What soapy thing have you done today?

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I'm experimenting with salt bars. Today I made two batches. One had 100% salt and the other 75% in terms of percentage to coconut oil. My next covid inspired day off work, I'll make two more batches at 50% and 25%.
 
EXPERIMENT #8
This one is the same formula, tallow, olive, coconut, shea, coco butter and castor but I left out the titanium dioxide and used goat's milk instead of the water. Calendula petals hardly show in this butterscotch looking soap. But anything with goat's milk will be wonderful stuff, however boring it looks. Side by side for comparison.

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I'm not sure what happened yesterday. I used one of Anne-Marie's recipes. It had Palm oil in it and that's the first time I'd ever used that. It traced in seconds, the first pump of the SB and it was already solidfying. I quickly poured the FO in it and it riced. I got almost no color in before deciding to get it in the mold. This morning I pulled the sides of the mold and the soap is soft. I'll wait a couple of days, but I think this is a failure.
You have to be careful with palm. Depending on your recipe and temps palm can false trace (thicken quickly) when the lye solution first hits it. If you wait for the batter to heat up it will usually thin out. What were the percentage of palm and soaping temps?
 
You have to be careful with palm. Depending on your recipe and temps palm can false trace (thicken quickly) when the lye solution first hits it. If you wait for the batter to heat up it will usually thin out. What were the percentage of palm and soaping temps?
Thank you soooo much. I did CPOP and it quickly traced. I put it in the oven. Wouldn't the heat make it thin out? It didn't.

You have to be careful with palm. Depending on your recipe and temps palm can false trace (thicken quickly) when the lye solution first hits it. If you wait for the batter to heat up it will usually thin out. What were the percentage of palm and soaping temps?
The percentages were 25% each of coconut, Palm & canola. 15% Olive Oil, 6.9% Sweet Almond Oil, 3% Castor Oil, & .1%Vitamin E. I mixed the oils and lye-water at 125 degree F.
 
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I haven’t done a single soapy thing besides wash my hands. I’m still waiting for an MRI to figure out why I’m having so much hip and leg pain that I can barely walk and need to use a walker just to get to the bathroom, much less stand long enough to make a batch of soap.

I'm so sorry you are in pain. :(

Have you had a bone scan? Stress fractures in the hip and leg are incredibly painful and may not show up on a regular xray. I was diagnosed with osteopenia over 20 years ago after suffering two hip fractures in consecutive years. The pain of hip fractures is excruciating - but the fractures did not show up on regular xrays. I did not fall or have any accidents so no one suspected a fracture (or low bone density) in a 30 year old woman. But that is what it was. I am 51 now and have had regular scans to monitor my bone density (I have full on osteoporosis in my hips and left femur). If you haven't had a scan, maybe that is something to bring up with your doctor?

I hope you find a solution soon. Hugs....
 
That is the first I’ve heard of that.....
I'm not sure I understand what you mean ?

The Photo Gallery has always been there and is for members to put the photos up of the soap they have made, yet a lot of people put those photos in ' what soapy thing have you done today ', so the Photo Gallery is not being used as it should. What soapy thing started as more of a chat thing if you look at the beginning ,of what you have made, but then everyone started putting up photos of their soap there. I was just trying to remind members about the Gallery, it would be nice to see more photos loaded in there, that's all.
 
EXPERIMENT #8
This one is the same formula, tallow, olive, coconut, shea, coco butter and castor but I left out the titanium dioxide and used goat's milk instead of the water. Calendula petals hardly show in this butterscotch looking soap. But anything with goat's milk will be wonderful stuff, however boring it looks. Side by side for comparison.

View attachment 44908 View attachment 44909
I love the simplicity of the butterscotch color.
 
I'm so sorry you are in pain. :(

Have you had a bone scan? Stress fractures in the hip and leg are incredibly painful and may not show up on a regular xray. I was diagnosed with osteopenia over 20 years ago after suffering two hip fractures in consecutive years. The pain of hip fractures is excruciating - but the fractures did not show up on regular xrays. I did not fall or have any accidents so no one suspected a fracture (or low bone density) in a 30 year old woman. But that is what it was. I am 51 now and have had regular scans to monitor my bone density (I have full on osteoporosis in my hips and left femur). If you haven't had a scan, maybe that is something to bring up with your doctor?

I hope you find a solution soon. Hugs....

