Sponiebr

Soy-Loco...

I am here with you... Though we're far apart...

Ok lemme unnerstand this... You want to MIX FO AND wax AT the same time as you POUR? There's an APP FOR THAT! Seriously there is a thing that does that for you it's called a mixing nozzle: That's an inverted color mixing nozzle that is for sale on Grainger. You see these sorts of things used in products like 2 part epoxy and 2 part silicone rubber mixes. The problem is that you will NOT be using EQUAL volumes of FO to wax so you will have to have some sort of metered pump to deliver the wax at the right rate and the FO and the right rate to get the mix done properly. OR... You can pull HALF of your wax OUT Of the pot add in all of your FO to THAT wax and then pump 50/50 through the nozzle to get your wax properly mixed with tyour FO. OR you can put the smelly wax BACK into the main body of wax give it a stir and then and then pour the whole mess through the nozzle to make sure it is perfectly blended as it goes into your containers/molds.... If you choose the pump method you'll have to have heated lines and blah, blah, blah.... But you already KNEW that... Can I have my cookie now? Slainte, Sponiebr The Executor of BAD ideas and Sundry Services.

TallTayl nailed it and I agree with all the other suggestions ESPECIALLY Sarah_S comment YOU NEED A SCALE. The only other thing I would mention is that you get and USE all of the appropriate safety gear... Rubber Apron ( or at least a canvas apron), rubber gloves for working with lye, and SAFETY GOGGLES. It never hurts to have a gallon of white distilled vinegar NEARBY for when you inevitably splash a little active lye soap on yourself or work area. It's a LOT OF FUN, and it doesn't have to be expensive. If you'd like a cheap formulation that makes a lovely soap and can be purchased 100% (except for the lye) at Walmart I'll be glad to share one with you. Last bit of advice and it is a HARD AND FAST COMMANDMENT that YOU NEVER BREAK. ALWAYS RUN A FORMULATION THROUGH A LYE CALCULATOR YOURSELF. Never trust a soap formula that you haven't CHECKED in a lye calculator YOURSELF. I would also strongly suggest that you never make soap without a lye calculator or a scale. Have fun! Cheers, Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services.

Yep Trapp, ALL soap is made from either vegetable and/or animal fats. Rendering one's own tallow is a rather long and just frankly PITA process. Like TT, I personally prefer the wet rendering method. But it's a LONG process. I also LOVE the smell of rendering beef fat! It smells like pot roast or cheap burgers frying in the pan. (Oh just HEAVENLY) Yeah Trapp... Chickens is CARNIVORES!! They just kinda got to be a bit picky about their prey cause their toothses are kinda small. But seriously, ever seen'm go after a bug before? Yeah they're CARNIVOROUS suckers them chickens! They'll peck the hell out of each other too! The chickens probably like the renderings (cracklins) because they look, feel, and taste kinda like grubs.

When I need to make various sized bands like that I use bungee cordage https://smile.amazon.com/Pepperell-Bunjee-Cord-15-Feet-Black/dp/B00IXWIPMW?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_3038236011 I cut it to the exact size I need it to be. I DO NOT buy it from Amazon I get mine locally at Hobby Lobby and it's like $2.98 for 15 feet of 3/16" cord. ( I make combat boot speed laces out of it) :)

Thank you! ❤️

Sooo, I have a QUESTION... (IKR? How BIZARRE is that?) I use a 40% lye mixture for the vast majority of my soaps. Because of the low amount of water in my soaps the water component is moved down to 4th place in my ingredients listing. There are SOME batches that I would prefer to have more water in them just to give me a little more time to play with the batter. In these cases that would move the water component UP in the ingredients listing to 2nd or first place. Considering that the vast amount of water in the finished and cured soap evaporates to a minimal amount in the soap i.e.: a batch with a 20% water content will cure out to the same weight as a bar made with 38% water content if given enough time. The question I have is would YOU change your ingredients label to move the water component up in these cases? I can very easily make different labels for these one off instances. Is it really necessary? Thorts? Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services

Those mica got used almost exclusively in wax melts. They work just fine in wax and also work fine in soap.

