kidsngarden

With the big bombs like mine I use cello bags, but haven't had any damage issues yet at shows - but I don't bring them to the farmer's market as they don't sell well there. Great at Christmas and year round on line though.

It's still soap - water is not what would make it lye heavy, having too much lye for the oils used would. I'm surprised you got the lye to dissolve in less than 50% water!! I'd totally use it up...I can't see the picture real well, but if I had made the same mistake and it looked good I'd sell it too!

I just got some fresh lemon balm and would like to infuse an oil with it. I'm assuming I have to dry the lemon balm first so the moisture from the leaves doesn't get in the oil? And how do I infuse oil with the vanilla beans I got through the coop? Directions on how to do this would be great. Thanks!

Mine oozed and I had kind of a half circle bomb.

I made one with pumpkin puree' and GM last year. DO NOT use the pumplin pie spice from AH/RE - plastic city! It smelled so very badly of plastic I just threw it out! I use BB pumpkin spice with success though.

The oven doesn't work for me either.

I've used Labcolor or true tone colors from BB and many morph or disappear if gelled. Same with a few micas, but I have better luck with them and UM's.

I believe I read that you should not discount HP. I don't do HP often, but every time I have the bars are pretty soft compared to my CP bars.

I don't know how open you are to using animal oils but lard is a nice slow tracing oil. You could try a real basic recipe of 50% lard, 20% coconut, 5% castor, and 25% liquid oil like sunflower. Put it through soapcalc with a 2.5 pound batch to get the lye amounts.

I use straight unrefined fair trade shea on my face daily. LOVE IT! I have very sensitive skin and the unrefined shea is supposed to have SPF values (but I still don't trust that!) Yes, it takes a lot of testing to be able to claim and SPF and it is highly regulated so it's not likely you will find and Indie that makes it.

Soap at ROOM TEMP, no water discount, then add the FO at light trace with a whisk just like meredith said. It could also be your soap recipe as some trace quicker than others.

Very rarely is it cheaper to ship out anything regular priority for me. It has to be under 2 pounds for sure. And parcel sometimes isn't much better either. I'd rather pay a bit more and have it get there sooner! I just have a little collection of boxes that I use for non flat rate shipping or if I send fedex or UPS, but like I said - probably 90% of my stuff goes out flat rate.

I second freezer paper, but I too never reuse mine - I tear it off!

You mean eo's that increase photosensitivity (make you burn quicker)?. No, they are not a concern in Soapmaking. We can go round and round here about how much is absorbed through the skin, but still it would be very minimal, not enough to cause photosensitivity.

Also bars that have been touching any of my vanilla base bars (one's that darken) will also begin to go brown too if they sit next to them long enough.

My husband owns a janitorial service that cleans banks. The very best (and free!) soap storing system I have are quarter (or any of the coin) boxes. The banks throw them out daily. I even use them for shipping smaller orders. You can turn them inside out for that. I also use them as molds for my soap classes so they would be great for a newbie soaper looking for a mold. I store all my scents seperately.

I have a lot of recipes with lard in them and have had few customers who care. I get more questions about it online than at markets - I think maybe one person all last season asked at my farmer's market!

I don't make melt and pour, but were those fresh mint leaves? If they were fresh they would add water to your soap.

One thing you will find if you are there selling the soaps (like at a farmer's market as opposed to a website) is that the soaps you adore the most tend to sell the best. Why? Because you talk them up so much. There are exceptions. I adore patchouli and patch blends, but that is really a love it or hate it fragrance. Last year I managed to sell cucumber mint like gangbusters in soap and lotion converting many cucumber melon fans but this year I am so sick of it it makes me want to puke when I soap it. So I've taken it out of my lotion offerings and likely won't soap it too much either -slowly phasing it out. Online I sell a lot of EO all vegetable soaps cause I think people really THINK (ok, sometimes people KNOW) they want the totally animal and synthetic free soaps. But live I sell way more FO soaps ( most of which have animal oils) because when they are there and can sniff most FO's win out. Lavender FO sells much better than my lavender bulgarian EO. There are some EO bars that always sell well - Citrus Mint and rosemary mint. www.the-sage.com is a great one stop shopping place that is closer to you than BB. Though I am fairly loyal to BB cause they are and hour from me, sometimes I find the prices far better at MMS as long as I am buying enough to merit the shipping.

The ball ornaments are keepsake ornaments found in Micheals all year round, not just at Christmas. Ask for them and they will be able to tell you where they are.

Ditto on columbus foods (aka soapers choice) Good price too!

I would imagine you can still grate of chop up the soap, add the missing oil and it will still saponify, even with the other chunks in it. Nope, it won't be pretty, but likely still usable. Some of those ugly rebatches feel oh so good! you may need to add extra fragrance at the end.

Well one of the common signs of true addiction is blaming others for your...ahem...problem.

Double post! Sorry!

Don't do a 15% superfat for a laundry bar - that adds conditioning properties keep that at 0. The water as percent of oils I never even look at. I THINK it means that if you combine the weights of water and oils together the water is 38% of that figure. But really I have no idea. The only stuff up in that corner I really mess with is the lye concentration and the superfat.