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You can use goat's milk instead of water in the recipe, though it is trickier to work with. as Eugenia said, Sodium Lactate is used mostly when doing hot process, though also used by some CP soapers to help with unmolding. don't worry about it, add your oil amounts first, pick water discount (let's say 30% is reasonable for the beginner), pick % of FO/EO (3-5% is standard, 4.5% means you will be adding about 0.7 oz of FO per 1 lb of fixed oils, give or take). now calculate and there you go. hope that helps

Coconut, Palm Kernel, and Babassu are the cleansing/bubbling oils. If you are out, use more coconut, or more PKO. You may need to tweak your percentages in lye calculator to get the numbers you want, but it is doable.

Veggie peeler and then a good buff with a damp cloth (just water, no borax or anything fancy).

Red Devil lye would definitely work, if it is in powdered form. You probably read that Drano won't work, because it has metal flakes in it. Red Devil lye was banned/discontinued, and i'm surprized you were able to find it. If this is powdered, 100% soduim hydroxide, that's what you need. There is also Roebic brand lye, it is marketed as "heavy duty crystal drain opener" and you can find it at Lowe's. It is also in powdered form, pure thing.

I just wanted to add one thing, if you usually discount your water you may want to increase your liquid of you work with milks. Otherwise (if you use exactly the same amount) your soap may trace too fast and then overheat, crack on top and do all kinds of weird stuff (especially if you decide to add honey to it:D )

Stephanie, The answer is easy if you are comparing commercial bar soap with handcrafted one. Handcrafted soap contains glycerin plus depending on oils/butters used it may carry out the properties of those oils. Commercial soaps have glycerin removed, they make more money by selling it separately. Properly made soap washes the dirt off and then leaves on your skin a thin layer of oil that protects it from drying out. commercial soap will strip all the oils out and you get the tightening sensation. and of course drying. now, if we compare the bodywash you use with handcrafted soap it will be like comparing nylon and cotton. first one it totally synthetic, and second one is natural. body washes have low PH, they don't sting your eyes, and all that good stuff. but the problem with those is that contain many, many chemicals. And think about what whose chemicals will do to you in a long run. We already consume tons of bad stuff in everyday life. and i'm sure you use lotions and creams that have preservative in it, and there is no way to go without them in that type of product... But when it comes to what you wash yourself with, you have this choice -- natural soap that will be kind to your skin, or loaded with chemicals body wash. I hope that answers your original question :smiley2: . Now, it may take you couple tries to figure out who has the best soap, and here is a topic with couple website links http://www.candletech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39392 I posted there too . If you have sensitive skin I would recommend to look for goat's milk based soap (or any other milks), because they will be closer in PH to your body wash. Also, look at the list of ingredients and make sure that coconut oil is closer to the end of the list, or not there at all. It can be irritating if used in the recipe at more then 20-25%. Almost forgot... the best thing about handcrafted soap is that it could be totally customized for your skin type. Good luck! ~Nat~ www.kramersoaps.com

according to Akbanga Karite, Golden shea doesn't come from the same trees. I'm copying from their site again "In fact, the African Butter Tree is a completely different species of tree that grows along the rivers in central Togo. Shea trees grow in the open savanna. In contrast, African Butter trees grown in the dense gallery forests along the rivers and streams where water is abundant. Kpangnan is the local name in central Togo for this butter, which is used for traditional skin care." so i guess the difference is in amount of water the trees get. go figure.

no, they actually say it has less unsaponifiables (which is funny, we get confused because everyone always lists only best things about the product, and if it has less of something, we just don't say anything. i was confused too, had to go back and look. here is a quote: "While this butter is popular because of its bright yellow color, its unsaponifiable value is not as high as that of shea butter." so technically soaping with it is not as beneficial as with regular shea... but i don't care what they say, i'll soap with it anyway

organic unrefined coconut (or i guess virgin coconut) has a lower saponification value (i believe 0.138 NaOH), as 76 degree coconut has 0.183 NaOH SAP. I think that's all i know. LOL edited to add: also some people believe that even 76 degree coconut has lower SAP value, but it is totally different topic

