WanderlustSoaps

Got mine in, sooo happy.  Made the first batch of soap with the nootka tree wood with some eucalyptus, smells amazing.  Everything arrived in relatively good shape, two of the bottles had broken tops but they were taped well and nothing leaked out.  Just so happens I have several of those same boston round bottles so I just swapped in a couple of the child proof caps I already had.

Thank you again for this it was such a pleasure.

Hello Lora, Welcome to the boards.  There are a ton of warm and welcoming Chandlers to get advice from and literally tons of information in the forums.  Glad you found your way to us and hope your candle making dreams come true.

7 hours ago, Shari said:

Those turned out lovely.   The only thing that jumped out at me is too much CO for a facial bar. It would strip too much oil from the skin which causes more oil production.  I only use 10%.  Charcoal is great in soap.   You want a soap that will clean but not strip all the natural oils.  Nice job!

Thank You for the kind comments, the CO was a concern for me but I was using it to try and offset some of the softer oils, I needed hardness and bubbly lather, have not found a good substitute yet, but I am working on it.

5 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Since get the witch hazel, alcohol free, from essential wholesale  

like Shari I avoid coconut and try to avoid comedogenic oils in facial soap.

 

Hope you love using BOTH of them! You're really coming along with your soap making.

I could not source alcohol free locally but I wanted to incorporate it so I was able to find a low alcohol version at an apothocary store nearby that is only 4% alcohol, still a pain to work with but I think it was a combination of all three the witch hazel, charcoal, and salt.  Ill report in a month how they do it application, but man, Im itchin to try them out, I think my lack of patience will be the real test of me succeeding as a soaper or not lol.

I had to google what a comedogenic oil was, now I know and will add that to my arsenal of things to look for when creating facial bars.  So much to learn about this "hobby".

2 hours ago, Candybee said:

Wanderlust-- I would continue to make my own molds if I were you. What I would do instead is research and find sites that sell silicone molds that you like, purchase those, then build your wood molds to fit...

For example I use those thin plastic cutting boards sold at Dollar stores. They are thin enough to cut to size and I use them to line my shaving soap molds. Another material you can use is are those cake sheet forms. Sorry don't remember what they are called... hopefully someone here will chime in for me. I also knew a soaper that uses mylar wrap from JoAnn's fabric stores.

That is exactly my plan, actually 5 of the silicone liners I purchased made it here today so I will be crafting new molds for them to go in this weekend since it is not a soaping weekend.  I try to limit myself for now to only making soap every other weekend that way I constantly have some curing and finishing the cure and so I dont go hog wild making more soap than I know what to do with.

1 hour ago, TallTayl said:

@wanderlust, one of my favorite molds was my first. I spread clear silicone caulk right on to the wood, let it cure very well, then assembled the side to the base with hinges. No line, no leak, the exact right dimensions and cost was a tube of silicone caulk, a couple of hinges and scrap wood. 

I have thought of that several times but have not really seen anyone say that it works, I have on the other hand seen lots and lots of failed experiments.  Maybe I will deconstruct what I have, line them with silicone or one of Candybee's suggestions, cut and put a hinge on and keep them around for a few more years lol.  Thank both of you for the suggestions btw, I didnt intend on getting rid of the first two molds but could have made them different / better if I had done more mold research and less soap research haha.

I still have quite a bit of wood lying around and was wondering if anyone has wooden soap cutters and if they would be willing to take some pictures for me so I can maybe get some design ideas.  Thinking of probably going with wire cutters as there is a nice guitar store nearby and I can pick up some tensioners there.  Let me see what yall got please, if I do get to make one Ill try and take pics along the way to make a tutorial.  Thanks all.

Ken

1 hour ago, Sponiebr said:

Those are nice looking bars! My only thoughts would be to be careful about the witch hazel, because alcohol can accelerate the trace and give you a bad case of soap on a stick blender.  I don't know how big your batch was but I think you'll find that just a smidge of charcoal (powdered) will carry you a very LONG way. You don't want the charcoal to end up coming out in the lather. If the charcoal bar ends up being too drying for you, you might dial back the coconut oil and bump up the olive oil, maybe something more in line with your basic formula. Looks really good though dude! 