EPISODE 10 THE CONCLUSION!!! OK, so I've been AWOL for a while... I had to do a lot of refitting and fiddle-fark'n pieces parts into submission to my will, and it was, uh "INVOLVED". So I generally neglected to photo document my journey between the 8 refinishes (DO NOT USE THAT HORRIBLE POLYCRILIC TRASH FROM MIN WAX!!! Just use a good quality poly urethane and be done with it) and having to rebuild several parts that got broken from unfortunate gravity related incidences DIRECTLY RELATED TO THAT SunshineTY POLYCRYLIC NONSENSE... I gave up and just plowed through to get the damned thing DONE. And DONE IT IS! Enjoy! Cheers! Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services

@Courtney If you REALLY just DON'T WANT GEL PHASE soap... (I can't imagine why you'd not want that, but I'm not gonna judge you...) 1. You're going to have to make sure there aren't any components to your soap formulation that will heat the soap up, anything dairy, honey, sometimes sugar, additives, natural vegetable colorants, TITANIUM DIOXIDE, high CO content, high PO, or PKO content... There's about a BAZILLION things that can heat soap up. 2. You're gonna have to do a water discount which means things are going to move much faster. 3. Your mold is going to have to be completely un-insulated. Thin wood is ok, thick heat retaining wood or anything else is a no-no... Basically a shoe box lined with freezer paper is ok for a non insulated mold. 4. You're going to have to keep the soap COLD throughout the entire saponification process which will be GREATLY slowed down and will take MUCH longer at low temperature. Stick it in your fridge. ANOTHER way to avoid PARTIAL gel is to skip CP altogether and go with a High Temperature Fluid Hot Process in which you FORCE the whole batch into gel and then completely finished soap ready to use as soon as the soap has cooled enough to cut it. That's the way I used to do it... Wonderful swirls, just GREAT! The drying time was a tad long at over 6 months and I lost a lot of soap having to plane the shrunken warped bars pretty again... But the soap was AWESOME! You also get to pick WHAT your exact superfat will be (you make 0% SF soap and then add in at the end of the cook whatever fat you want the SF content to be, OO was one of my favorites.) Or you can do what everyone else has suggested above and force gel the entire loaf. Gel phased soap is prettier, smoother, dries harder, and the colors "pop" better. HTH! Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services.

W WELL then! I mean DECADES speaks for itself! Personally I would have probably said, "Oh, sorry... By the way... Did your mother SURVIVE the house fire or did she die some other way?" I can be REALLY NASTY when I see someone doing something INTENTIONALLY, (it's intentional after they've been warned) to jeopardize the safety of other people.

What are these black bands? Are they velcro straps or are they rubber bands? If velcro you could maybe use these? https://www.velcro.com/products/ties-and-straps/900600__all-purpose-strap/?sku

It doesn't stink, actually. It hardly has any odor at all.

I agree with both you and TT it's probably FO pockets. I was just doing my normal progression of weirdness in wondering about the really fringy what-ifs...

Yeah... That's REALLY FAST for DOS... Uhm... Just a question: Are you using any "used" fats? Like fats that have been used to cook with? (I'm only asking because if so then yeah THAT could cause DOS to appear VERY quickly) But Unless they were put into direct sunlight and left in a HOT place (like in a zip lock baggie on the seat of a car in FULL sunlight) DOS just doesn't form that fast. (Unless you are using rancid or used oils already, but rancid oil smells usually like puke or at LEAST really musty and gross) You DID say though your soap always comes out yellow looking and that IS odd because coconut, palm, and olive oils should give you a nearly white bar of soap... If those ARE DOS they will 1. spread grow outwards, and 2. they WILL smell funny kind of musty and not clean somehow.

