Fire and Ice

The magnetic signs are great but you have to take them off and put them in the car because people will steal them just to steal them. I had two made up for my kennel when I ran it and two days after putting them on my truck they were stolen by teens as a prank. I got them back a month later but I'd already had two more made up. That's thepain about magnetic signs! Fire

My C-3 wax prices in Ohio have increased by $ 10.00 per 50lb box. No they don't order a million pounds of it but they order four to six pallets at a time. Most of it is freight charge increases but it is also costing the farmers more to harvest the soy crop. But my supplier is also local so I don't pay shipping but I have increased my candle prices for 2008. Fire

I really, really like them! Fire

I really like the colors and I'll bet the scent is to die for! WTG Fire

Very pretty soaps. I like the colrs. It will be interesting to see how the colors mature with time. The scent would not be one for me as I am violently alergic to anything rose scented but you sopa does the F/O proud. Was there any aceleration in the trace? Fire

Those are wonderful soaps! I really, really like them! They show wonderful creativity! So what is wrong with them? Fire

I will save you recipe! Thank you so much for offering it! I live 25 miles south of Canton Ohio, near Atwood Lake, outside of Somerdale, Ohio. I spend most of my time in Dover and New Philadephia and that's where I do most of my shows although the biggest show I do is about three miles from me at the Atwood Lake Park and Marinia. Fire

Thank you all for your help and advice. Thanks for letting me know I can find a shortcut for doing my own math at the soap calculator. That's certainly very good to know. Still, because I am a newbie, to have to learn it for myself the way Barbara showed IS probably best for right now! This soap look interesting but I plan to reformulate it because the Coconut oil is so very high and because I don't have Jojoba oil. But I will play with it later, maybe in a month, after I have a dozen or so simple recipes inder my belt. I do, at some point want to try adding some Lard to a soap. I bought a pound of it at WalMart. I've read that it bring wonderful things to a soap. In fact, last night I read Crafty1's thread on going very high in lard in a recipe, on the Dish, and the results. Not that I'm going 75% as she did but these types of thread are where I learn! Fire

Well this weekend it's going to drop into the single digets temperature wise with high winds so even though I have need of pouring candles, I can't due to needing to monitor the wood burners during high winds. I ordered four wooden soap molds earlier this week and got my co-op oil order paid. Just need to hold on for paying the shipping. I hope the molds will arrive next week! I have to figure out what my whole account is doing because they are trying to cut their ordering in half and I'm not allowing it. They're just being cheap because things are slow! I have a two day show in March that I need to get to work on. Fire

Thank you so very, very much, Barbara! I'm horrible at math and praise the person who invented the calculator! Fire:embarasse

So 18 divided by by 40 = 45% 12 divided by 40 = 30% 6 divided by 40 = 15% 4 dived by 40 = 10 % Fire:lipsrseal

If you are using an Olive Oil that has a greenish color, that too will effect your colors. Polmace has no color but vergin and extra virgin olive oils are a medium to drark green in color. This is some color charts go into how to color for those oils. I have no idea if that your case or not but it's something to look into. Fire:confused:

I was looking through the recipe section yesterday and saw several good recipes that I would like to try later howerver the posters got them out of books and posted them in ounces and not percentages so they can be easily run through a soap calculator. They also didn't list the size of the one they were posting. Here is one of them: Basil and Sun dried tomato soap: 14oz water 5.8 oz lye 18oz coconut oil 12oz olive oil 6oz palm oil 4oz jojoba oil 1oz per lb SW Tuscan Tomato & Basil 1oz Sun dried tomatos finely chopped 1oz Basil leaves finely chopped The direction are basic and straight forward but I have no idea how big this batch of soap is not %s so I can try and convert back to run it through the soap calculator. I also plan to sub out at least the jojoba oil and cut back on the coconut and add castor and babassu oil or PKO flakes or sweet almond oil. Any advice would help, Fire

