Steven Mushynsky

I just saw this post for the first time... Our Summer Bee Meadow soap calculator calculates a 30% lye concentration (weight lye : weight water) for all solid soaps when using sodium hydroxide. (Selecting potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps uses a different calculation). Some calculators figure water as a percentage of total oils weight, but frankly, there is no chemical-process relevance for this method. A weight-to-weight ratio calculation provides the same chemical concentration of sodium hydroxide for all oils. Time to trace and time to dry is more consistent, too. Trace time may be shorter than with some calculators, depending some on the choice of oils used. Our own six-oil formula soaps trace fast and are therefore mixed at only a bit higher than room temperature and then hot-processed in the mold. Our soaps are cut to 4.3 ounces each after finishing and curing them in the mold in a "soap oven" at 160 degree for 4 hours, then cool, cut and trim them to 3.75 ounces each before wrapping. We just updated our website, which is at http://summerbeemeadow.com with all the same features as before, including the SBM soap calculator & recipe resizer. Feel free to email me directly at steve@summerbeemeadow.com if you have questions.

Hello The 3-oils ready to use liquid soap base paste that we offer at our website is made with the following oils and proportions: Safflower 67% / Coconut 23% / Castor 10% Our LS base pastes are adjusted in production to be close to 50/50 soap/water content for consistent dilutions. We suggest starting at a 35% soap content dilution for use in LS dispenser pump bottles or at 15% dilution for use in a foaming dispenser. A dilution chart for 50/50 soap/water LS base pastes can be found at our website. Use of our SBM online calculator, specifying potassium hydroxide as the alkali used and zero % 'superfat', will result in a diluted soap at about 10.5 pH. A small amount of final neutralization is needed with 4 Tbsp of a 5% Borax solution (the most borax that will dissolve in room temp water) for each 8 oz of our LS base paste used (or 2 Tbsp of warmed 10% borax solution or 1Tbsp of warmed 20% borax solution, etc.). Final neutralized LS should be at about 9.5 pH. Note that LS formulas containing a large amount of coconut and/or castor oils can actually be 'nudged' down below 9.0 pH, if one is careful and can measure the resulting pH. (Yes, high-coconut can be drying to the skin due to its efficient cleaning ability, but being able to reduce the LS's pH by a half a point contributes to less drying.) To improve the "feel" of the final soap, liquid vegetable glycerin can be added to the final soap at up to approx. 10% of the total final diluted soap weight. In similar fashion, up to about 3% Turkey Red oil can also be added. (Turkey Red is a modified castor oil that is completely soluble in water and is the only oil that can be used to superfat LS without risk of clouding). The resulting LS soap - pump or foam - is quite nice to use and can be easily made by entering 67 ounces Safflower oil, 23 ounces coconut oil and 10 ounces of castor oil into our SBM calculator, specifying potassium hydroxide and 0% superfat. Calculate the result and then use our "resizer" to resize it to fit in an 8" by 4" by 1" mold to make about 32 volume ounces of resulting soap base paste. Want to make two quarts of paste? set the "height of soap in mold" in our recipe resizer to 2", etc. (We will have a liquidsoap-specific revised online calculator at our website as soon as I might have the needed time and health to finish it) More answer than you expected, I'm sure, but I hope this all might help those who are wrestling with how to get started with liquid soaps. Steve M www.summerbeemeadow.com

No problem with what you've quoted regarding the seller above, Suzanne. However, if a seller that you choos to buy from clearly states shipping terms, then you have no argument with that seller if the specified terms have not at all been exceeded. It is significant that all emails (other than normal order status advice notices) were sent to us by you or were direct replies to emails sent by you, other than normal order status advice notices. No other emails other than normal status updates were sent to you by us. **The posting of personal contact information for the purpose of inviting harassment of us is a serious issue and needs to be addressed by the owners of this discussion board. Such action would get any member immediately banned from Ebay and would result in immediate action by most reputable discussion board and ISP providers. This is most definitely widely considered to be unallowable harassment

It is interesting that the same posts with personal contact information have appeared at multiple discussion boards from the same person using the same user name of ItsPublicInformation at each board. In both cases, this user signed up as a discussion member just yesterday, for the stated purpose of posting this "anonymously". Our personal address information, by the way was NOT otherwise posted publically anywhere on the internet and could only have come from someone who had that information from being involved in a purchase transaction from us. I would say that this is most definitely a continuation of a personal campaign of harassment and libel. The operators of the boards involved should take a careful look at these acts, as they are flagrent violations of these board's rules and regs.

FYI - I posted here because another user of the forums involved was concerned and advised me that the person involved was posting personal contact information on multiple discussion boards, obviously for he purpose of inviting harassment of us. This is not allowed by reputable discussion boards or ISP's and may very well be legally actionable. False and libelous statements have also been made in the discussion boards involved. I could easily as well post all of the "interesting" emails I've received from the persons involved, but that would be petty. As you know, the withdrawal of Red Devil lye from availablity has been overall disastrous for the soaping community. We have worked until 2:00 am most every night to make lye legally and properly available to the community at a reasonable price. Yes, this has caused delays. Unreasonably so? I don't think so, considering what we've experienced. In view of the nastiness of just a handful of thousands of buyers, we may well reconsider selling sodium hydroxide in the volume and at the prices that as we have been offering it. This, however, would not serve the soaping community.

NOTE: This person has made multiple, similar posts at various forums for the purpose of harassing us. These posts have included false and outrageous statements and even implied that we had made a "death threat" to her!!! This person has also rejoined these forums under another user name for the sole purpose of "anonymously" posting our personal contact information - name, address and phone number - with encouragement that others use this information to further harass us. This would appear to be legally actionable harassment on the part of this person and I would think that her actions would definitely not be within the rules and guidelines of this discussion forum. I am hereby requesting that the individual(s) responsible for the content of this forum contact me about this immediately. Posting lies about others, posting personal contact information and encouraging others to join in her harassment should not be allowed. In fact, this person placed an order with us and then "went off" just three business days later and filed a complaint with PayPal at that time. She had asked for a refund and we were quite prepared to do so. She then filed her very premature complaint with PayPal and we notified her that we would therefore rely on PayPal's dispute resolution function to resolve her "dispute", which remains pending as of this date. In fact, there was no "dispute" at all - just a buyer who strangely "went off" just three business days after buying and then followed with relentlessly repeated email harassments and now repeated libelous harassment via this and other discussion boards. We have had about 10,000 customer sales through our website and through Ebay, with over 80% repeat customers overall. Only a very, very small handful of buyers have been of the same nature as this person. I can confidently say that our reputation is far better defined by the good 10,000 and the repeat sales level than by the opinions of the few who would stoop to this kind of harassment. As we politely informed her, we have experienced a sudden fourfold increase in purchases of sodium hydroxide since Red Devil lye was recently removed from the marketplace. This has resulted in some delays as we strive to adjust our business to accomodate this fourfold increase. As we put it, "we are all in this together" with soapmakers needing a good source for lye, legally and correctly shipped and our desire to supply it legally and correctly shipped at a reasonable price. We could considerably raise our price to reduce the present crush of orders or simply cease making lye available altogether, but we would much prefer to keep things available and affordable for all soapmakers. -Steve M. Summer Bee Meadow