What soapy thing have you done today?

[SweetBubbleTreat]

I made 3 pounds of soap....all poured in little molds ... . and cleaned my soapy cabinet.

 

[amd]

Christmas came early! Or late if you're a pessimist. Lol. My Mad Oils, ED, and WSP orders all came today! (And doTerra, but that's non soap related.) Oh the loverly loverly projects I will do! Hmmm.... I feel a tickle in my throat.... I better take a sick day...

 

[amd]

With picture.... (One of these days I will figure out that the arrow = post and does not equal "go to picture gallery"...)

 

[snappyllama]

My WSP order came today. It's mainly just a resupply of various containers and dry ingredients. I did snag a few of their bath teas to play with. I'm most excited about my freebie FO - I randomly picked the first one on the list. Pink Berry Mimosa - it's tart and such a nice change from all my fall/winter heavy and sweet scents that I've been making for months.

 

[roseb]

Packaged 12 lbs of soap. Getting ready for an event this weekend. Still have another 32 lbs. to package, sugar scrubs and lotion bars to make. It's going to be a very busy week.

 

[Steve85569]

June, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm happy you are able to join this months challenge and get back to soaping.

If you have any leftover bar Castile soap, it makes great bait for mousetraps. I imagine it would work just as well for larger rodents, too. We are in the woods and have lots of miceys.

Peanut butter works like a charm too. And my cats don't like to play with it.

 

[JuneP]

June, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm happy you are able to join this months challenge and get back to soaping.

If you have any leftover bar Castile soap, it makes great bait for mousetraps. I imagine it would work just as well for larger rodents, too. We are in the woods and have lots of miceys.

Thank you. It felt good to make a soap even if it didn't out as expected; but I like my idea of it, just have to get the soap thicker next time so it doesn't leak out of the separator.

Thanks for the castile tip. I do have a bar, so I'll check the traps tomorrow and see if they liked the peanut butter. My mother used to use little bits of raw bacon; but I've never heard of soap.

Those little buggers chewed into a box of corn bread mix and ate the entire contents - same for a whole box of panko crumbs and several boxes of soup and soup stock, as well as a big box of rice dream. They even chewed through a box of ziti pasta.

I've since moved all boxed and bagged foods into heavy duty rubber maid storage container; and all that I left out in the open is jars, cans, bottles and paper goods.

 

[traderbren]

Peanut butter works like a charm too. And my cats don't like to play with it.

Peanut butter doesn't usually work for us. But we also had to switch to the electronic traps since my dumb kitty is nosy and sets off (or traps herself in) regular traps, and then gets the glue traps stuck to her feet at 4 AM chasing a mouse through the basement.

Today I will be stalking tracking and hoping black mica and titanium dioxide show up so I can make my b&w attempt #2. I only have enough lye and lard left for one batch, and I'm putting off going to Walmart for lard, and the hardware store for lye. I'm doing a self-challenge of using local supplies for a while, at least until I whittle down my FO stash.

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Early this morning I made HP soap, because I had a lemon-and-ginger oil I whipped up last week using lemon essential oil (not folded, can`t get a hold of it without paying $50 in shipping), some fine lemonzest from 1 lemon, and fresh, ground up ginger. Didn`t want the lovely lemon to disapear on me.

The oil was mixed together last week, so it smelled absolutely devine.
The water from the ginger + lemonzest & the gingerfiber separated in the jar and settled nicely on the bottom. That made it easy to use a syringe and suck up the lemon oil on top. I used the ginger-juice as a part of my lye-sollution, after squeesing the living daylight out of the mix with a cheesecloth, as I didn`t want the fibre to be in the soap (will try that next time though, just to see how it feels. Anyone tried it??)

