GrandmaArial

Well... since I don't make baskets, as my twin you know that. I guess you got me! ROFLMAO Really and seriously, those are great baskets. I'm not a basket person but I would be pleased to recieve one of yours. Your products look lucious.

so... does that mean you're going to send me a basket every day?

When's our birthday and am I getting one of your baskets? You knew I was going to say that... twins always know what the other's going to do! LOL

Either sell me a raffle ticket (the winning one) or please let me be your friend...

They're perfect for a wedding! The colors, the swirls are reminicent of a bridal veil... just beautiful.

That's lovely! It looks like bars of vanilla bean icecream! I love the smell of lemon grass too.

Thank you euginia! OK DeJay, now you have no excuse... get busy... we're waiting for those pictures! Thank you Firegirl, and everyone else. Although I still think you're all blind, or just have really strange sense of esthetics… oops… sorry, that’s me… But, does anyone have any idea why the lavender/chamomile turned grey? Or who took my swirls?

Now THOSE are pretty salt bars! I can't decide which is my favorite. Both have such a beautiful soft looking texture. And your colors and swirls are fine, smooth, and distinct. Maybe someday I'll learn to get those qualities. I can't say I am fond of the Lemongrass & Star Anise. It is forboding... somehow sad looking to me. Probabaly reminding me fall is comeing, soon it will be cold... You achived something special with the texture of the top. Another thing I need to learn to do. The Honeysuckle Jasmine... That's just beautiful. I would never use that one, it would sit on a doily on a table to be admired...or slipped in the curio cabinet with the rocks my sons collected over the years...

Wow!!!

Donna, you know you can have anything you want! You’re the one who got me hooked. When you see this in person you’re going to see how much prettier yours is. I had to make my own cuz yours is almost gone. The jade is gone, I guess it’s time for me to get busy and do the tweaking to try to get what I originally wanted. Or maybe I’ll just keep it the way it is. Maybe sometime in the future we can do a salt bar swap... after I've had time to tweak mine. Although I'm proud of it (all mothers are proud of their new babies) I would be embarrassed to compare it to anyone else’s at this point.

Those are both beautiful. The patchouli is very dramatic! But the blue sugar is still my favorite. You may have wanted blue but that soap wanted to be the perfect neutral soap. It’s so calm and soothing. Those swirls are awsome.

The contrast in the salt bar is what I was working for but if you look close you see it all sort of mixed its self up when I wasn’t looking somehow. From a distance it’s nice but up close it looks like a chunk of dirty chalk, and I like to get close to soap when I’m using it. Another problem is I used coarse salt so the texture is rough, rougher than I wanted… the surface looks pitted… unpleasant. Well, live and learn. I still like the way it smells (though most people won’t like the kelp I think). The carrot soap might loose its color? NO! You’re teasing me? Say you’re teasing me! That’s a beautiful soap you have! I really like the translucence of carrot soap. I guess I will have to get some carrot seed oil. You know you can always make a batch with mica for yourself…

Ok… everyone be here next Thursday @ 9am. I have an appointment with my optometrist for all of you… cuz you are all obviously blind! One pretty out of four… and I took the picture today just in case the mica morphs to grey (or worse) and gets ugly too…

HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please note that I said MOST of my good stuff… and then out of the four bars here only one MAY turn out pretty! The bayrum lost its swirls, the lavender/chamomile has gone a funky grey color, and the salt bar… just plain UGLY! The carrot soap is only 2 days old so it MAY wind up pretty, and if it doesn’t change (I think it’s gorgeous right now) then I will have a one in four ratio of prettier than your disaters…. :p:p:p:p:p:p:p:p

Got caught up on the basic soaps so decided to play with some new ideas. The first is the dream I had about Jaybyrd’s “Crazy Carrot & Honey” soap, sans honey. I was testing some vegetable dyes with lye water the other day and there sat the gold mica (wsp, approved for skin care including M&P but nothing listed for CP) so I tested it too. Passed with flying colors… so I used, it did morph into an almost new copper penny color but seems to be lightening up somewhat. We will see what it looks like in a few weeks… scented with my own version of “Grandma’s Kitchen”. Lots of citrus, heavy on the grapefruit and tangerine, with a hint of herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme…). This is the strongest scented soap I’ve made except for the bayrum. At this point the mica is still shinny specks in the swirls, I hope they survive. Next is the bayrum revisited. Tried to make something hubby would like. He’s using it so it must be ok. However I must note… someone stole my swirls… whoever has them please take care of them, I want them back in the same shape you took them in. I do like the tops on these, came out good in my opinion. The third is a lavender/chamomile with calendula I made for my friend. The lavender and chamomile are both infused oils with extra herbs swirled in, and I think the scent is about right. I added the calendula for color and the first week it was a lovely soft yellow… I’m thinking next time the carrots will make a better color choice… Last but not least is my first salt bar. I knew I was miscalculating for the mold but decided to just go ahead and make a 3 lb batch (1.5 lbs oils, 1.5 lbs salt) but salt is denser than oil so the bars came out small. Next try I will increase the batch by 30%. It is essentially the same as the “sea side” soap I made awhile back. Swirled with ground kelp, scented with Bittercreek’s “ocean mist”, but at 1% (compared to .5% as I used in “sea side”. It really smells like being at the beach. It's not a pretty soap but I can’t wait for this one to cure so I can try it out in the tub. Thank you for looking.

