kidsngarden

Oh, and for dana her on CT, this guy does not make soap at all.

Oh I have a plan in place. I sell my soap in boxes of 36 mix and match for $120 shipped flat rate. $10 less if they want the bars "naked". But his guy talks in large amounts like 300 bars and wants custom stuff so it did put me in a whole new ball game.

I wasn't going to post this info because I'm not sure exactly what this guys deal is other than trying to scam you into a lower price, but he is incredibly high maintenance and makes tons of promises he doesn't seem to be able to keep. Another soaper on another forum was hit up by him as well though with the same crap he gave me so now I'm posting this to help out my soaping friends. He will negotiate a price with you and then ask for it to be made cheaper saying he can't sell bars for more than $3. This guy swears he's going to make a million dollars and never leaves a phone number (and it's restricted) and won't use paypal. I have a long two month saga I could tell you about this guy, but I won't cause it's just too unreal and too long to write I won't give out last names unless you PM me but he goes by two names, Don and Dana and is based out of Medina NY. He says he has a whole bunch of soapers working for him and is going to big bigger than dove or dial. He is especially looking for GM soapers since he has been turned down by myself and this other gal recently. If you are approached by this guy my advice would be to run away, but if you do proceed, do so with EXTREME caution. If you need more information you can PM or email me, but I will not post it publicly.

I've been reformulating my liquid soap and now I finally have it like I want it, but I'm out of KOH...I called my chemical supply place that I by my lye and KOH from and the price has nearly doubled!!! Now I will have to wait a little more to get it because I wasn't prepared to pay $160 for 50 pounds! And the coconut here in the PNW is nearly $7.00 at the super walmart - I used to buy it there in a pinch when I was out of my bulk stuff, but now, no way! I'm going to start rendering my own lard too because it's doubled as well.

I have one recipe I can cut by the slice and I am planning on bringing logs to cut to my market in that recipe. I will sell them by the inch, not by weight. they will be put in prelabeled glassine bags with a general "soap by the inch" on them with my company name, etc. Then I will have address labels with ingredients for individual varietys to slap on the bags. I still will sell wrapped bars as well, only offering a few logs to cut.

Yes, soap it just like any other milk - if you want to freeze it in ice cube trays and wait until the 21st I am doing a GM tutorial here you can sit in on. They should really call it a milk soap class because the same rules apply - goat, cow, sheep whatever!

I don't know why this is but I find HP does not last as long as my CP even if it's the same recipe, same cure time, same liquid. Doesn't make sense to me why but HP seems to be a softer bar. Plus, like others, I make GM soap (with reall GM, not powdered) so I want a whiter bar.

I have used the foamers from MMS and they have not clogged. I would dilute the soap further if your soap is clogging it.

While I do not agree with Missmary on some things, I do feel she has a lot to share about web site things. I think she would be perfect for a tutorial. I especially would be interested in meta tagging.

I've never had this problem. I use pump bottles from Bayousome. Maybe your soap is just too thick?

Oh, and thanks to those who said my stuff looked good! I've worked really hard on formulation and design AND taking and editing all those pictures (my least favorite thing to do!)

I've been on HCM since September and to thier credit I have not ever had my site be down to my knowledge. since I'm paid lifetime and Frank has assured me I will still be around I'm sticking with it. I don't want to reinvent the wheel and start over here if what I have is working, but I wish I was higher up the google search. There is a default on the site that just automatically throws meta stuff out there or something, but I was told by the company I hired to do every page myself. By the way - with all the HCM concerns I have to say this...As far as making my site, HCM was the best thing I ever did and I tried other stuff and didn't get it. I had spent countless hours on dumb Godaddy templates and other crap and spent about 8 hours totall uploading my entire site on HCM. I still have to go back and reoptimize though. What I do regret is the THOUSANDS I paid out to the guys to optimize my homepage and advise me when I probably would've have found what they did and told me to do for free. What is CS? You guys are speaking greek to me.

Hi there, HCM user here (let's not go into the seemily stupid thing that is right now...) I actually hired someone to optimize my homepage and tell me how to optimize my other pages myself (all of which is not done currently as I wait and see if everything I have done will be obliterated). I am seeing the huge foolishness of hiring them as I am truly doing the work. Now, If I am going in this HCM template and putting in my keywords and my phrases etc in my Meta tags for each page is that still going to be riddled with errors? Is the code there killing me even if I am tagging it all? I'm feeling pretty clueless...