Thank you so much for your virtual hugs, runnerchicki! You know exactly the pain I’m feeling!
I had a bone density scan about a year ago and I was told I have osteopenia. Then with the onset of this new pain that started in August
I had plain film X-rays and the orthopedic PA said there were no fractures and just mild arthritis. I told him it felt like I have a stress fracture because I’ve haven’t fallen or had any trauma, so I wanted an MRI. He essentially blew me off and signed me up for physical therapy. I knew that was a bad idea so I found a doctor who would listen to me. My MRI is scheduled for next week, only because I begged my doctor to convince radiology not to reschedule it again. However, the radiologist isn't doing the joint injection with dye under fluoroscopy immediately before the MRI as was originally ordered probably because he’s busy with COVID patients. I just hope they can find whatever is causing this pain that continues to worsen and that it can be fixed before COVID prevents it.
 
I just hope they can find whatever is causing this pain that continues to worsen and that it can be fixed

For your sake, I hope so too and I hope this happens soon.

Experiment #9
I am almost out to tallow, have used it all up. The butcher says he will have more sebo next Tuesday, so I can make some more. In México this could take a little more time, a few more trips to the butcher than planned, we shall see. At least he didn't use the word "mañana" which means probably never.

I didn't have a pink colorant, I usually use Rose Clay but it is on order. So I grabbed a littls sprinkle of the cochinea from my dye room and powdered it up and let it sit for a couple of days in a tablespoon of water. A very small amount was plenty to color this batch. I will make it again with more titanium dioxide for a lighter pink.

This batch has goat's milk instead of water and is scented with a pachouly/bergamot/ geranium EO blend. I topped it off with two drops of real Rose Otto, it's pretty nice. For speckles, I used cranberry fiber. These aren't gallery type photos, they are working photos, only good to illustrate the text, I hope that is okay.]
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For your sake, I hope so too and I hope this happens soon.
Thank you, Adobehead!

Experiment #9
I am almost out to tallow, have used it all up. The butcher says he will have more sebo next Tuesday, so I can make some more. In México this could take a little more time, a few more trips to the butcher than planned, we shall see. At least he didn't use the word "mañana" which means probably never.

I didn't have a pink colorant, I usually use Rose Clay but it is on order. So I grabbed a littls sprinkle of the cochinea from my dye room and powdered it up and let it sit for a couple of days in a tablespoon of water. A very small amount was plenty to color this batch. I will make it again with more titanium dioxide for a lighter pink.

This batch has goat's milk instead of water and is scented with a pachouly/bergamot/ geranium EO blend. I topped it off with two drops of real Rose Otto, it's pretty nice. For speckles, I used cranberry fiber. These aren't gallery type photos, they are working photos, only good to illustrate the text, I hope that is okay.] View attachment 44933 View attachment 44934
Ooo! I love that color!
 
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I finally got my act together and made a soap today, re-using two chopped up bars of the soap from hell. Two down, eight to go! :D

Good for you! I’m remaking bars now from fresh made and older bars. Also, rendering oil from 2 fatty raccoons we ate for 1st time ever. Really clean animals by way white fat and red meat. No gamy smell or taste. Beautiful clear soft oil. Beef is comparable. Some groceries don’t have meat in South Florida.
 
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I cleaned 200 and eleventy million soap utensils, pots, pans and bowls. I may have fudged the numbers there. I think there was more. Felt like it anyway :mad:. Cleaning up because the Mother-In-Law is coming to stay. She will be doing her not so subtle inspection. Kill. Me. Now.
hahaha
 
I've been trying to practice different design techniques with smaller sample bars. It's a good way for me to get a real feel of what would be involved doing the design on a larger scale and I get the chance to try out a small trial size fragrance.

I attempted to do a design I had seen online with a fragrance from nurture soap called Somali soul.

I have no idea if I like the fragrance or not. When I smelled it in the bottle I was like "gross, who is buying this" but in the soap I started to like it, but sometimes I don't, but sometimes I do. I'm constantly sniffing the soap bars.

At first I really hated the design too, i picked metallic colors and they are really muted.

But I cut the bar in half and now I kinda dig it!
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I'm sweating at the brow! To take a break from marking some 375 online assignments, I decided to make one of those soaps that's layered with sand, foam, sea and sky. I'm sure it'll be ok, but its not my best work. The colours looked a bit dull - as often happens when I use fresh aloe from the garden. I got all the layers in at least, so there should be something exciting to cut tomorrow :)
 
I made seven goat milk soaps today. I wanted to fill all my molds, but the thought of making seven separate batches of soap was exhausting. So I grabbed one of the dish pans I had bought some time ago with the intent to dye some yarn, guesstimated how much it could safely hold and made a huge batch of soap. Then using a cup, I weighed out how much soap I need for the first mold, added fragrance, mixed and pour. Then I repeated the process until all the mold were filled and no soap was left.

I really enjoyed it. My batter stayed fluid until the end, my fragrances behaved beautifully. I think I’m going to do it again tomorrow.
 

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