kidsngarden

Thanks! I did that and found loads of information!

Bethany

Can someone explain the differences?

Thanks,

Bethany

Ok, Thanks. I was going by the guidelines of a recipe someone made here. will throw them out and start over.

Thanks for the link to the sage calculator. I had used it before but didn't think about using it for lip balms!

Bethany

Whoa! That's uber high superfat! olive could be it, but personally I hate shea in soaps - thinner slimey lathers! I have soaped it at 5% and things have been ok with plenty of castor and coconut. Still I save my shea for lotions and keep it out of the soap!

Bethany

I read "presweetened for lip balms" or some such on the site and I don't think so! So I added some of the sweetener I got and it was good for banana and raspberry. I still think I am using too much rasberry flavor however.

I tried the same amounts with toasted coconut and BLECH! so bitter! So if someone could give me how much flavor in ml. they use per say 20 tubes that would be great. (I don't translate the whole 1-3% thing when it comes to lip balm for some reason!) I was doing 6 ml flavor for 20 tubes with 2 ml of thier sweetener.

TIA,

Bethany

Teri,

I think your recipe looks cool, however I don't want to use SLS. Got any subs for me?

Bethany

What size shrink wrap do you use?

I've seen them wrapped in tissue like candy - they you could add a hang tag I guess. but I think I would still like to shrink wrap them too.

Bethany

So if I ever get them down - how do you package them and what do you charge? I've seen the Kangaroo blue tubes - those are cool, but what if I want to do them seperately? Shrink wrap? - what size? I think I will sell them out of a jar at the farmer's market and shows - but what about mailing?

As for pricing - my bombs weigh a bit over 2 ounces. I have never even bought these myself so I am clueless.

The same could be said for bath melts - how much for a .75- 1 ounce melt? I think I have the packaging figured - but the price no. Bath melts I have can make - just those darn bombs are tricky!

Any input would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Bethany

I made a bath bomb recipe from the board here and after getting them out of the mold (that takes a bit of practice!) they were sitting on the counter and two began to fizz a smidge! Well in the recipe the gal was from houston and she put hers in a slightly warm oven. I'm in NW WA and things are a little damp here so I tried that - they started to melt or something.

So what do you do if it's humid and the darn things start to fizz prematurely?

Bethany

I do it similar to you too, but I just think the kids wants to hop in the shower, clean up and get out. I still might have him do it anyway.

Bethany

I use a variation of the OCM... it's not as time consuming as the other method, and I like it no breakouts, just smooth, glowing skin.

My cleansing oil recipe:

macadamia nut oil, grapeseed oil, rice bran oil.

Yeah. I don't use castor. It's not easy to obtain here, and my skin hasn't been complaining, actually. I use roughly 60-70% mac oil, 20-30% grapeseed and 10-20% rbo.

I slather some on my face and keep rubbing all over for a couple of minutes until it's about half as oily as it was before.

After that, I just splash my face repeatedly with (pretty) warm water and wash the excess oils off, rubbing as I go. I feel the heat helps the oils to penetrate much like the steaming would If I'm showering I just hop in and do the same.

After I'm done, I rub my damp skin gently with my towel to dislodge dead skin cells, and rub some mac oil in. No tight feeling after cleansing, and my skin tone's evened out tons. The mac oil penetrates so quickly and leaves a matte, dewy finish too that I absolutely love! My relatively inexpensive alternative to jojoba

It's good for me (and probably teens), since I get rather impatient when I sit around waiting for the steam to work

I've tried a lot of things - salicylic acid (worked, but so oily after! And if you get that stuff in your mouth, ugh!), isotretonoin (dried my skin out so badly, lips were cracking), acne washes (dried my skin out too). I think now that I'm not drying my skin out more, it's doing a LOT better

That's fine - I'll still keep them and sell them in the tins. I just don't want some bizarre chemical reaction is all.

Bethany

What if you totally greased up the tin with mineral oil or vaseline??? I would love to be able to do it this way! A whole lot easier than cutting the rounds!

Bethany

I read a tread where a gal poured her CP shave soap directly into tins. I was wondering - wouldn't that discolor the tins or the soap being they are not stainless - are they? I have the SKS tins.