Sponie, Thanks for the kind words, for my first "artistic bars" I am pretty happy.  I love the anti-embossed top and will play with that more.  I am worried about both the things you brought up, I tried to do plenty of research first but in a month I will know for sure.  I knew the witch hazel would speed trace but damn it was fast, I got the blender out in time but by the end of the "pour" I was definitely scooping it out.  The charcoal seems on par with the dozen or so other recipes I found, this batch was about 2.5 lbs total weight.

1 hour ago, Moonstar said:

love lavender soap ! the soaps look awesome  On the shortening - do you Crisco that has tallow in the ingredients ? 

This was actually the GV all Vegetable shortening, i think eventually in a few years if I open a business I am gonna go all animal free oils and eventually probably intend on getting away from this shortening as well due to the palm oil in it, just not sure what I will swap in yet, maybe the mango butter.

The brine bar is tea tree and lavender, smells absolutely amazing so far.  The baseic bar is very light lavender.  They are curing in my laundry room, and since the weather has been so fair recently the window is wide open and the whole room still smells so fantastic, I found myself down there reading today just to sit and smell it.

Tried a couple new recipes out this past weekend, wanted to see what yall thought of them.  The acne one seems to have a lot in it (not quite the kitchen sink but close) but I wanted specific things from specific ingredients, I hope in a month it is as good as it looks on paper.  The other is what I am hoping will be a base recipe for me.

This recipe took a lot of planning to get everything added at just the right time but overall turned out just the way I wanted it to, well for now, time will tell.  Since I knew it would turn black from the charcoal I figured it gave me a chance to start playing with design a little, so I set aside a small portion without the charcoal so it would stay white and then I could attempt a marblish look.

Acne Brine Bar
29%    Coconut Oil, 76 deg
22%    Soybean Oil
19%    Olive Oil
19%    Safflower Oil, High Oleic
3%    Grapeseed Oil
7%    Castor Oil

0.50 Oz Tea Tree Oil        
0.25 Oz Lavender Oil

1 Tbsp Fine Ground Activated Charcoal (added to oils)        
1 Tbsp Fine Ground Sea Salt (dissolved in lye solution)

Substitute 15 - 20% of the water with Witch Hazel.

This is what I hope is going to be one of  my base recipes.  I left it uncolored and only added a small portion of EO for scent, seems pretty good after the colossal fail that I wrote about in my other post.  Through soapsheet and soapcalc this looks pretty good to me.  Bubbly lather    29,  Cleansing    22,  Conditioning    56,  Creamy lather    24,  Hardness    40.

Baseic Soap

21%    Coconut Oil, 76 deg
47%    Shortening (veg.)
25%    Olive Oil
8%    Castor Oil

1 minute ago, Moonstar said:

...FO too - you can't really buy just a few 1oz bottles when shipping is at $10 so you end up ordering bigger bottles just to justify the shipping cost. My new goal is to stay focused - fingers crossed :/

 

Hahahahaa I know exactly what you mean, I do this all the time, not just with FO / EO but with anything I order online.

  So this weekend I finally was able to set some time aside and get back to making some soap, or so I thought.  I have been playing around with the recipes for three weeks and trying to decide exactly what I wanted out of the soap and what I wanted it do do.  First batch should have been simple it was to be a test of what I was hoping (and might still hope, we'll see) to be my base recipe and then for a challenge I was also going to attempt an acne-ish soap for my daughter that has both witch hazel and activated charcoal. 

  On the first batch I dont know what was going on, I guess my head was just not in a happy place and what I intended to do was soap at near room temperature, an nice cool ~70F.  Got all my oils mixed and let them cool on the counter.  Got my lye into the water and was amazed when after two minutes the thermometer said it was down to 70, the glass bowl still felt warm but I figured it was glass and had just trapped some heat and would cool as well.  I sure as hello wasnt gonna stick a finger into the solution to verify the temp but let it go.  Then I checked the oils temp and they were way low, didnt know what was going on, maybe the ac had kicked on and them being near the vent they cooled some, so quick trip to the nuker and they were back up to the same temp as the lye solution, cool, lets do this.

