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Forgot to mention (kinda important)... When you masterbatch lye, it is not recommended to store it for long periods of time. The best is to use it the same day, and keep the solution covered to prevent evaporation (if some water evaporates, you end up with the stronger solution and as a result, lye heavy soap). Those who do masterbatch lye try to pre-mix just enough for the day, or maximum two.

IF you superfat, and the recipe is high in linoleic, you are risking your bars to turn orange in anywhere between 6 months-2 years (whatever is chelf life of the oil). if you don't superfat, you can end up with grandma's type lye heavy soap. So it would be your choice. If you are sure your bars get used up quickly and you love the feel linoleic acid gives, keep the recipe. It's up to you. In the beginning I was willing to experiment and didn't really care about shelf life. but as you have more and more soap, and your bars start getting DOS, you'd have to re-think it. As far as not superfatting, you can certainly try that and see how the soap feels. But if you formulate your recipe with stable oils, and superfat, your bars will last very long as well.

I plugged in your numbers into soapcalc, gave me 23 linoleic. so what? i have made bars with linoleic that high, and they never got DOS. I agree with Steve, it would be a good idea to swap olive and sunflower if you want yout bars to last longer in general... but this problem of yours most likely because of FO. especially if you got DOS with the second recipe, that has NOTHING that could trigger it. By any chance, did your CP batches happen to overheat? That also could cause DOS (i have read it somewhere)

Gotcha! So it shows up really soon after making... Very interesting. Maybe something in those FOs does not go well with your recipe? I had good old Patchouli bars go DOS on me once, and I hardly use any DOS prone oils. But it took a while. In your case it is some kind of accelerated oxidation issue. If DOS shows up as fast as bars discolor, I'd think it's FO. It seems like you have two choices, one is to try the same FOs with a different recipe, and another - shop around. Especially for Pink Sugar, pretty much every supplier has it. I don't buy FOs from MMS, although I buy other stuff from them, couple times I threw in FOs just because i was already paying for shipping, and both time was not happy with the results.

I have no ideas or solutions, but I was wondering, with Pink Sugar that is very brown, do you mean there is orange discoloration? like some areas are lighter in color (orangy)? I've never seen DOS in a brown bar

Very pretty!

In theory, 6 months at room temp, 2 years in the fridge (correct me if i'm wrong, that's what i remember), indefinite in the freezer. Interesting thing though, that emu i bought from Puritan, in 4 oz treatment pumps, has "best by" label that is at least 2 years. and I did have it out at room temp for at least 2 years, and it was fine. So I'm guessing if it is not in contact with air (treatment pump or similar), and maybe with some ROE added, it can easily last for couple years at room temp.

They look very nice! I have never made a salt bar... hmmm

There isn't going to be too many now, I have to move on to all-natural, pretty plain stuff. Infusions, herbs, expensive EOs... all have to be done but not really picture worthy. that's when I wish for a scratch and sniff button the most. Edited to add: Thanks again to everyone (i can be so rude sometimes. don't mean to, but have to click post before my toddler hits some other button and screwes up everything)

You are welcome, hope you like it. Too bad the coupon didn't work for you, it was supposed to be valid till 29th. oh well, last year i paid $15.99 for the same bottles plus shipping, i was still happy to get them since no one had it in bulk, even kangarooblue, and when i tried to order from Land of milk honey, they send me a shipping notice, but never shipped anything. So, those little bottles from puritan are better then nothing. Oh, and the quality... about the same as kangarooblue, a bit whiter than Simon's (I'm guessing grade A). That said, if someone finds a bulk supplier and does a co-op at a decent price break, i'll be all in.

I have been buying mine in 4 oz quantities from Puritan's Pride website. They are selling Thunder Ridge Emu (nice, clean stuff) for $13.99/4 oz. if you need a lb, buy 4 bottles, that's $55.96 total, there is a coupon code (TACCAB5) that gives $5 off $50, that lowers price down to $50.96/lb (oh, shipping is free too right now). I just bought 4 bottles.

Masterbatching applies to both oils, and lye solution. But keep in mind that keeping a jug with the lye solution is a lot scarier then keeping it in the powdered form. If you have no pets and children around, or have a dedicated space for soaping, you can certainly masterbatch lye.

This has been happening with me ALL the time lately, but it thought my browser was just flaking out on me. It always happens when I use Internet Explorer though, past month I started loading Firefox just for USPS label printing purposes. And had no problems. I suspect that somehow the code on their website doesn't work with IE/Adobe Acrobat combo. It is a relief to know that I'm not the only one with that problem! Thanks for posting!

It is an awesome idea, but I thought I'd mention that it won't work very well for large batches (28-36 bars). A box like that would make an great slab mold though, something like 12 bars or so. The cardboard used for those boxes is pretty thin, and if you fill it up all the way to the top, soap batter will push out, the sides will bend in the middle, leaving you with crooked shaped slog (slab/log). Guess how i know?

What is your hard oils/soft oils ratio? I have 60 hard/40 soft, soap just below 100 degrees and it is perfect. room temp speeds the trace, so does soaping hotter. Some butters speed up the trace as well, can't remember off hand which ones but they do.

yep, I got mine from one of those places as well. Also, there is another tool you can use with the mitre box, although it goes in a bit tighter then taping knife. It is pastry scraper/chopper (like OXO good Grips or whatever). I'm not sure which tool will be cheaper though, it's been a while.

LOL. It is (or was) one of the main soaper's forums, owned by a German lady, Olivia. She is well known as the inventor of the hanger swirling method. Not sure what happened to it since I wasn't around for a while and just recently discovered it was down. And thanks to everyone for the compliments

How totally cool! Inspired, inspired... Will try with the next batch, have to hide all the chopsticks and pencils ahead of time...

that's how it looks (pardon the mess on the background)

Thanks, everyone! I hope they inspired you all to make some soap! Looking at soap pics always works for me!

Hey SYR!:wave: Thanks! It is good to see you here . I'm good, staying busy with the kids, having trouble finding time for everything i want to do/make

Thanks, everyone!

Really pretty!

Hi everyone! I haven't posted anything in years, and haven't really posted much here before, but I discovered couple weeks ago that WHISK is gone, plus I have been lurking here reading everything about candles, and this forum is the best place to learn about them, isn't it? Anyway, I thought some soap p*rn is always good. So, here it is. All CP. Thanks for looking!

it is a coat hanger swirl, method is invented by Olivia, the owner of WHISK forum. you use a wire hanger and do a blind swirl along the length of the log. the great advantage of that type of swirl is that the pattern is similar all the way through the log. since i sell on internet, i like when picture representing the soap is accurate.