What soapy thing have you done today?

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Zany, I keep saying, "Next time I am in California, I am going to Monterey Bay Spice Company."bAfter I retired from my hospital job, I worked for a few months in a clinic in Watsonville, but never noticed this company. Now I live 2000 miles away and want to go there just for tea and herbs!
Oh gosh, @Earlene, their herbal tea blends are WON-DER-FUL! I've tried quite a few. A wholesale customer had me adding them to Bath Salts for feet. Nice. I couldn't resist taste testing them -- without the salts of course.
 
Is this the link?
Omigosh, that's where I first read about SEB preventing rancidity in oils! Thank you!

by heating one ounce of slippery elm bark in a gallon of oil, we can prevent that oil from going rancid; seemingly indefinitely...

ETA: Nature's Garden has it, althought it doesn't specifically mention its antioxidant property, it's worth a read. Who knew? Certainly NOT me!
https://www.naturesgardencandles.com/slippery-elm-bark-class.html
Scroll down to "Bath and Body Products"

ETA: The price at Nature's Garden is $12 for 4 oz.
https://www.naturesgardencandles.com/slippery-elm-bark-powder.html
 
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@Zing - here you go:
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So the dark lye water didn't seem to effect the colour scheme i had planned, other than to make it a little duller. Here's a first though - this soap was a little crumbly along the bottom edge ( and you can see the 'crumble marks through the bar too - caused by cutting). I haven't had that for a very long time and I did gel this. maybe because i didn't use sodium lactate this time?
 
I'm just jealous you can get lychees. All I can ever get here are the canned ones - unless that's what you're talking about then carry on. One of the highlights of my china trips is I try to coordinate with lychee season so I can go to the market and have them. And mangosteens.

Not much soapy stuff here. I was down with the sickness (not covid, just a general bug) for the weekend. But I did have Friday off work so I made lotions that were mailed this morning for plate count testing. I bought a wax melt kit from hobby lobby to play with (but did not get to). I made some mp embeds but realized I couldn't use them in my vegan soap as the mp was GM base. I have everything sitting out to make soap, so I will do that tonight. Might play with making a video and editing it in a lame attempt to ressurrect my YT channel. I have accepted the fact that I do not have the time or ambition to edit my videos the way I would like them to be, and people will have to accept that or not watch them. I will however try to edit for the things that annoy me in other people's videos - mostly the noisy stickblender, hahaha - and endless yammering. Immajust make soap.
 
Bragging... we get them down here. Its the first time in my life that i have ever heard of them. Kind of a pita to peel though.
Lucky you! Save the peels! All this time I was thinking the peels might color soap, either soaked in lye solution, infused in oil, or possibly a tea concoction. Hmmm. 🤔
 
Excited for these two PTs. One is a snowflake in blues from NS that I’m in love with! Proud Peacock and Cornflower!!! Wow! The other one I’m going for a ghost look. Attempted to have just enough color to have design definition, but hopefully very light green, grey, purple, and white.
 

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Dustin and I made another balls soap... I had plenty of scraps from trimming and stuff, and used a bit of annatto infused oil to melt em down (hence the color). The balls are from tops of another soap I planed to remove bumps. Funny, we made 10, one for each bar and ended up putting only 7. I still can't find the 3 now haha
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It's all vegan so his dad has claimed these lol
 
Babies. Waiting for them to soften so I can cut. I get break through with the layers until the top half, and then they solidly sit on each other. Wondering if I let the batter thicken a few minutes if it’ll be too thick by the time I get to that second half.
 

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Babies. Waiting for them to soften so I can cut. I get break through with the layers until the top half, and then they solidly sit on each other. Wondering if I let the batter thicken a few minutes if it’ll be too thick by the time I get to that second half.
I had my husband cut my pvc molds down into shorter lengths for this reason (and others).

Started with 24”, then tried 18”, and now have 12” and 6”. Haven’t had a chance to try them yet but am hoping to give it a go next week.
 
@AliOop This set up has me putting batter all the way down. And as for the cut, the bottom ones actually look the best. So, I guess it’s layering ok after all. Now my color selection is a different story...

I may have finally learned my lesson that alternating contrasting colors s the best way to avoid mush. Oh well...
And my ghosty soap I was hoping for is ok, but my green clay had chunks. Bummer.
 

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@AliOop This set up has me putting batter all the way down. And as for the cut, the bottom ones actually look the best. So, I guess it’s layering ok after all. Now my color selection is a different story...

I may have finally learned my lesson that alternating contrasting colors s the best way to avoid mush. Oh well...
And my ghosty soap I was hoping for is ok, but my green clay had chunks. Bummer.
Those all look cool! I should clarify that part of the reason I wanted my molds shorter was to limit the difference in trace between what gets laid down at the bottom of the mold, vs what is poured at the top of the mold.

Shorter mold = less batter = less time for it to thicken as much while I’m going through the pour. I got the idea from watching the original lollipop swirl maker on YT. His mold was so short, and I realized that helped with having a more consistent trace, which means more consistent results from top to bottom. Hopefully that makes sense?
 

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