GrandmaArial

It was CHUNKY! I thought about that... but was concerned I wouldn't be able to get it to smooth out in the oil. The idea od little chunks of semi solid, lye heavy goat's milk in the soap... scared me.

Got some whole goats milk. Stuck it in the freezer til slushy… had my oils ready to go… added lye to goat’s milk with the pitcher sitting in a tub of ice water, looked pretty good, a little orange, but not bad. Also the smell wasn’t nearly as bad. Then… phone rang. I had to run for an hour but thought no problem, I’ll just lock the door so critters can’t play. Came home and lye water is A) bright orange. stinks to high heaven. C) has turned to a custard like consistency, almost like the early stage of cheese. Yup, I dumped it and started over with plain cold GM. I give up… I am obviously not meant to make creamy white GM soap.

Ihave read about egg soap. I haven't tried it. Here's one of the recipes I found awhile back, I don't remeber where i found it so I can't give credit. 10 ounces Palm Oil 4 ounces Coconut Oil 2 ounces Olive Oil 2 ounces lye 8 ounces water 3-4 egg yolks to weigh 2 ounces. Mix lye and water. Set aside to cool. Melt Palm and Coconutoils together,set aside to cool. When oils are at 110* and lye water is at 100*, gently pour lye into oils. Mix until soap traces. Mix egg yolks and olive oil together. Carefully mix traced soap mixture into egg and oil mix, stir carefully. Continue until approx 4 ounces of soap have been mixed into the egg and oil. Add the egg and soap mixture slowly back into the main soap mix, pour into prepared moulds, allow to stand covered and out of drafts for 48 hours. Remove form moulds, cut as needed, and allow to age open to air, 2-3 weeks. Of course I would use my favorite recipe and just add the egg yolks. Egg yolk has a lot of sulfur in them so should work as an anti bacterial, but then, eggs do go bad and that's not a good thing, LOL. I would beat the yolks with the hand mixer to make sure any trace of white is broken down and incorporated as completely as possible so you don't wind up with little lumps of coagulated protein. And no reason you can't add rum. I would add the egg yolks to the oils. and beat with handblender really good before adding the lye water.Might be best to cook at least a portion of the alcohol off before adding rum. Just simmer on a VERY low heat until it's about 50% left. Simple reduction. I wouldn't use a high alcohol rum for this either. For safety reasons. Any excess alcohol will evaporate as it cures. I'm not sure how alcohol will affect the soap it's self, alcohol is used to make glycerin soap. The reduced rum could make it accelerate, most rums contain significant spices, then of course there is the sugars in it. I have never done this, this is only my thoughts on it. Anyone with experence please corect my bad assumptions before I just have to give in and do it.

I think I would have directed her to carefully rinse the soap every day while gently rubbing with her hands.

I don’t use much makeup due to skin sensitives, so I don’t really know what to look for in the colors and all… but your presentations are beautiful!

I hope you have it on tape for when he starts complaining about the expence and all the buckets of oils and stacks of soaps curing all over the house. Concrats, now someone give her the soapers anonamous groups link.

There are people who won’t ever try real soap. To them soap is something you buy at the store. They don’t know what it’s made out of, they don’t want to know. I have had people get this rather horrified expression when they find out I make soap. They will try the MP I pour in a mold, but the idea of touching the soap I made from scratch seems to make them queasy. But in the same line I know people who won’t eat vegetables grown in a garden. Vegetables are bought at the store, preferably in a can… end of story. The idea of consuming something that grew out of the ground offends them… yes, I know this doesn’t make sense… but somehow they are convinced all the vegetables in the store were grown hydroponicaly or perhaps produced like in star trek magically by a machine. I know people, yes, I’m talking about adults here, who refuse to believe milk comes from cows, or have suddenly developed lactose intolerance when they learned it. And one lady I know only found out a few years ago that meat is animal flesh. She still eats meat… but refuses to talk about it, LOL. We order a side of beef every year; it saves us about 50% on our meat bill. Good Angus beef. They love coming to our house for dinner but she refuses to order a side of beef. The idea of a half of cow in her freezer and she wouldn’t be able to eat she says. She only buys chicken parts, never a whole chicken now that she knows it once had feathers and walked around, either. My guess is your friend is one of these people. Nothing you can do to get her to try it. My own husband had trouble accepting the idea of using hand made soap, and it was only his friends raving about my soap that got him to try it. Maybe if her friends get into real soap she will call you and ask you for some. I wouldn’t hold my breath though.

