lovebug7480

I am up in Canada and I called all the Home Hardwares and found 3 kilograms of lye for $15.00. I think that was an ok price. I have lots of it now though lol It wasn't Red Devil lye though, just the Home Hardware brand

Hey everyone, I was curious about doing water discounts with cp. When I do cp I follow the sage calc as well as a couple others, but I go with the minimum water that the sage suggests. I do 45 oz logs and the sage says to use between 11 and 17 oz water. I always go for 11 oz. Is that doing a water discount? I usually do a 6 - 7 % superfat with discounting my lye to what they suggest which usually is about 6.26 oz lye to 11 oz water. I then usually add in 1% (0.9 oz) shea at trace as well. What would be the best way to discount water and how exactly would I do it? TIA everyone!

Oh please can I have the recipe too!!!! Thanks!

I came across an article saying that you can add 1/2 tsp of salt to your water before adding the lye and this apparently makes for a harder bar. It says that it doesn't make an overall harder bar but it will harden the bar up more quickly and be more hard right after unmolding rather than if you didnt' have the salt in there. Anyone heard of this or try it out? I have seen many speak of adding in sugar to increase lather. Can you do both salt and sugar in the same recipe? Or would one counteract the other? Thanks for any advice you can give.

I'm not sure how to make a liquid soap, but I'm guessing that I would have to add in a preservative to make the liquid soap? Sorry, I'm just really new to making all this B&B stuff.

Hey everyone, I have a question for you all. I have been doing a lot of experiementing with sugar scrubs and my goal has been to keep it with all natural ingredients (with the exception of FO). I have tried MANY different oil/butter combos and I have been finding them all to be way too greasy. I find it leaves too much oil on my skin after and I feel greasy. I did come across one recipe that I thought may work. It was one with M&P soap base, oil, and sugar. I personally do not buy M&P, but I do make my own soap. Can I shave up my soap and try to melt it down and use it as a sub for M&P? I did try to do this and it worked very nicely in the end product although I found it very difficult to melt down the soap (it has been curing for a month). I was just curious if this is a good sub for M&P and is there an easier method to melt it down so it fully melts? Curious....has anyone tried putting in cornstarch in a scrub to cut down on oiliness? TIA everyone, I'm just at my wits end trying to come up with a non-greasy but still moisturizing scrub that is all natural. It is quite a challenge!!!

Does it change the end product at all and make it waxy or tacky in any way?

Hey there, I have been doing lots of research on recipes for B&B. I have noticed that some body butters and scrubs have beeswax in them. What is the purpose of doing this and what is everyone's opinions on it and is it helpful in the final product? TIA:cheesy2:

I see that most recipes for scrubs have a butter/oil/sugar combo. What about vegetable glycerin and sugar combo? Can you mix glycerin with oils and butters or does it need to be a straight glycerin/sugar mix? I was just thinking that if I took out some oil or butter in a scrub and substituted what I took out with vegetable glycerin, maybe it would leave less of an oily feel after. What do you guys think? TIA!

I had posted a recipe before for a shea sugar scrub that I have revised to this: 1 oz whipped shea 3/4 oz whipped cocoa butter 1 3/4 oz turbinado sugar 4 oz white sugar 3/4 oz grapeseed oil Basically I find it much better in regard to greasiness since I took out the castor oil and slightly reduced the shea and cocoa. My question is this, to further reduce the oily afterfeel, would you guys recommend taking out the cocoa butter altogether and adding in more shea? I cannot figure out if shea or cocoa butter is more greasy. Also, when making a sugar scrub, is it supposed to be really soft or more like a brown sugar consistency? I have been whipping the heck out of mine in the mixer to get it fluffy and find that it binds nicely together but when I put it in the jar it sets up after awhile and has a consistency of damp sand. Is this the consistency to be aiming for? Or is a scrub supposed to have less sugar and more oils? I'm not going for one of the scrubs that has a layer of oil on top though. When you are doing an emulsified scrub, do you need to use chemicals? Sorry this is such a long post, I'm fairly new to this scrub thing. Thanks so much everyone!

