What soapy thing have you done today?

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Finally made my pine tar soap! It went fairly well although fast! Of course, I haven't unmolded yet so we'll see how well it actually turned out. I suspect I have some air holes. Note to self for next time: Stop stirring about 30 seconds sooner. I might have panicked a bit when it started to go into gel phase in the bowl as I was trying to get soap in the mold. I have never experienced that! I did add DB FO to this batch, it's for personal use so I figured I should make it the way I want it. @snappyllama was kind enough to share her recipe with me and gave me such a great step by step that I felt quite confident that it would turn out - even though I did stray just slightly from the recipe she gave.

Tonight will be washing the dishes I was supposed to wash two weeks ago. I am officially out of clean soapmaking dishes. I will probably tackle cream soap this weekend, I don't think I'll have enough time in the evening to do it. Daughter is wanting to finish our Harry Potter Marathon (I don't know what I'm going to do when we get to the last two movies, I have never watched them. I couldn't do it after reading the book. How am I going to get out of this?), and I have other things going on this week... including cleaning house for Thanksgiving next week. We're having both mine and Chris' family over for dinner. It's going to be chaos.
 
So i made my first beef tallow bar @ 60% for tallow 28% castor oil and 12% OO.Dual lye recipe 20%Koh and 80%naoh.......yes i am supper excited..It was super hard.... But it seems i burn my tallow a bit.How am i supposed to melt it properly.?Do i put water in the crock pot before putting my talliw to melt or i just put only the talow in the slow cocker to melt alone?Thank you
 
Kafayat Adebowale oyeniyi said:
So i made my first beef tallow bar @ 60% for tallow 28% castor oil and 12% OO.Dual lye recipe 20%Koh and 80%naoh.......yes i am supper excited..It was super hard.... But it seems i burn my tallow a bit.How am i supposed to melt it properly.?Do i put water in the crock pot before putting my talliw to melt or i just put only the talow in the slow cocker to melt alone?Thank you
Click to expand...

Doing HP I add my hard solid oils first to melt then add liquid oils. Hard to burn them in a crockpot though. Also, using 28% Castor can make a smooshy bar of soap. You don't need to use it at more than 5-7%. It stabilizes lather but doesn't add lather or bubbles. Coconut oil would be a good addition for more lather.
 
Depends on your crockpot. Mine burn on the outer edges all the time, as they are both quite old.

For melting hard oils, I prefer to pre-melt in a container that sits inside a hot bath (in a bucket/tub inside the kitchen sink), filling the outer container full of hot tap water. As that cools down, I replace it with more hot water. If your tap water isn't hot enough, boil some water in a pan and pour that hot water into the sink to mix with your hot tap water and let sit to melt.

Sometimes I do microwave the hard oils to get the melt started, using 15 second bursts on the Defrost setting so as not to overheat the oils. Then stir and repeat the heat on Defrost at short intervals. Some microwave ovens have very high power and burning the oils can happen fast at full power, which is why I use the Lowered Power settings (or Defrost).

If I'm doing HP, I add my soft oils first and then my hard oils. But I never use as much hard oils as you did, so I'd probably turn the crockpot OFF when it started melting and just use my InfaRed Thermometer to help me know how hot or warm the bottom and side surfaces of my crock were getting before turning it on again. But that's because my crockpot gets pretty darn hot to begin with. Even on low, it can burn.
 
Today I made a loaf of Orange Satsuma (4 color drop swirl) and a loaf of Cranberry Currant (4 color spoon swirl). I love the way the top of the Cranberry Currant turned out.
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I've been getting ready for tomorrow's Christmas market... wrapping, packaging, labelling, hunting for Christmas decorations... and trying to get my two guys (husband and grandson) out the door and out of my hair! It's now pushing 1 p.m. and they've finally gone. LOL Now, I'm having some lunch before shrink wrapping steamer.
 
This morning I cut the soaps I made yesterday. They smell wonderful but I'm a little disappointed in my oranges. The orange satsuma is supposed to be 3 shades of orange and a yellow. All of the micas were from Nurture's
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except for the red I used in the cranberry currant. The cranberry currant is supposed to be red with purple, orange and white accents. I can only see the orange in a end piece and a little on the tops.
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Oh boy do these smell GOOD!!! LOL, I can't seem to stop walking by to sniff them.
 
Just made a batch of coffee soap smells awesome but the fo accelerated trace big time and it got far too thick and lumpy. prob going to have to throw this one. im going to try again tomorrow and i might leave out the beeswax as that can accerate trace too right? after iv done some painting for a friend suppose i better get the dishwasher on before i go bed
 
Made a bar batch with my new SF technique...accidently overpouring oils. I never could hit the mark. Now I dont have to.
 
Wow Terri that rose soap is stunning! I woke with a migraine today so I just played around on soap calc and finally printed out 2 recipes to weigh out tomorrow and hopefully actually soap on Tuesday. I also read up on kaolin clay and found some really good info on old threads. Kids are off school so I have to break tasks down. It's really fun when I have a few batches weighed and ready and all I have to do is the fun part.
 
@Carolyne Thrasher please could you send me the links to the thread about clays my last try with clay was a massive disaster even though i researched it and did it how i read.

im going to either rebatch my coffee soap i messed up last night or make another batch sometime today.

Terri do you sell your soaps? They look amazing
 
Chris_S said:
@Carolyne Thrasher please could you send me the links to the thread about clays my last try with clay was a massive disaster even though i researched it and did it how i read.

im going to either rebatch my coffee soap i messed up last night or make another batch sometime today.

Terri do you sell your soaps? They look amazing
Click to expand...

Hi Chris, Here’s a thread link https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/kaolin-white-clay-in-cold-process-soap.64124/ I also found helpful info on modern soapmaking and soap queen blogs. I’m not sure what your experience working with clay was but it definitely absorbs water so you can premix it with an equal part water and/or make sure your water to oil ratio isn’t low. I think a lot of soapers blend it into the oils before adding the lye mix. And it looks like most are adding 1 T per pound of oil.
 
I received in the mail three new soap moulds - a set of ovals, a set of squares and a set of little floral designs. Oh - and a stamp that says 'handmade'.
I also poked at my second ever batch of soap which is still sitting in the moulds waiting to harden before I turn it out. I made a newbie mistake of using too much castor oil, so it may end up on the bin - or in my closet for the next 3 years waiting for it to harden.
Terri - is it wrong that I want to eat your turtle soap? It looks delicious! (Not the turtle, but the soap it's sitting on) Nom Nom.:p
 
Carolyne Thrasher said:
Wow Terri that rose soap is stunning! I woke with a migraine today so I just played around on soap calc and finally printed out 2 recipes to weigh out tomorrow and hopefully actually soap on Tuesday. I also read up on kaolin clay and found some really good info on old threads. Kids are off school so I have to break tasks down. It's really fun when I have a few batches weighed and ready and all I have to do is the fun part.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much Carolyne
 

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