Bethany

I have been doing OCM for almost two weeks and love it. I haven't had any huge eruptions or anything like I have heard has happened to others. I would still be afraid to try it on my teen - their little egos are pretty easily crushed at that age and looking nice is important. I would be afraid they would have the "purging" of gunk for a few weeks and they wouldn't enjoy that at all (didn't happen to me, but who knows?)- plus since my oldest teen is boy - I just don't think he would dig the time it takes to do it.

my two cents,

Bethany

For now I would like to just make this for myself. But I'll give it a whirl one of these days and see what happens. I think what I will do is keep some to use but also put some in a container to see how long it lasts before going bad. What are the signs of a bad lotion besides mold and maybe smell?

Well, breaking out in a huge ole nasty yeastie rash or getting a yucky infection would be a sign and smell and looks may be the LAST thing to show. I make a GM at 10% of the total lotion made using Phenonip and it preserves fine. Add the GM with the water in the liquid phase and heat and hold for 20 minutes at 170 degrees F.

If you do decide to sell it - TEST TEST TEST with a lab for how well your preservative is working.

Bethany

looks good so far! I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you!

Bethany

I could've sworn I had seen it at MMS. www.thesage.com

look under essential oils.

Bethany

I have to say that I am NOT liking the foam sheets. I've been using them for 3 months and am switching back to freezer paper. I do not like cleaning the things and you have to be careful not to stretch them out when you do. I can but out my freezer paper template and line the mold much faster and I can just throw them away!

My two Cents,

Bethany

Visit www.mullerslanefarm.com. Cindy makes a neem castille that is supposed to work wonders for acne prone skin. I hope to make one soon, but am a little swamped with other things so finding the time for a new recipe is hard right now. I do make a salt bar that people have said is effective for acne, but have only seen slight improvement with my own kids.

HTH,

Bethany

When figuring out how much your mold will hold you need to factor in what your lye/water ratio is as well. When I got my TOG Paul said 2 lbs of oils in each side - at that time I soaped at 27% and had enough left to fill about 4 muffins. I emailed him and he was soaping at 33% or something. Now I soap between 30-33% most of the time depending on acceleration and when I was using my tog the 33% fit just right.

Bethany

I just posted my TOG and melon baller beveler in the classifieds here!

Bethany

There was no honey added. What is RT? What is the difference between aloe vera juice and gel? I can get the juice but not the gel ans I had found a gm lotion recipe that called for the gel instead of the juice. Are these 2 interchangeable?

Yes RT is Room Temperature. 100% Goat milk means all of the liquid, not counting the oils is Goat milk. I use aloe juice and the difference is consistency - I've never used the gel, but would not think that they are interchangable.

I do insulate some of my GM soaps. but not all. It's been by trial and error I have figured out which ones to insulate or not.

Yes ice cubes, yes poor lye slowly.

If a ton of oils spilled all over you likely are just going to have to trash that batch.

Bethany

All my soaps are 100% goat milk or 1/2 GM-1/2 aloe vera juice. The GM is always frozen totally solid in cubes and the lye added very slowly if it's a 100% GM soap, the the lye is added to just the aloe vera juice if it's a 50/50 blend and the GM is added to the oils with the aloe juice.

When using part water it is always easier to mix the lye with the water and let it cool then add the GM to the oils with the lye mixture like you said.

Did you add honey to this batch? I only recently discovered that if I soap my OMH with the oils higher than room temperature it overheats and oils seperate. This is the only formula I have absolutely got to have the oils RT.

The real honey just really heats it up. So I'm think you soaped too hot in general. I really like soaping with the oils RT and get a lot lighter soap that way.

HTH,

Bethany

So you use a regular blender AND a stick blender?

No, I don't have failor. I'm using the directions and formula on Snowdrift Farm's site. I've also read bunches of other things too.

So if I want to formulate my own recipe using soapcalc can I just put the lye water to 3% and input KOH plus oils? Will that give the liquid soap amounts?

Thanks,

Bethany

Can you use a squirrel mixer for this? My stick blender isn't all that tall to do a 5 gallon bucket, but I read that LS gets SUPER thick and I'm wondering what can handle that?

And I can make one master batch and then add fragrance to smaller batches - right?

Bethany