Thanks for the info everyone. I was playing around with the recipe and I put in only 1 oz shea and 3/4 oz cocoa. I took out the castor oil completely and found that helped with the major greasiness.

Hi there, I wanted to run this recipe by everyone to see if there are any suggestions to change it to something less oily feeling. I was originally going to do a 90% shea butter and 10% grapeseed oil recipe but I find that in my area shea is quite expensive so I was hoping to come up with a recipe that would be just as nice. I find that the following recipe is nice and creamy but it seems to be oily when you pick it up, it sort of melts in your hand and has too much of an oily afterfeel. I was wondering if I should add in vegetable glycerin (I dont know much about using it) or if that wouldn't work in this type of recipe. This is the recipe: 2 oz whipped shea butter 1 oz whipped cocoa butter 2 oz turbinado sugar 4 oz white sugar 1 oz grapeseed oil 1/2 oz castor oil I whipped the shea and cocoa then added the rest in and it whipped up nice and fluffy, but seems too oily, although it isn't runny at all. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to go for a thick and creamy scrub without any additives or preservatives (other than vitamin E). Are most sugar scrubs on the oily side? I see alot of recipes with just sugar and oil combo so I'm wondering if thats how they are. TIA everyone!

I was hoping that someone could give me an idea for a great sugar scrub recipe using shea butter. I tried one that had shea/cocoa butter/grapeseed and turbinado sugar as well as white sugar but I found it to be quite greasy in the sense that when you picked up some in your hands, it turned instantly to oil. I basically melted all ingredients and put in freezer then whipped the heck out of it and did that 3 times. Then I added the sugar. I was hoping someone out there had a good recipe for a whipped shea sugar scrub, or a sugar scrub that had shea in it. TIA!

Hey everyone, I have a slight dilemma I was hoping someone could help me out with. I have tried 3 different lip balm recipes. They were all with different combinations of wax/shea/cocoa butter/oils. When they harden, all were nice and hard the way I was hoping, but then when you apply it to your lips, it is horribly oily. All three of them were like this. I was hoping that someone had a recipe for a more "creamy" non oily lip balm. I plan on using them in the tubes as well. I am substituting pure soy wax instead of the beeswas, I just up the wax amount slightly. TIA!

I was using a basic recipe with no color in it. The recipe is 2 oz wax, 1 oz cocoa butter, 1 oz shea and 1 oz grapeseed/AKO. I was using just regular muffin tin size but now I'm wondering if people would like the deodorant stick thing or not.

Hey everyone, I was hoping that someone had a possible solution or idea for my problem. I have been making lotion bars and have used different recipes and have come up with the best one. Now, my problem is this...I cannot for the life of me find a mold that it will come out of. I have tried muffin tins, they don't come out and when I put them into the freezer to try and get them out, they either crack or split. I have tried tupperware and it does the same thing. What do you guys use so they come out nice and professional looking???? TIA so much!

I was curious what your opinions were on something. Last night I made a batch of HP and it turned out well. I went to cut it this morning, and it wasn't cutting the way I wanted, so I started to make 1 1/2 in balls. I saw this in a book once and thought what the hey. The soap is quite hard and seems quite long lasting for a day old HP. I was thinking of selling them at the flea market in a bag of 4 or 5 and calling them soap nuggets. It probably won't be a permanent seller since I like CP better. But the flea market is tomorrow. I know that everyone seems to say that HP should have some cure time before selling, but since they are soap balls/nuggets and are smaller pieces and most likely people would use them one at a time, do you think it would be ok to sell them tomorrow? Usually I would wait, I just thought that since they are smaller in size, it would be ok. What do you guys think? TIA!

I havre tons of FO's that I love, but from Peaks that I currently use: Banana Nut Bread Plumeria The reason I don't exclusively use Peak's is because of shipping. I'm in Canada and it can be quite expensive to ship up. All of their FO are wonderful and we enjoy many of their FO.

For figuring out lye and doing calculations in sooz, what does vegetable shortening fall under?