I have a small room in the basement set up with dehumidifier and hubby put vinyl coated shelves up for me. I have a fan going 24/7. I don’t think you have to be that elaborate. I started with an old microwave card (similar to rack like euginia’s rack) stuck in the spare bedroom. All you need is good air circulation and dry air. High humidity can trigger DOS.

I bought the FOs almost a year ago, for MP, and didn't like them. It didn't strike me then to try mixing them. Together with the mint it really is an awsome smell. I am proud of this one.

Those are classy soaps. Elegant. Beautiful. What you would find in expensive homes.

My neighbor came over to get her husband some bayrum soap; he refuses to use commercial soap now. She smelled this and walked past the shelf with ready soaps and into the curing closet and grabbed a bar. I told her it’s not ready for use, we had a bit of an argument, she said she didn’t care if it burned his skin, he would smell great in the hospital! LMAO. I had to promise to save a couple bars for her. I do so hope the scent holds. It does look a lot like camouflage, doesn’t it, LOL. It should brown up a bit, not much, maybe tannish, I didn’t use much vanilla; he considers it a girly scent, LOL. He’s such a guy!

Jeri inspired this one, with her cucumber and crazy carrot soaps. I dreamed about it, again (please keep inspiring my dreams; they have been my prettiest soaps so far!). We were talking about it and I thought I could see it in my minds eye, but the dream was different and that’s what I had to do. Also, in my dream I could smell it! Cucumber, melon, and mint. The cucumber and melon are FOs, the mint is from my garden. It’s WONDERFUL. I can not see anyone not liking this one. If this cures up as good as it looks and smells I think I may have finally made a great soap, not just good, but great! Thank you Jeri! I am calling it “Summer Garden”… I seem to be on a season theme kick. What will be next? Autumn Walk” or “Spring Fling”?

Those are Beautiful! Why can't my HP ever look so pretty? I do love rasemary. It is a strugle to not add it to every batch. I always have the feeling like "just a pinch, no one will notice"... It just does something wonderful to soap. of course it does tend to turn colors just a little off so i don't, LOL.

Oh… I’m beeping my own horn here… but this smells GREAT IMO. It is so masculine! I only hope the scent sticks and doesn’t morph and I can duplicate it. These are cut and trimmed but not cleaned up yet, I won’t clean them for a couple weeks. The lower left is upside down.

Those are wonderful! Like a birthday cake!

I did with this. Stole them from the neighbors yard a few weeks ago thinking maybe I would try doing a seasonal soap... well... this is it I guess, LOL, winter! I rough cut then to fit in the jar, covered with oil and forgot about it. It smelled a bit strong to us so we only added a little.

I’m trying to figure out what you don’t like about the red candy cane. That looks to me like a perfect representation of crushed candy canes. Beautiful soap! And.. LOVE the smowflakes!

What does holly smell like? To me it smells like winter. It’s an ever green, and although it doesn’t smell anything like pine it has the same sharpness of the volatile oils. It is a very woodsy scent, goes well with pine (maybe because my mom would bring armloads in to decorate for Christmas). It’s a green smell… sorry, other than to pick some and send it to you… I don’t know how to describe it LOL. Ummm... when you decorate with it take a whif! LOL.

My man is so funny! It took me months to get him to try my soap, the only reason he did was because so many of his friends bragged on the bayrum. He still has some Coast left from the last big pack he bough about six months ago and has alternating it with the bayrum to use it up, and complaining about how dry it leaves his skin, LOL. I have to admit it makes me feel good he likes my soap better than his (formally) beloved Coast. The last batch of bayrum I decided to change the appearance, instead of strong blue with weak green swirls I made it white with wispy green and blue swirls. He threw a fit when he saw it! Grumbled about he liked it how it was, if it’s not broken don’t fix it… and he hopes it’s not going to dry his skin out now that I changed it! I keep telling him all I changed is the looks, the soap is the same recipe he liked before (and I spent months working on the recipe to fit his specifications). He still isn’t sure. I had to promise him if he doesn’t like the new batch I will make him some more like the previous batches. I won’t, of course, cuz it’s the same soap!