Well Gee, ya ordered it ON Christmas and it been less than a month! MOST of the mold maker were just crushed by huge amounts of orders during the holidays. The man had some very serious surgery as well as a tornado and he wants a moment to catch his breath to recover! At least he's communicated with you. Life happens and you need to just peel back and wait for your mold! Geeze! I guess it's a very good thing you didn't order from Soap Hutch! He's just getting his October and early November orders out to his clients! He's snowed under with orders!Quality takes time and nature came in and messed with Paul's timing! Sorry but it happens!:rolleyes2 Fire

I have a KD7000 which I ordered from the place you mentioned. I haven't set it up yet because I don't need to until I am ready to soap but I got the adaptor too. I also learned in the Dish that when you are weighing supplies on your scales, not to be running a microwave nearby because it will make the scale go wonky. I don't know if it's true or not but it makes sense to me. Fire

Oh I LOVE to hear from you anytime, Mystical! Just give me a time so I can be sure I'm not on line! LOL! Fire

Well I went over and figured it out. This calculator is MUCH easier. Shortning & Shea 2# batch Distilled Water~344.73 grams Lye~127.2grams Shortning~362.9 grams Coconut~145.1 grams PKO Flakes~136.1 grams Castor oil~ 108.9 grams RBO~ 90.7 grams Shea~ 63.5 grams Hardness 39 Cleaning 20 Condition 55 Bubbly lath 31 Creamy Lath 30 Iodine 67 INS 141 Fire

Thanks~ I remembered Eugenia giving the link to it in her tutorial! I'm headed over to have a play on it and see what I come up with. I'll post my findings after I've run it through so that you can double check and make sure I did it right. Thanks again, Fire

I decided on the recipe I will be making for my first soap and went over to MMS to learn to use the lye calculator. I put in the title and such but didn't know what to put for premade lye sulution as I'm not using premade lye solution. I also couldn't find a area where I could type in the batch size. Then I noticed that they do not have Crisco so I entered soybean oil. The recipe I want to use is Shortning & shae bar by Michell B. I will be making a 2lb batch Veg shortning 40% Coconut oil 16% PKO Flakes 15% Casstor oil 12% Rice Bran Oil 10% Shea butter 7% I will be using distilled water with no discount Where on the front page do you typ in the batch amount? I set it to read in grams because that's how I will need to measure out the lye and there is no room for error when mesuring in grams. Is there an easier lye calculator to read for beginner? I want to get started playing with a lye calculator now so that by the time my oils, butter and molds arrive, I won't be wasting time trying to learn on a day I want to start soaping. Thanks for advice, Fire

I have used this base and thought it was wonderful. Mine was hard and lasted three weeks in the shower for a five oz bar. I didn't add anything but F/O. My testers loved this base but they quickly heeded advice about water and M/P soap. The other thing is keep the soap out of water at all times while not in use in the shower. Fire

Even though I have not made my first soap yet I have a small piece of great advice. Start at the very last page of this forum and read to the front. Keep a notebook next to you and jot down information as you find it. Write down you questions and start reading to find the answers. In doing this, you discover a wealth of information about the arena of soap making. There is a great deal to know and all the information is here but you should be willing to invest the time to find it. This also help to learn who people are in this forum! Learn how to do a search in this forum. Yes, the people in this forum are wonderful and experienced in the wonderful craft of soap making, but you also can learn more for yourself by reseaching a topic. Fire

Yup~ I love their papers and I have their site bookmark. Good to know they do bulk sales! Fire

It took some major finagiling to get on yesterday, I could get on the main page but had trouble getting into the forums. Today, I can't even access to main page. I noticed someone post over there that they were having problem yesterday as well. Anybody else having problems?:tiptoe: Fire

My soy wax went up $10.00 per 50lb box and it's still climbing! I raised my prices by $2.00 per candle but tax is included. the price increase started Jan 1, 2008. I'm very lucky I don't pay shipping or I'd be out of business! Fire