I have read in a few books/articles where people add a tablespoon or so of sugar to the lye water for better lathering. Has anyone else tried or heard of this and is it necessary? TIA!

Well, my hubby and I attempted our first CPOP with a recipe from millersoap.com. My hubby was terribly afraid of the lye and frankly, I was a bit worried as well. But off we went and we decided to mix the lye in our basement since we didn't want the fumes to bother our 2 year old son. (Please remember this was our first time and we're total newbies) So we took a big heavy glass container with the water in it and went downstairs. We put down the container and diligently started to pour in the lye. So far so good...till the glass cracked and lye water went everywhere. ::sizzle:: You should have seen the look on my husbands face! Thank god we had a huge container of vinegar. Needless to say, the cement floor was nicely eaten in spots. We sure learned our lesson. Now we are using PLASTIC and we do it in our kitchen sink. We'd rather deal with fumes, which in fact aren't as bad as we thought they'd be. It was actually scary at the time, but kind of funny now, sort of....lol. But anyway, we ended up doing the soap and I have a couple questions about the end result. We did a recipe from millersoap and we were mixing it with the stickblender and looking for trace and I think we went a tad far. When we ended up pouring it, it was just like instant pudding. We weren't sure what EXACTLY trace was supposed to look like. I know from what I read that when you dribble some of the solution on the surface, it stays on for a few seconds then sinks into the rest of the pot (please correct me if I'm wrong, which I probably am) But when it hit the instant pudding stage, we quickly put it into the mold after we added FO (Hot cocoa from Peaks) and held back some and added cocoa powder to it. Then we plopped the rest of the mixture on top and attempted to swirl but it was getting kind of thick at this point. I think we well went past trace....I was just so worried about getting to trace and I was scared that it would seperate on me when it was in the oven, so I think we went a bit far. The end result was good though, nice creamy bar that smelled just like a chocolate bar! The only thing that I want to make sure I remedy before our next batch is air bubbles. I noticed on the bars that there were some air bubbles, how can I prevent those? Sorry this was so long, I just had to share our interesting experience. We will never take lye for granted that's for sure. Thanks for listening!

My hubby and I have been digging in books and reading up on soapmaking recently. We have done one cpop already which seemed to turn out well. We had an issue with the lye which was quite scary but other than that, it turned out ok I think. We'll get a pic up soon. My question is in regards to HP soap. The book we've read and from some research I've done says that you can use the soap right away. But then I've read some places that you still need to cure it. What is your opinions on that? I quite like the idea of using the soap right away and if I still have to wait for it to cure, I may as well do CPOP and have fun with the swirls and have the nice smoothness. I'm kinda confused.

Hey everyone, quick question about recipes. I am looking for a very moisturizing bar that is nice and creamy/lathery. I am kind of confused about recipes and what I can substitue for what. For example, if something has tallow, what would be acceptable to switch it out for that would give it approximately the same results? I have come across some great recipes that I have most of the ingredients for, but I don't have avacado oil. What could I substitute for it? Could I safely switch it out for say, apricot kernal oil? I suppose what I am asking is how do I determine what oils to switch out and with what oils do I replace them with? TIA for any info!!!

Hi there, I was curious if anyone could tell me the minimum number that hardness, conditioning, fluffy, etc. should be. I am starting to understand what to look for but I was hoping someone could let me know what the minimum acceptable number would be. For example, if fluffy is at 23, is that really considered fluffy enough? Or should the minimum number always be say, 28 for a good fluff? I hope I am making sense lol. TIA!

I feel silly asking this, but my husband wants to make sure it's ok before we start CPOP tomorrow. We've been searching around the house for things to use as molds. We found an old wooden box that is perfect for a small batch, but we have only one. So....we found some old diaper wipe containers. But, they're plastic. Can you use plastic in the oven for CPOP? It's a heavy plastic, but we've never done this before, and really don't want a meltdown in the oven! I know that when you do CPOP, it's at a low temp but is it still too hot for plastic? We were also eyeing shoeboxes, can those be put in the oven as well? My hubby looked at me like I had three heads when I suggested putting the plastic container in the oven! TIA everyone!!