Great pictures and great soaps!

I ran your recipe through soap calc and the numbers are close to my softest recipe. Do you discount your water? I use a wooden molds and line with freezer paper for this reason. As soon as the soap is cool enough to hold its shape I can lift it out and set it in a cool dry place to start curing and drying out and let it sit for a few days if need be before I pull the liner off.

That is gorgeous soap! Is that a tinge of green I see in the "white" or just my imagination from seeing the word peppermint? Those swirls are perfect. Did you polish them? The "finish" is reminicent of polished wood. Just beautiful.

During the heat this summer I set my molds out in the sun to encourage gel when I wanted to rush it so I could do another batch that evening (I only had one mold then). The only soap I don’t gel is what’s left over from filling the log that I dump in what ever small mold is handy so I don’t have much experience with it but where you’re at wouldn’t the heat make it gel? If you want to make it gel just be careful… a hot Arizona day… don’t bundle it up and watch it close so it doesn’t over heat… I watched mine and brought it in as soon as gel almost reached the corners of the mold then brought it inside to cool. It only got up to the 90s here… Good luck.

You can also look here. http://www.papermart.com/index/index_retail_box.htm

I'm confused by this... the butter will color... as Carebear says it MUST be compleatly incorportated into the soap. If it is not then the soap part of it will be lye heavy and not nice, as in burn your skin. You don't want it streaked through the soap like swirls. I don't use scents much... and so far when I have I just toss them in the pot with the soft oils. After it's compleatly mixed in you can swirl as normal. If your shea butter is hot it may speed up so just be ready to work fast. Getting the butter just above the melting point works best for me. When I use infussed oils and herbs I add the oils when I add the shea butter and I swirl with the herbs.

Opinions on this varies, some feel it won’t make a difference in the soap, that almost all of the saponification process occurs in the gel stage so saving any oil out to add at trace only increases the odds that you will forget to add it and waste the whole batch (lye heavy). I think it does make a difference so I do it. I melt the shea butter and allow it to cool slightly (leaving it in the warm pan set on top of the presto pot, which is still warm from melting my hard oils but turned off, like a double boiler. Don’t let it cool down so far it solidifies. It will thin the soap down when you add it, I add at medium trace and it drops it back to very light trace (or more depending on the temperature, the warmer the butter the thinner it gets) but after it’s completely incorporated it will start tracing again, again temperature seems to be the major factor in how fast. The warmer the butter the faster it will move (if the butter is hot you will have to move fast to get it in the mold). It is very important that you don’t let it cool to much though, if it is cooled enough to start becoming solid again it won’t want to incorporate and will want to form little “chunks” suspended in the soap. One particularly hectic day I had my oils melted and was getting ready to start my lye water when I was interrupted. When I returned the shea butter had cooled to the consistency of soft butter. I thought the heat from the soap was already generating would melt it back down; it didn’t. Which ever way you decide to go… good luck.

I have found putting a fan on the soap helps to dry them a bit faster, in conjunction with a dehumidifier. I use an old dehydrator... BUT I disconnected the heating element (leaving the fan to circulate the air). All the dehydrator does is allow me to arrange them so the air circulates well on the plastic racks. I am in the process of converting a space in the basement that will use 3 box fans, a dehumidifier and racks. It doesn’t mean the soap is cured over night but does seem to shave a little time off, but mostly cuts down the risk of DOS I think. Of course I could just be running my electric bill up for nothing… but it makes me feel good so I’ll keep doing it. My soaps seem to do best between 70F and 80F. Below 70F and the PH drops too slowly, above 80F and it increases the chance of rancidity (dos). This is just my opinion, well, I do compulsively check the PH… but about the DOS. Warm air is simply capable of holding more moisture than cold air.

Very Nice, profesional looking, though I agree I would prefer an easier to read font.

Why is it your mistakes look so much better than my successes? I wouldn't mind getting that color... like a summer day...hear the birds singing?