  And here the fail shows itself, almost as soon as the lye solution hit the oils it came to a light trace, quickly I added 0.5oz fragrance oil (low for 2.5ish pounds of soap but it was just for experimentations sake) and then mixed with a spatula to make sure it was incorporated.  Just in case I hit it with the stick blender two or three times for about 3 seconds and wow, now I have thick pudding, crap lets get this to the mold.  Ok got it in the mold, tapped it on the counter a lot, I think I got the air out, smoothed the top down and put a nice design in it, ok good to go, now into the oven that was cool and only had a light on for the last ten minutes. 

  Twenty minutes in the oven with the light on (sitting at around 85F) and the top develops what looks like wax with a giant crack down the middle, the center and all the way up to the top 1/4 inch is in full blown gel phase.  Stupid me thinks maybe I can mix the waxy looking layer back into the gell and it will all be ok, hahahaha frell no that didnt work.  So ok, I have seen this HP a couple hundred hours or so on youtube, guess we can try to rebatch / HP some CP soap that is going into a satanic hellish gel phase.  So I scooped it all out of my mold and into a stainless steel pot (thank you emiril legassi for making good stuff) added a little water and whipped the crap out of it, ended up adding a touch of oil and continuing to whip.  After 15 minutes or so it all looked nice and uniform again and did not look like it was gellin any longer, molded it and cut it the next day.  After 24 hours it was still pretty soft but I cut it anyway, after another 24 hours on a drying rack it still feels about like modeling clay, I hope it sets but if not, chalk it up to other lessons learned.

  Oh speaking of lessons learned, any idea what happened... You guessed it, Im an idiot and was looking at the C side of the thermo not the F side so instead of soaping at the 70 I was thinking I was actually going at the 150ish range.  Lets not try to recreate this.  So unfortunately I didnt get any pics when I was freaking out and trying to save my soap, however here is the pics I took once it was cut.

Ken

Hello All,

  So although I am still very very new to the soapmaking scene I thought I would start a thread about some of the mistakes that new soapers make and the lessons learned from them.  Please add to this list with your own lessons learned and hopefully we can prevent some of these mistakes with future soapers.

1.  Base Oil Overload - Many of us do a lot of research before starting a hobby such as making soaps, and with this research you will find tons and tons of information about the various oils that can be used to make soap.  As you read about the various properties of the oils and how they affect your soap you start to create a list of oils that you just have to have cause it will make your soap the super bestest that has ever been crafted and you will instantly vault to super soapy stardom.  WRONG, start with some basic oils, ones you can get locally and cheaply.  You will be making small batches for a while and testing the waters of what and how making soap works, learn on the cheap stuff and get the good stuff later after you have some processes, recipes and some experimentation under your belt.

2.  Essential Oil Overload - Early on it is very easy to sit and think, man this smells good and that smells good, I should buy all of these essential oils and I can mix to my hearts content.  While this is not a bad idea overall EO's get expensive quickly and if you dont really know what they smell like (as an EO versus say a fragrance or plant that you like) you could end up buying lots and lots of oils that you will have around for a very long time.  In connection with this, sometimes you will see a sale, co-op, bulk rate and think yeah I should get a pound of this, only to later realize you are still making small batches and only need half to one ounce at a time, wow that pound is gonna last forever or it will sour and then your out the dough anyway.

3.  Silicone Liners Please - So this may be uniquely to me, but I doubt it.  I, being a pretty handy guy, jumped right in and when I wanted to make my first batch of soap after a month or two of research decided I should just go ahead and make my own molds.  I have some old birch plywood in the shed and power tools, so why not.  Built a couple ~2.5 lbs molds and was really satisfied with them the first time I used them.  By my 6th batch or so I began to hate freezer paper and having to spend an extra half hour lining all my molds before I began making the soap so like any good crafter I went in search of silicone.  Found tons and tons of silicone molds and silicone mold liners but guess what the catch was... NONE would fit my molds.  Again being the crafty sort I attempted to make the liners myself, even made the pourable silicone myself, then they shrank and three days with six attempts down the tubes I got One that works and fits my mold, would have been cheaper to just buy the cheapo silicone liner and make a new mold once I had them in hand, which is what I ended up doing anyway.

This is by far not a complete list, but I didnt want to deter people from reading it, so I stopped myself at the first big three I ran into.  Please add to this list so we can help our future soapers.

