wrecked ring attempt.

ETA: I forgot to mention that all of these soaps were made at 40% lye concentration and using a lard (50%) based recipe, with the “melted” oils in the high 70F range and the lye water a bit cooler. Even though the oils were not clear when I added the lye water, there are no stearic spots apparent. BUT, the lard and CO were melted clear before I added the liquid oils - RBO and/or OO and/or HO sunflower. I avoided castor so as not to push my luck. I got bold enough to try BB’s Grapefruit Lily, a notorious accelerator, in the grey soap and had no acceleration. In comparison, I haven’t been able to produce similar results when I start my palm-based recipe with the oils below 95F or my soy wax-based recipe below 120F.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best. The green soap has a bit more, maybe 25% of total batch weight and seems “overcrowded”. I think a higher proportion of smaller chunks would work better at 25% confetti. The one on the right is my “exotic” color scheme and was layered using my new mold with one divider. I‘m happy enough with the layering, the proportions and the size of the confetti, but I’m not sure what I think about the contrasting colors. All of this confetti is from different parts of my first wrecked ring attempt.

View attachment 54510

Beautiful As usual!

 

[KimW]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best.

Ohhhhh - pretty. I like the grey one the best too!

 

[AliOop]

@Jersey Girl we are so glad you are here and sharing your beautiful creations with us -- even though it means that one of the three winning spots on the SMF Challenge is pretty much taken each month.

@Mobjack Bay wowsers! Those all look great. I love the idea of using the divider mold to create straight layers that can go either direction.

 

[Tara_H]

Today I made some hilariously ugly soap...

I was trying to do a Lazy Susan swirl, but two of the colours ended up getting thicker too fast, so I have some very unfortunate brown lumpy bits in it. It's in the oven now at a super low temperature; I was hoping that it might melt and spread out a little bit but that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm kind of disappointed since I really liked the EO mix for the scent: patchouli, bergamot, lemongrass and a hint of cinnamon. I think I'll call the fragrance 'spice market'. Don't know what I'm going to do with this clown vomit though.


I also read through about half of the Soaping 101 liquid soapmaking video? thread last night and decided to give it a go, so I've spent a lot of today fretting and diluting, but I think I'm going to end up with exactly what I wanted, so that's a nice surprise! (documented at the end of that thread, for the curious)

 

[violets2217]

Here are some results from my experiments changing confetti proportions and size, as well as color schemes. I like the grey one where the confetti is 15% of the total batch weight the best. The green soap has a bit more, maybe 25% of total batch weight and seems “overcrowded”. I think a higher proportion of smaller chunks would work better at 25% confetti. The one on the right is my “exotic” color scheme and was layered using my new mold with one divider. I‘m happy enough with the layering, the proportions and the size of the confetti, but I’m not sure what I think about the contrasting colors. All of this confetti is from different parts of my first wrecked ring attempt.

View attachment 54510

ETA: I forgot to mention that all of these soaps were made at 40% lye concentration and using a lard (50%) based recipe, with the “melted” oils in the high 70F range and the lye water a bit cooler. Even though the oils were not clear when I added the lye water, there are no stearic spots apparent. BUT, the lard and CO were melted clear before I added the liquid oils - RBO and/or OO and/or HO sunflower. I avoided castor so as not to push my luck. I got bold enough to try BB’s Grapefruit Lily, a notorious accelerator, in the grey soap and had no acceleration. In comparison, I haven’t been able to produce similar results when I start my palm-based recipe with the oils below 95F or my soy wax-based recipe below 120F.

These are all beautiful! The Grey bar is may favorite though!