I haven't soaped with it, but i have a bar i received from the swap. The lady who made it used 20% of golden shea, and the bar is absolutely wonderful! it is so creamy, that I feel like i'm rubbing the lotion over my body when i use it. I don't know if it was golden shea by itself, or combined with goat's milk, but that stuff rocks! i'm buying 10 lbs of it! I don't know what SAP value for it, need to research some more. I just assumed it was the same as regular shea.

wow, wonderful tutorial! too bad it isn't easy to find. I totally agree about being addicted part. At lest with M&P you are limited to FOs, molds and additives. CP and HP opens up the whole oil selection, and that gets really expensive. LOL. i look back now and wish i would have never started. sounds like you have it sorted out, so good luck and have fun!

I'm not quite sure what you mean, maybe there are some rules i don't know about, i'm new here... but if you are interested, go to Kathy Miller soap page www.millersoap.com she has instructions, tutorials, recipes, and tons of other helpful info. even tips where to find oils and other soap supplies. her site has helped many, many soapers to start. I think "Modern soapmaking procedures" page will be a good one to read first. ~Nat~ edited to add: now i see what tutorial you were referring to. it didn't work for me either.

why don't you start with CP batch then, see how you like it. and if it doesn't turn out the way you want it, you can rebatch it and have almost the same thing as HP. you can add a bit of oil of your choice, or other goodies. you can rebatch in microwave too.

I'll second confetti soap. it's eazy. just make a new batch of soap, and then either add your soap scraps at trace (if you want only a little bit of confetti), of you can make it up to 50% new soap batter and 50% confetti. in this case i would recommend adding your scraps to oils, ann add your lye solution and stir, stir, stir until it traces. sometime it takes a while, and some people use mixer with a dough hook to help the stirring. i had the best luck with 30% confetti/70% new soap. here is the picture of my original bar and the one i ended up with. as you see my base was yellow. ~Nat~

first of all, i'm not going to say anything about M&P, because you probably already know what pros and cons of it are. so, here is my 5 cents on CP vs. HP CP pros: takes less time from the start to pour in the mold. you can get creative and make beautiful swirls, and each bar of soap you make will have a unique pattern. CP cons: needs at least 4 weeks to cure. you can't pick what to supperfat it with, unless you use over 8% of that oil to see the difference. you have only 1-2 minutes to do your swirls. you screw it up and you end up with not so pretty looking batch. HP pros: makes the mildest soap can add goodies after cook and they will be there to nourish your skin can be used as soon as cooled down (better after couple weeks of cure though) HP cons: takes a while to cook. takes some practice to get it right , not too runny not too dry, not bubbly and looking more or less decent. pretty limited as far as presentation goes. hopefully that will help you chose. once you overcome "i'm scared of lye" thing and try it once, you will not go to M&P again, only maybe to decorate your made from scratch soap a little bit

Thank you, Carrie

I'll second that. your bar will be higher in oleic and in addition to everything will last longer in the shower. But that is if you have olive. otherwise you may want to sub for something you have handy and recalculate

here is mine. www.kramersoaps.com all Cold Process. i do have volume discounts, but if you email me at info@kramersoaps.com i will give you an additional coupon code for 15% off (i just don't want to post it out in the open ) -Nat

AgbangaKarite shea is organic, but not certified organic as far as i know. like a lot of things that come from abroad. people there do not have money for pesticides (sp?), they just harvest what grows around them. and of course they have no money to get a certification. i'm now sure if there is such a thing as organic certified shea. so, that woman you saw knew what to put on the label. people who buy shea in bulk know that hand-processed shea is organic... but customers don't. so, she put it on the label. good marketing i have to say... i wonder if she had "not certified" specified somewhere on the label, in a really, really small print. LOL.

You know, any lotion will have preservative in it. Unless you make it yourself, keep in the fridge and use within a week. Have you tried salves? I make Emu healing salve (around 30% of emu), and several people with eczema reported it worked great for them. Emu straight up would most likely work too, but if you mix it with other oils that help (avocado, sweet almond, etc.) the result is usually better.

they look great! congratulations!

i'm drooling. looks really, really good

oh, my! now i have to go to look for something edible

Looks great to me!

I absolutely love your labels!