The scent of the soap felt like Ms. Lemon plays her harp in the background, and Madam Ginger adds soft tones to the composition, even though I didn`t go overboard. The smell is fresh and soft and spicy. Really, really pleased, will use that combo again for sure!
Well see how it lingers after 8 weeks though, as I feel 4-6 weeks on HP isn`t nearly enough.
Either way, I used a mix of lard, coconut and castor (80/15/5) so I know it will be lovely soap.
Have taken pictures with my phone if there is any interest.

 

[traderbren]

Not soapy but waxy: My youngest has preschool for only 2 hours this morning, so not enough time to get into much but I made some firestarters. Bathroom Dixie cups, a little pine shavings, and candle wax. These work better than anything else we've tried, and they are super cheap for me since I already have the wax and pine shavings.

 

[dibbles]

Sent my first donation to Clean the World :mrgreen:

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Here is what I made early this morning. Lemon & Ginger HP soap, with CP embeds I made a couple of weeks ago, finally came to some use (details in my earlier post about the additives, page 388 )

 

[Deedles]

Picked up a 4lb bucket of Amour brand lard at Wally World this morning. If read several places here that lard is slow tracing, plus I've been wanting to try it since lots say it's a favorite. The AC I ordered should be here tomorrow so hopefully I'll be making my challenge soap soon.

 

[handavaka]

I made a Batch of shampoo bars...this one by request, with an Herb-y EO blend.

 

[JuneP]

Got my January challenge soap trimmed and photographed, and worked on the figures for master batching and will continue with that after breakfast. I also tried creating a label before bedtime but was too bleary eyed and tired to figure it out. :-(

Now that I have my master recipe where I want it, I will try to give more time to the label design. Last time I went into the Avery free software, they had removed some of the design elements i had chose on my in process design, so I may have to start all over again.

 

[amd]

Took the plunge and bought shrink wrap equipment (heat gun, shrink bags, and trimmer). Working on redesigning a label for the shrink wrap and to include correctly listing ingredients. Per this forum, a source I had previously referred to was not correct, so I have been doing it wrong. Live and learn - and make it right going forward. Last night I also fixed my cutting guide to cut 1/4" thinner bars (so going from 1.5" to 1.25" thick), as a few female customers commented that the bars were clumsy for their smaller hands. When I polled the guys, they were ok with the chunk bars, but I do sell more to women so adjusting thickness and cost accordingly might be in my best interest. Will see how the thinner bars go over and if I need to adjust further. Still dreaming of my black and white soap, hoping to get a bubble gum scented batch that my niece is dying for, and crack out a shaving soap, but won't start those until Saturday night/Sunday afternoon. And Then will need to masterbatch another bucket or two of oils again. Have I mentioned how much I love masterbatching oils?? love.

 

[shunt2011]

Getting ready for another soapy marathon and need to re-organize my soaping supply/curing storage bedroom.

Also need to start working on my re-branding plan.

Wish my real job didn't get in my soapy fun

AMD you will love the sealer. I got one a few months ago and it's awesome.

 

[MsHarryWinston]

Made my second batch of soap. Also made a DIY soap mold out of an empty ziplock baggy box. It's the PERFECT size for my small batching while I learn. 7x3x2.5"

 

[galaxyMLP]

Made some -15 SF soap with excess water and used canola oil today. I'm trying to consolidate my ingredients for my move so I used up all my coconut oil (don't typically use it in my soaps) and 1/2 my donated used canola oil batch. I used A LOT of water and this batch was HUGE! It took about 25 minutes of stick blending to get it to trace. After I added my colors and got in a few more bursts of SB'ing, my stick blender died... Oops!

Good thing I was gifted one for the holidays. I knew it was probably going to go soon. I've had it for 3.5 years!! I'll be getting myself the same one.

Here is a picture of the soap in the big mold:



I scented it with NG cool citrus basil. I've also got 3 cupcake bottoms, 6 Star of David, and 12 mini heart cavities filled. This was in total, 135 oz of soap!!

This soap will cure for a minimum of 4 months before going into anyone's hands but mine.

 

[MsHarryWinston]

That looks absolutely beautiful!