What soapy thing have you done today?

[Vicki C]

Fascinating! I just checked up on cleavers (velcro plant, galium aparine) which grows rather too well here, and found this:
View attachment 58845

Good sleuthing! Are you up to digging some up to get the roots? Fascinating that it also has caffeine. Here is some info on coumarin. Essentially, it’s toxic to ingest in high concentrations, but its present in foods we already eat. Coumarin, the illegal chemical causing Americans to miss out on a sweet treat.. I started to go down a rabbit hole of research on this plant. It looks like there has been research performed on toxicity to poultry, but research results don’t seem conclusive.

 

[Tara_H]

Are you up to digging some up to get the roots?

I'm totally up for that!

I've known this as 'velcro plant' my entire life, being a sticky nuisance and nothing more, but a couple of years ago some friends of ours who are into foraging pointed them out as a source of "cleavers coffee" - I haven't tried it myself but apparently the seeds, dried and roasted, make an acceptable coffee substitute.

In my actual soapy news, and along very similar lines, I made my challenge soap just now! I wasn't particularly intending to be one and done on this, but the infusing of dock root took so much time that the month kind of got away from me. It's CPOP'ing now, and whatever it looks like when I cut it this evening, I guess that's my entry!

 

[SPowers]

My new soap router arrived and it's pretty cool. Rectangle/square bars are pretty easy but round ones are not. For the price it's a great buy.

 

[TashaBird]

Tomorrow is farmers market, so I’m packaging some soaps today. Also trying NOT to mess with my soap I made yesterday! I forgot fragrance and SL in the bottom 1/3. So, I’m hoping to give it until tomorrow before I try to cut it.
Edit: used Satsuma FO from NS. Says doesn’t discolor, bu hoping it doesn’t turn my blue to green.

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

Just helped my sister execute this circling taiwan swirl. (Sorry it's such a poor picture.) I held the slipping dividers while she poured

 

[Misschief]

I wrapped two batches of soap this morning. Last night, I made three small batches of lip balm (13 tubes of each flavour). Today, the plan is to make two batches of soap.... Patchouli Orange for sure, and I haven't decided on the second one; it will either be another batch of Gardener's Hand soap or a Dancing Waters soap. Or maybe a clay facial bar. I just don't know yet!

Then, I have to decide how to set up my table for tomorrow. I'm usually outdoors, with two tables; this week, because of a heat wave with temps around 40C, I'll be indoors, with only one 6' table.

 

[KimW]

Tomorrow is farmers market, so I’m packaging some soaps today. Also trying NOT to mess with my soap I made yesterday! I forgot fragrance and SL in the bottom 1/3. So, I’m hoping to give it until tomorrow before I try to cut it.
Edit: used Satsuma FO from NS. Says doesn’t discolor, bu hoping it doesn’t turn my blue to green.

beautiful colors!!

 

[KimW]

I talked to Oma on the phone whilst salting out soap....I may have become distracted and left it unattended for a few moments... Thankfully, caught it just in time so just enough soapy mess to get the stove top extra clean. Ah-whoopsies!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I talked to Oma on the phone whilst salting out soap....I may have become distracted and left it unattended for a few moments... Thankfully, caught it just in time so just enough soapy mess to get the stove top extra clean. Ah-whoopsies!

View attachment 58861

Oh No! thats all it takes just a second & soaps all over the place. Love your pot' looks like the perfect size.

 

[mamansavon]

Making my first acv shampoo bars! Trying fluid hot process.
Probably should have picked an easier recipe when trying a new method

 

[Zing]

Grrr! I started soaping today for the first time in FOREVER and discovered I'm 50 grams short of lye! So I'm off to the store. Hey! Who's in charge of my inventory??!! Heads will roll....

 

[SPowers]

I cleaned, cut & wrapped about 5 dozen personal-sized bars of soap for the local shelter. They are fails in terms of colour or design and have been taking up space for months.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

More soap dough fun now that I have soap dough...

Is there such a thing as a soap dough painting? This is dough added in bits and pieces over another bar of soap. It’s going to need some buffing.


I also made a couple of hand-formed bars using 100% dough. I was caught off guard by how quickly the dough melted when I put the bars in a warm oven (started at 170F and then dropped to oven's warm setting). When I checked at the 20 minute mark, the green and blue soap was puffed up like pastry and both bars have some rivers. On the plus side, all of the bits and pieces seem to have welded together sufficiently.

 

[TashaBird]

Soapsquatch?!
He had a hole in his crotch down the length of the loaf. I took some pieces of end slices and spackled as I cut. It would have been MUCH worse if I hadn’t had the hubs help me by using the pipette under the arms.

 

[VikingChick]

And I thought my Grandmother's Avocado kitchen (appliances and washer and dryer) and bathroom (tub, sink & toilet) were bad...

Oh, my childhood! And the orange shag carpet! (Except it was my mom, not my grandmother!)

 

[VikingChick]

@TashaBird You could give Dr. Squatch a run for his money!

 

[Babyshoes]

I managed to unmould, slice and clean up the soap I made the other day. You can see where the cling film messed up the top, but it's not terrible in the final bars.

Took a few tries to get the slices the right thickness, but I'm happy with all of them.

Also tested my new 3d printed stamp that my friends made me, but the soap was a bit sticky so I'll try again in a day or two.

The grey soap has some brownish spots on the outside. At first I thought I might not have mixed the FO well enough, but they're only on the surface which touched the mould, so I suspect it wasn't as clean as it looked...

The stamp shown is a ferret paw print, I also have a couple of other designs to test.

 

[dibbles]

As I thought it might some (as in most) of my mango scented mango butter soap separated at the mica line. So I chopped it into cubes for a halo around embeds experiment. I had enough to fill one 8" loaf, one 4" loaf and part of another 4" loaf. So I'll unmold the first tomorrow, and leave the others for 2 days and 3 or 4 days depending on my level of impatience.

 

[KiwiMoose]

@TashaBird - I thought that embed looked like sasquatch when you posted it earlier but I didn't say anything because I thought I may have been seeing things and didn't want to be rude...
But what a lovely sasquatch he is!

 

[Ugeauxgirl]

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