What soapy thing have you done today?

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The rest of what I already ordered ... before deciding no more spending until I'm back at work and see my March 1 check ... came today. White Kaolin clay, stearic acid (yikes, can't believe i'm going there), glycerin, activated charcoal, meadowfoam seed oil. So, I should be ready for my first LS batch, but not feeling too motivated today. That probably means that I'm not mentally ready for trying a new soaping technique, and things usually go badly if I force myself into something when not really in the mood. Plus, cabin fever, snowed today and quite cold (I haven't been leaving the house much for 3 weeks anyway) -- plus my mood is never great when I feel broke. :(

I hear you on the stuck in the house thing. Our snow blower stopped working and with all the snow we've had that was a pain. Hubby shovelled only enough to get his car out of the driveway, but didn't shovel a path from the garage door to the clear part of the driveway. So for at least 2 or 3 weeks I felt like I was a prisoner in my own home. I am beyond the age and motivation to walk a mile in the snow to go grocery shopping. I used to do it a few years ago, but just don't feel like doing that anymore. Finally he got the snow blower working when I started posting about it on FB and tossing out hints that I was tired of being a prisoner here and started hinting I'd be taking his car to the grocery store before he goes to work in the mornings.
 
I hear you on the stuck in the house thing. Our snow blower stopped working and with all the snow we've had that was a pain. Hubby shovelled only enough to get his car out of the driveway, but didn't shovel a path from the garage door to the clear part of the driveway. So for at least 2 or 3 weeks I felt like I was a prisoner in my own home. I am beyond the age and motivation to walk a mile in the snow to go grocery shopping. I used to do it a few years ago, but just don't feel like doing that anymore. Finally he got the snow blower working when I started posting about it on FB and tossing out hints that I was tired of being a prisoner here and started hinting I'd be taking his car to the grocery store before he goes to work in the mornings.

Ahh, so there's Some value to FB after all!?!! :D

This was the idea... Needless to say it wasn't what I managed to do lol but I'll try again.

So much bad advice on videos, even people we think 'should know'!!

"It doesn't really matter whether you pour lye into oil, or oil into lye, at this point..."

At WHAT point, dude?? YES it does matter -- lye goes into oil, not vice versa!!! Grrrrrr
 
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I did! I do.. Unfortunately not all of the tops look remotely like yours lol but here's another one that's not too bad. Oh btw these were made in a lined cardboard slab mold that contained donuts several hours before lol and I tried a corner pour.
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You can see blue mica spots. I thought I had mixed them well enough in a bit of oil before mixing in the soap and I sti got them. Took my lovely emulsion straight to thick trace just trying to mix colors.
These are GORGEOUS! The colours are very pretty.
 
I made two soaps last night because church was canceled. One was an ombre soap with dot embeds that I had meant to do for the Jan challenge. I didn't gel it so it wasn't willing to come unglued from the mold at lunch. I probably should have gelled it so the new soap would stick to the old soap embeds better. I forgot to do it - I had just finished the second soap when hubby came home with dinner so I ran upstairs quick to eat but never made it back down to the soap dungeon to wrap everything up. Second soap was a test batch of BCN's Lemongrass FO and a run through of the Farm Show demonstration that I'm doing.

Tonight will be doing dishes and possibly doing some cleaning. I have far too much crap in my soap lab.
 
I just had my first soaping mishap. I made a recipe using beef tallow that I rendered. 60% tallow, 15%CO, 5%Castor, 10%AO and 10%OO. I was soaping at 120F, with the lye water the same temp. As soon as the lye hit the oils it started what I can only think was false trace. It formed a ball of glop immediately. I tried mixing it some more, but it was like thick pudding. I hadn't added any eo or colorants yet. I managed to separate the batch, color one half and add eo to both. It was a total glop-fest. And it smelled like the tallow, which I don't like. I will report back to say if this mess ever solidifies properly or not. Sigh.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'll admit that I didn't know what to do. I've since read that if I kept stirring it would have thinned out. I stirred a bit, so hopefully that was enough to get the reaction going.
 
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I just had my first soaping mishap.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'll admit that I didn't know what to do. I've since read that if I kept stirring it would have thinned out. I stirred a bit, so hopefully that was enough to get the reaction going.

Hi Martha, you might want to start a thread on this, either in Beginners or The Lye Forum, whichever you feel is appropriate, because it likely will not get much attention here. I've been told by one of the long-time people (or maybe it was an admin) that people only read What Soapy Things Have You Done Today when they have a lot of extra time.
 
Everything about the soap I made is cracking me up with its beefy-ness.
1. It's made from and still smells like tallow. Albeit peppermint beef.
2. It looks like a marbled steak, so I've joined the hamburger soap club.
3. If you look at the two soaps on the bottom, they even look like cows facing each other.

I figured that while I was struggling with getting the glop in the mold yesterday, I might as well add a line of blue mica between the colors to see if I could make it look like veining in stone. Ha ha. It just looks like cow hooves. Hope this ridiculous soap makes someone smile today.
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haha I see the cows and the raw meat!!!! interesting look--I wonder if I would have thought it looked like beef it it hadn't been pointed out?
 
Martha, I love these!! I'll trade you my meat soap for these, yours are much prettier!
The cows made me laugh for 3 minutes (a hootin' and a cacklin'). You couldn't do that again if you tried!!! (That's what I always think when something unexpected and cool happens.)
You even got the legs and hooves!! Hysterical!
 
Martha, I love these!! I'll trade you my meat soap for these, yours are much prettier!
The cows made me laugh for 3 minutes (a hootin' and a cacklin'). You couldn't do that again if you tried!!! (That's what I always think when something unexpected and cool happens.)
You even got the legs and hooves!! Hysterical!

Looks like Japanese wagyu beef, which costs around $150/pound. Soo...I just made a super fancy beef soap. Moo.beef.jpeg
 
Made soap yesterday, but I can't show it to you yet ... shhhhhhhhh. It's my "one and done" for the Feb Challenge. I think i like it. My HP behaved a little badly (I think I just don't know how to do it that well yet -- I think I still need more water or something), so I didn't get to do Exactly what was planned ... but I struggled through it and managed to attain "close enough." I think it will be good enough. So there! Last soap for a while until I get off my hind end and make the LS.
 
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