Soap Making 101

[Bettacreek]

Hmm. Maybe it didn't mix well enough. I'd cure it like usual and see where it's at. I know that my scrubby peppermint/spearmint soap is still super soft, and it's been about a week now. Maybe the essential oils make soap take forever to cure. Mine's not oily though. It is already sudsing up a storm. I mooshed one by accident and when cleaning it up, got it all over my hands, so I just washed like normal and it didn't give me any tight skin or burn any cuts like it usually does at that stage of cure. Maybe the mint oils covered up the burn and kept my skin from getting tight? Dunno.

 

[Blackbird]

It traced like normal, rather nice and thick. Oh well, a good toweling off and then we'll see in two weeks or so!

 

[me&thegals]

Can you tell us what fats, oils, waxes you used? How many total oz oils to total oz lye?

 

[CrimsonRose]

Woot! I finally found lye! I've been looking for lye for 2 years but no where sold it... and hubby brought it home the other day to fix our pipes and I was like!!!!!!! Oh man where did you get this!!!! he said Tractor supply... I'm there almost every week and had no clue this has been sitting on the shelf the whole time!

Ok now I'm trying to think up a recipe with the stuff I have on hand... any suggestions?

Olive Oil
canola Oil
butter (anyone ever try just regular butter in a recipe? would it have similar results to coco butter and such? I seen it listed on a few lye calcs so figured someone must use it for soap)
coconut oil

I thought of trying either a coffee and cream recipe or pumpkin spice... I have honey almond fragrance oil but after reading all this would like to try all natural ingredients to give it a good smell...

I may just try unscented for the first batch... (ok dumb question) but I've never used plain nonfactory made unscented soap before so have no clue what it smells like... does it smell like Ivory soap? because I can't stand the smell of that stuff...

 

[me&thegals]

Hi CR--I think plain soap has a nice smell of its own. Haven't used butter, but I use cream in a lot of mine. When I get home tonight I will try to remember to send you a recipe. I have one I love with coconut milk plus a lot of the more typical oils such as you list. It's one I made up for when I have run out of coconut, palm kernel and olive oils

 

[CrimsonRose]

Hi CR--I think plain soap has a nice smell of its own. Haven't used butter, but I use cream in a lot of mine. When I get home tonight I will try to remember to send you a recipe. I have one I love with coconut milk plus a lot of the more typical oils such as you list. It's one I made up for when I have run out of coconut, palm kernel and olive oils

thanks! I'm still reading up and getting up the nerve to get started... There is just so much info!

 

[flossy]

okay, this probably sounds rather stupid, but seeing as your a nice bunch and I am going to ask anyway!!! when you use coconut cream does it keep a coconut smell. I do looooove a coconut smell, but i don't want to use sythetic chemicals, kinda seems a waste of lovely natural ingredients to me. Although, I do love a pretty smell, so my standards may drop pretty fast!!!

 

[Farmfresh]

I have used coconut oil but not coconut cream, so I can't really answer the question properly. Coconut oil does not smell. Cocoa butter on the other hand DOES have a chocolaty scent!

 

[Denim Deb]

I have used coconut oil but not coconut cream, so I can't really answer the question properly. Coconut oil does not smell. Cocoa butter on the other hand DOES have a chocolaty scent!

Might need to watch who you give that to. They might try to eat it!

 

[CrimsonRose]

I tried some melt and pour soaps once (because I couldn't find the lye and just wanted to get the hang of using the molds)

Anyhow I tried mixing in some coco powder and whipped the top to make it look pretty... my son got up the next morning and thought I had made fudge... he took a butter knife and did a hack job to the top of my soap! ROFL lucky he couldn't get it cut good or he may have tried to eat it!

I still haven't tried the lye soap yet... I ended up having baby bunnies so haven't really had the extra time just yet...