Courtney89

I am having the worst time with soda ash on top of my soaps. I've tried tins of tips I've found online. People say that the alcohol trick is the best but that doesn't work for me either. Every batch of soap I've made. I believe it's 8 loaves now. Has had it. I only use coconut, palm and olive oil in my recipe. I also live in Georgia where the humidity is crazy. Could that be a factor as well? Thanks for any help you can give me.

I love the lotus flower extract from Brambleberry in my homemade body butter. But I don't like the shipping prices. I've been searching for somewhere else to buy it but I can't find it anywhere. Is it exclusive to Brambleberry or does it also go by other names? Any help would be appreciated.

My soap recipe always makes my soaps yellow just because of the oils I use. I decided to invest in some titanium dioxide but it's not seeming to work well. I got the oil dispersable from Nature's Garden. The first time I tried it, it made my soap pretty much turn to ash. I figured I used too much even though I followed directions perfectly. I've tried using it again a few times and it just stays clumpy and won't disperse. I've tried mixing it straight into the oils (which the directions say to do) and I tried mixing it a bit before i put it in kind of like I do my mica. Any help would be wonderful. My recipe only consists of coconut, palm and olive oil.

Hi, I'm still working on a recipe that will work for me and I've become curious about lard. I know lots of people use it. My grandpa said it makes the best soap you'll ever use. I plan to sell my soaps in the future and was wondering if having lard as an ingredient affects the sales of soap, just for future reference. I know it is an animal fat which may turn some people off it.

Thanks for the advice. The fragrance actually works great in my candles and is my favorite scent. I wasnt sure about it in soap but then I smelled some from the soap store in our town square and hoped it'd turn out well. It's just a learning process. I only learned about the Orange spots after I made it. I read so much about oils and I never even came across the term. I'm definitely gonna cut it out of my recipe.

Hey, you've been seeing a lot of me lately, but my first batches of soap definitely did not turn out as planned. Anyway, I made a batch of soap with Blackberry Sage fragrance from Nature's Garden and the day after I cut it, I noticed that the smell has changed and it's kind of got a minty moldy (if that makes any sense) smell to it. It smells nothing like it did when I cut it. It's now been a week and it still smells like that. Whenever I was making it, it did accelerate extremely fast, I had to pretty much glop it into the mold. But I'm pretty sure I didn't wait long enough for the lye water to cool down on it though. Other than the scent it seems the soap did pretty well. My recipe was as follows: 20% palm oil 30% coconut oil 40% canola oil 5% castor oil 5% sweet almond oil 2 oz of Blackberry Sage from Nature's Garden fragrance Thank you so much for all the help you've given me so far.

I am 100% sure, it is grainy and very soupy. It didn't do this until after I poured in the mold. It was nice and smooth when I poured. It started doing it about 2 minutes after I got it all in the mold.

It's been 20 minutes since I poured and the brown portion is starting to rice as well.

I've finally started making my soaps and I'm very confused as to what happened today. My soap got really thick and then when I went to pour it it was super thin again. My brown batter poured beautifully but I went to put my orange swirl in it and it was pouring great then all of a sudden it's ricing really badly. And it's only the Orange portionthat did this. Why would only one portion rice?

Thank you. It just sounded a little crazy to me. I have been doing so much research on everything before I really get started.

Before I start my question. I'm just curious if it's true. I did not try it nor do I plan to try it. I'm new to the craft and am not completely certain on some of the science yet. So my curious mind needs to know. Please don't make fun of me because I'm fully aware of how strange this advice sounds. Anyway, I was reading an article about soap making and someone asked the question "How do I know when my soap is done curing?" to which someone told them to wait two weeks and then lick the soap and if it tastes like soap it's ready but if it burns your tongue it's not. So I tried looking it up and found it in two more blogs. I'm not sure which ones though.

Yes, I got it at Hobby Lobby just to kind of try out soaping and see if I liked it before I bought anything more expensive.

I got some goats milk melt and pour a while ago and it put me off it because of how soft it was. It was almost like butter. Not only that it turned brown a week later. I recently went to this store and they had some melt and pour soaps that were really hard and very pretty. Any suggestions as to any mp base that is pretty hard? I am mostly wanting to use it now for my small embeds on my CP soap.

Thanks so much for your help. I will definitely take a look at everything. If it's in book form it only makes it better for me. I love reading and research!

I have never heard of a soap calc. I will definitely have to educate myself on it though. Thank you so much.

Hi everyone. I'm new to CP soapmaking. So far I've only made one batch and it was out if a kit from Brambleberry. It head their quick mix in it. I've found a few recipes I'd like to try. I've been educating myself since January on the subject. I'd like my soap on the harder side and I'm having trouble figuring out what would be the best temperature to work with a certain recipe. I've heard that it depends on the recipe. Could you please tell me what you think about these recipes. I did not come up with these. They're just some beginner ones I found. Recipe #1 25% palm oil 25% coconut oil 25% olive oil 10% canola oil 10% sunflower oil 5% castor oil Recipe #2 40% olive oil 30% coconut oil 20% Palm oil 5% sweet almond oil 5% castor oil