Hubby FINALLY made me a tray mold. So I made him soap! Together we sniffed FOs and herbs… came up with a combination with cedarwood, amber, musk, holly, a tiny bit of pine, and dried spearmint, rosemary and sage which I infused in oil. We are calling it “Winter Woods”. His color choice was brown… I couldn’t do just plain brown soap… so I used sage and rosemary (finely ground) to make the brown swirls, and used chromium oxide green with a touch of red oxide to make the darker forest green swirls. I also (but don’t tell him) added a bit of vanilla to the batter so it will brown up a bit for him. I have to admit, he just wanted me to make him a batch of bayrum, but I have a batch I made in the log mold two weeks ago curing now. He has plenty… Yes, I am painfully aware my swirls are no where as beautiful as s many of you do, but better than I thought it would be as my first try in a tray mold.

SS. thank you for paying attention to what you were told about the arnica and scratching it from the list. I know you have a reputation of ignoring advice but you have proven you can listen to others with this. I am glad. You have already been told how disastrous this particular mistake could have been and I believe you understand it so I won’t repeat the lecture. I accept my part in this, when yesterday I only did a quick search on arnica and gave my implied approval; if it were my own product I would have done a proper search on it and made the assumption you had done so. You are young and I should have looked at the arnica closer before commenting. I am surprised that it is legal to sell it, considering the toxicity of the flowers could well be a bigger risk for the person making soap than using it. Think about it… with the soap an individual’s exposure would be much lower, and the soap washes off. However in handling the flowers and /or infused oils and/or teas made from it there would be a higher concentration. The possibility of residue sticking to his hands… and even if sufficient amounts are not absorbed thought the skin to be toxic, or breathing the fumes… the probability of hand to mouth contamination is high. From my reading last night wolfs bane was made into a strong tea that was used for assignations. However, it was not unusual for the alchemist to be found dead with a pot of wolfs bane tea brewing. But we do live in a buyer beware world. We ALL need to remember that. Just because someone is selling something doesn’t mean it is safe. Those of us online are fortunate; we have the whole world at our fingertips. This doesn’t mean everything you read online is factual. we all need to look at as much on a subject as we can find, and not just what we want to hear. I hope people will give their approval for this step forward SS has made, he did pay attention and listen to what others had to say on this. Let us congratulate him for that and hope he has learned the seriousness of researching his ingredients before considering adding them to products, and that it can be easier to learn from others experience. I’m not saying forget the past, but can we move forward now? In the other thread there were many comments on how he never listens… this time he has, let us focus on that, encourage this positive turn. A good thing has happened… I for one will be happy about it.

It looks like you're a natural. Beautiful swirls!

the only problem with those soaps is they are so beautiful I wouldnt let anyone use them. I can't pick a favorite. All of them.

It's takeing a bit more to learn the properties possable with LS than BS, mostly because I can find so little information on the subject. I really think some of the old pro LS soapers should do that tutorial!

Not being familiar with Arnica I did a quick search this morning. I just got done doing a more complete search on it just now. SS. Please, no Arnica, one of its common names is wolfs bane, which is a highly toxic plant. “Arnica montana, like many compounds used in homeopathy, is toxic in its pure form. As a homeopathic treatment it is usually given as a highly diluted tincture or tablet. An undiluted tincture can cause tachycardia, enteritis and even collapses. As long as it is prepared properly, and taken in the prescribed manner, A. montana, can be taken internally to reduce swelling and bruising associated with plastic surgery. The plant must be prepared properly because the plant in its pure form contains compounds that, if ingested, inhibit liver function in the human body which, in turn, causes death in most cases. Because of these internal effects, Arnica was once used as a means of assassination. Countermeasures after accidental ingestion include carbon or charcoal ingestion to absorb traces of the toxins in the digestive tract and the ingestion of liquids to dilute the concentration of toxins. There are, however, no known antidotes for these compounds.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnica_montana I am asking you nicely to nix it for the swap. Please, stick with safer botanicals at least until you have some serious experience in dealing with the safe ones.This one may be best to compleatly stay away from. For the swap I maybe need to add only non toxic additives. I am bothered that you did not search this substance, know what it is before you ordered it. Please settle down and pay attention to what you’re doing.