THERE she is! 😘

@jerry Actually, (I don't use TD very often), but yeah, I think it does accelerate trace... However, what I was specifically referring to as heating up the soap was that the TD causes the soap temperature to rise rather significantly. The higher the water content the more pronounced this heating effect is. Super heated soap with high water content can do something called volcanoing in which the soap literally BOILS up and out of the mold much like a volcano erupting. Also they can explosively erupt if you have a cooled harder outer shell of soap with a super-heated core BOOM! Ok so... Messy but no biggie... RIGHT? NOPE! First it's OVER 212F in a sticky GEL like substance so it STICKS as it burns the living FROG CHUCKLES outta you, (BUT WAIT!!!! THERE'S MORE) and it has ACTIVE LYE to help with it's destructive tantrum... Another oddity that can happen from the heating of TD laden soap is something called glycerin rivers. It's basically where a TD swirl super heats past gel phase but doesn't actually do anything else and it leaves the weird looking transparent river like structures throughout the soap. They can actually look pretty cool in my opinion, but generally they are considered a "flop" by soapmakers... TD can also make tiny, titchy, pinpoints of transparent dots when dispersed throughout the batter in high water content soap. These are also an aberrant form of glycerin "rivers". Neither form of glycerin rivers will harm the usefulness of the soap.

One other little trick I learned was to take like a dime or nickle bag and put the TD (or mica) into the baggie and add in your oil or water into the bag and zip the top closed. You can then "knead" the lumps out very effectively. Then when you go to use it just snip off the corner of the baggie like a ketchup packet and splooch right into your batter. The water dispersing one seems to clump up less in my experience and it's the only one I keep on hand now because you can mix it in water or oil and it works just fine. ETA: ONE THING... TD HEATS SOAP UP A LOT. So if you are dealing with a naturally hot soap during cure TD MAY push it over the top... I'm just say'n, BE aware of this.

I've had lemon do all sorts of really rude things to me before. I use GV Classic Olive Oil from Walmart. As long as it's 100% olive oil (as opposed to Olive oil Blend) you "should" be ok to use it. I'm pretty sure it was likely the FO... HOWEVER, was the fat blend clear when you soaped or was it clouded up? I had a batch never fully cure on me because my fats had gotten too cool when I soaped them and it was sorta like this but more I dunno... GREASY for lack of a better term and it still had lye loose in it 3 days after I had made it. I used an oven to help cook it along and get the lye used up, but it was still greasy as hell and soft when I went to try the bars out. I ended up rebatching it in a crockpot with a BUTT TON of coconut milk. THIS! THIS is WHY we do test batches! HTH, Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services

YEah there could be a BUNCH of different things going on here... BUT given the pocketing and the little pools of dark spots I'd hazard a guess that your batch riced on you in the mold. Strong floral scent was it? (maybe a lemon?) Really gotta know CP or HP (it's CP 100%) and then we gotta see the actual formulation weights everything and if you've got it the soap calc sheet would be great. Do you know if it's zappy or has any active lye still in it?

Anyone got a usage rate for patch? I don't want a "Oh, (gag) GAWD... That's PATCH..." soap... I'm trying for more of a "(sniff) Ah, yes... That's, uh... Patchouli..." kinda soap. KWIM? ETA: My original formulation has me at .5 oz PPO but I'm asking because that looks like A LOT OF PATCHOULI EO to me... 10-Q! Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services

It's beef tallow and palm oil. Soapcalc.org has it as a specific fat you can choose. Scroll down to the info section the the ingredients are listed. https://express.google.com/product/Great-Value-Shortening-42-oz/0_14142831116929818858_0 This is the mainstay of my current soap formula. I haven't found any blend of oils that I can reproduce the exact same specifications (numbers) as I get from the GV Shortening. God help me if they reformulate it... HTH, Sponiebr The Executor of Bad Ideas and Sundry Services

THAT'S IT! Add almond! ANYTHING almond goes flying off the shelf. BRILLIANT!

IKR? It truly doesn't make any sense to me AT ALL that I can't make cents with chocolate scents... Almost ALL of my soaps are food scents of one ilk or another but for SOME REASON, everyone turns their nose up at the chocolate. I mean my "Coco's Favorite" smells and looks SO MUCH like the real thing that I'm actually temped to lick my fingers while I'm making it... I just wanna LICK THE SPOON!!! (I know... I'm not right in the head, but I'm also not about to be left yet...)