My list looks good, and thank you for the way you are shipping saves me some coin.

On 10/9/2016 at 10:32 AM, Jcandleattic said:

I love HP laser printers. I've always had good luck with them. 

I agree with this, HP is what we use in the Navy and we print ridiculous ammounts of stuff, so if it's a workhorse your looking for I'd start here though depending on your needs they can get pricey.  For a more reasonable price and if you want color, I went with a Brother that I got on black Friday.  It came with four color toner cartridges that were actually full not a trial / sample version, all for a little over a hundred bucks plus shipping.  With black Friday / cyber Monday coming up, I'd check Newegg.com.

Thank you Tall, let me know if the PM I sent you was correct.

Sorry all, we had a bit of a storm blow in, some of you may have heard of it, they even named it... Matthew, and so I didnt get around to fiddling with this press, but I still intend on it, it may just have to wait another week or so.  Ill post here when I get around to it.

haha I understand completely.  and yeah if you could see the formulas then the sheets had to be unprotected, the way I had it set you cannot click the cells or see the formulas unless they are unprotected.

This is awesome JC, thank you so much for testing this for me.  Question about the breaking of the formulas, when you opened the spreadsheet were the sheets protected?  There should have been locks on all the cells that have formulas and the page protected so that the formulas dont get broken.  If this were not the case please let me know.  I am working on a few other small things that one of the other testers brought to my attention and then I plan on releasing the final version in the next week or so.

Ken

2 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

... I plan to order lemongras too and can split off 4 oz if you like.

Sorry for the confusion, I take full blame for that.  Sent you a PM, and as for the lemongrass that would be awesome.  Thank You.

46 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

... @Wanderlustsoap - can you please confirm if you still want to split the 4 oz?

 

I can confirm this, The oils split from your kilos look good Tall, however from my list the following are missing...

Lemongrass oil, India [CymF... (4Oz)

Tea Tree oil, China [MelAlt... (4Oz)

@ MaggieMay.. any chance you would be willing to split off 4 Oz of the Lemongrass from your purchase??

Did this end up not happening or did I just miss it?

Guys I am so sorry this got away from me, I meant to have my list in for you all days ago and work didnt want to let that happen, as it is I am shopping at almost 130 am when I have to be back up at 5. Due to budget restraints my list is not near what I wanted it to be.  Anyway here is my list and Co-Ops from what others have said they wanted.

On 9/27/2016 at 6:51 PM, TallTayl said:

I will be ordering kilos of:

Litsea Cubeba

Spearmint

Spanish Rosemary

Lavender 40/42

Eucalyptus

a lb of Anise

probably a few more as I take an inventory of what I want to keep in the lineup.

If you want a bit of what I am ordering I can split those for you saving a bit of $, then add in the bottle costs

Of these if you would be kind enough, I would like

Lavender 40/42 (4Oz)

Eucalyptus (4Oz)

On 10/3/2016 at 1:17 AM, Gsmakinsoap said:

Trying to decide if I should jump up to 4 oz instead of just one. If someone wants to split a 4 oz with me, I'd be up for that.

I will go halves with you on this if you want two oz, It sounds fantastic and I dont have any oils yet so this will be a good one for me to start with.

Other than that I would like to add...

Lemongrass oil, India [CymF... (4Oz)

Tea Tree oil, China [MelAlt... (4Oz)

I apparently need to learn how to read the chart, $19 for 4 oz is not bad at all, let me see if I can squeeze that in...

Working on mine too.

13 hours ago, Gsmakinsoap said:

...Trying to decide if I should jump up to 4 oz instead of just one. If someone wants to split a 4 oz with me, I'd be up for that.

This sounds really good, I wouldnt mind splitting it in half with ya, but my wife just took most of my allowance so now I have to shop frugally and only get some essentials haha.

1 hour ago, WanderlustSoaps said:

 I will do my shipping here in about an hour...

Shopping not shipping, frelling autocorrect.  I am hoping talltayl is still doing to do this.

Is this still a go for say tomorrow night??  I will do my shipping here in about an hour.  Are we gonna PayPal gift to you talltayl?  Just let me know, I'll post here after I shop.