Twoscents - why won't you share your website? why is it not on your siggy? I'm so not a pro at this but I PAID to have just my homepage optimized by a pro and to have them tell me how to optimize my other pages (which I will be sure to do once I figure out if I'm being screwed or not by HCM). One thing that really helps with hits is to have your website on your signature for all forums. I get a lot of traffic from forums I'm on. so if you're so up to speed why not share your website? Are we going to copy the whole thing and call it ours or something? Just wanting to see why you won't walk the talk and show us your site.

Ok, well I missed the memo about HCM being bad...so I am one of the suckers who paid LIFETIME...I emailed frank after his announcement and asked about it and he said it would still be in affect with the new ownership? So you all can PM and tell me privately if I need to be acting as if the sky is falling...I wanted to redo a lot, well nearly everything on my site so I will sit and wait.... ETA - I wanted to say that for the most part my experience with frank and HCM has been good, the only negative things being he sometimes has not returned an email, but I just bug him again and he does. I've liked having my site hosted with them.

I don't know if it's because I use a log not a slab, but this did not work out for me. I usually have to cut my soap 12-24 hours after making or it's getting too hard, but I could not even get the loaf out on day two, putting it in the freezer, etc. I did mineral oil it too. I took the mold apart to get it out - no biggie, it will go back together easy enough. I'm glad it works for you though!

I tried this - have a loaf in now and am SCARED to try to take it out! Wish me luck!

Great Laura! For those who may be following this thread who may not know ... the "lye" at lowes is Sodium Hydroxide (for making cold process bar soap) and it should say "roebic crystal drain Cleaner" and be Granular. It is not Potassium hydroxide that is used for liquid soap making.

I buy both sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide at a chemical supply place an hour away. I buy 50 pound bags though...

Well GM does increase your superfat, but it shouldn't be significantly softer than the others....Hmmmm. My parents have lived there about 5 or 6 years?

Hey, You are close, Brown! My parents live on Lake Sutherland in PA! I'm wondering why your GM soap was soft? Was it the same recipe as your other bars, just with GM as the liquid? Did you discount the others? All I do is fresh GM soaps...I'm SUPPOSED to do a tutorial here this month but my camera is MIA!

Scented - The ratios I gave were to help Darbla formulate a basic recipe by weight, not volume, not particular to using pumpkin. You are right, any recipe would work. In my experience pumpkin doesn't contribute all that much to a bar anyway (but I don't use all that much because I don't want it to go bad), but has WONDERFUL label appeal! Darbla - I'm very glad this recipe has worked for you. however it is very hard to get the same results every time by volume, especially measuring solid oils. I know that millers is very reputable, but also know that seasoned soapers will tell you to use recipes by volume for accuracy. If you want to keep using this recipe and it is working for you, great. I was just trying to help you out. Once you get soaping more you will find that you will want a scale and to do your recipes by volume.

Most soaps in the store are detergent bars, some aren't. One that comes to mind is Ivory. MP is often detergents and not "true" soap. But I believe there are some that do not have detergents in them. I only do CP so I'm not entirely familiar with MP. At my market last year there was a gal who sold MP and she had a huge following even though her bars were syndet, but then there were just as many that didn't like it and wanted my soaps. To each his own.

I only to B&B and I am doing far better at the farmer's market then online. As a matter of fact my sales at the market are the same as they were last year so that is good. I think I do better at the market because there is a clientelle there that believes they NEED handcrafted soap. Online I have more lush-like groupies who it is a luxury product. But I am taking steps to scale back. I have cut out my lotions because they were my high price items and I HATE making lotion. I did have a few fanatics over my lotion, but they weren't worth the headache of making it. (cleaning crazy and being completely germophobic during the whole process was very stressful to me!) So scaling back has been a blessing to me in that I don't have to make lotions anymore! I still sell shea and lotion bars well though. Bath bombs are only good sellers online and at craft shows. I think I will try half bars. My 5 + oz bars are $5.00 or 4/$18 right now (really should be more) and I think I will sell halves for $3.00 or 2/$5 and see how that goes. Currently at the market my highest priced item is my large lotion bar at $8.50 and the lowest price is my clearance soaps at $3.00 or 2/$5.

I would strongly suggest not using a recipe done by volume. It is very inaccurate and I'm disappointed millersoap would publish such a thing. All soap ingredients should be measured by weight. The only thing we know of that is same volume as weight is water, but I still weigh that too! This recipe will have poor bubbles and there are lots better out there. A good very basic starter recipe is 40-60% lard or tallow, 20% coconut, and 20-40%% liquid oil like sunflower or olive. Also one pound of oils is REALLY small. Try at least two pounds of oils.