salli

I've used:

heavy duty cardboard boxes

shoe boxes

wooden craft boxes

pvc pipe

I started with M&P (2 batches) and got totally hooked on soaping. For me CP is challenging in that you have to pay close attention to what you are doing and it is also a great creative outlet at the same time.

For your oils and butters that you can't get locally check out Oils by Nature or Columbus Foods online.

Me too.

The very idea of putting deer pee on myself makes me ill. From what I understand you definitely don't want to get near bear country smelling like that either.

Either way you go, it all sounds rather disgusting in my opinion.

They did mention doe something as working. However, it wasn't pee. They definitely didn't believe soap was the trick though.

I mentioned Hunter's/Fisherman's soap to some serious hunting/fishing friends yesterday to get their opinion. I didn't think they were going to stop laughing at me.

Please give me your opinions on these recipes. TIA.

cleansing/mechanic bar with pumice

Coco 76 - 10%

Palm - 15%

PKO - 30%

Crisco - 40%

Olive - 5%

Hard-48%

Clean - 25%

Cond - 46%

Bub-25%

Creamy-22%

cheap but usable (mainly for learning swirls)

Crisco-40%

coco 76-15%

Palm-15%

PKO-15%

Castor-5%

Olive-10%

Hard-42

clean-19

cond-53

Bub-24

creamy-27

Thanks again.

From one newbie to another, when you run across something new always take good notes.

I'm interested.

The lye was my major concern. Thanks for your help.

Didn't use fo or dye in half of it. The other half I did and almost wound up with soap on a stick - I was literally slamming and smooshing into the mold - a new experience. I guess this is one of the things that definitely keeps soaping fun and challenging!

The recipe has traced a little fast in previous batches, but not nearly this fast. I was extremely careful - used a checklist as it went in the pot and measured in grams.

I just changed over to a local lye supplier that also handles alot of cp supplies. My lye water turned pale yellow. I have never had that happen before. The lye is the only change in this recipe everything else is the same brand as before. This batch also traced ALOT faster than it has before. Any comments anyone? TIA

Sorry you are having problems with AAA. I ordered from them on a weekend and had my order on Tuesday.

This book has a chapter on it - The Everything Soapmaking Book. I found it at amazon.com.

If anyone is looking for The Everything Soapmaking Book, amazon.com has it and the price is reasonable.

GrandmaArial, thank you. This information is what I expected, but really wanted to get confirmed by those with more experience and knowledge.

For those beginning soapers (like me) Taylored Concepts in Dallas holds a class approximately once a month. So far, this is the only one I have found in the area.

GrandmaArial, thank you for your post. It gave me a very good frame of reference for making a final decision. I am definitely not ready to start selling at this point. I wish you much luck.

Everyone, thank you for your advice and opinions.

salli

What should the ratio of sales worthy batches be? I've gotten 4 bases down that I like - alot and so do other people. I did each in a different eo. Some of the bad ones were me experimenting with colors, some were fragrance oils that turned. One was clay. Another was a really stupid mistake of ordering and using potasium hydroxide. Granted I am not capable of doing a salt bar, on the other hand I did a beautiful goatsmilk (I also did one bad one) and a really good buttermilk. No, I don't have dyes, swirling down. I would really like to get this right.

Good point. You can also add another batch of salt soap to the list that I didn't post about. There are also others that I have done that aren't pretty enough - you know - only a mother could love.

I read in a different forum from a long time soaper that stated that EO's, herbs, herbal infusions, some of the beneficial properties in oils were destroyed during the saponification process. Is there any truth to this? Anyone? TIA

Also, one of my testers did have a reaction. I have tried and tried to recreate that reaction on my skin and so has a friend (to the point of scrubbing myself almost raw). This is the soap my son loves. I guess he'll get that batch for himself. I'm really not attempting to blast into this willy nilly.