Rebecca_IA

Since you're bringing your baby with you, I suggest a smock/lab coat to wear while you are working, something that will protect your clothes underneath. That way, if you need to go pick him up, you can take the smock off and go right to him and not be concerned about colorants, chemicals, FO's, etc getting on him. He's a lot smaller and by far more sensitive than adults. Might want to start wearing rubber gloves too, so you can just strip them off (along with the smock) and bam, pick him up. Fisher Price use to make an aquarium moving scene with music that my last one was crazy over. I nursed her, laid her down and put her to sleep with that for 18 months. Often times used it during the day if I had to put her in the crib for a few minutes to take care of something and there was no one to keep an eye on her (we had a young dog at the time, plus another child just 2 years older than her) and it kept her happy for the few minutes I couldn't. Other than this, prioritize what is important to get done that day, and concentrate on those items only, regardless of how many things you have to do on your list. And when your work day is over, it's OVER and your family time begins. Good luck and I look forward to your classy ads.

Since you don't know the exact percentages, you'd have to guess at what the order of ingredients would be. maybe sending your recipe in would be easier, or put the recipe on the label also, instead of a list of ingredients. it's soap, so you don't have to put ingredients on the label.

Give it a few days and see if it reabsorbs. If you can, post a picture of it. Sometimes it's sweating a bit of glycerin or something, and that's nothing to worry about. FYI, I either add the FO to the oils before adding the lye mixture, or when I add it at trace, I hand stir it in to make sure I've incorporated it well enough. I almost never use the SB after adding FO to traced soap. Adding FO either way ensures it is mixed in well enough.

My oldest daughter got approx 30 stitches in her forehead when she was 18 months old, 10 on the outside and the rest on the inside of the incision. The only thing I used on her was bacitracin antibiotic salve, the version without the pain relieving additive. I do believe I mispelled bacitracin, but the pharmacist should know what I'm talking about. She got her stitches from a plastic surgeon because of the location and size of the wound and I followed his instructions to the "T". She barely has any scarring at all, in fact you can't see the scar, but you can feel where she got the stitches. I'd use nothing but an antibiotic salve until after the stitches come out or possibly longer. He gave me a paper on the reasons why not to use anything until other than the antibiotic salve until the skin was completely healed together. Lotions/cremes have additives that are okay to put on the skin, but putting them into the body can cause a strong reaction, which could cause your wound to swell and scar worse. And when you have a break in the skin, you are essentially putting the lotion/creme into the body. After that, a drop of emu and/or vit e a few times a day and keep it out of the sun for a few years (use high spf or a hat everyday). Look at oilsbynatures site and read up on oils to help scars and skin regeneration. Incorporate these into your emu if you want to get a wider variety. It'll take a few years before it's completely healed. Also, as much of a pain in the ass as this is going to be, it's important not to get your wound wet at all, not even the slightest. The water can get into the wound and swell up blood cells, which swells the wound and makes scarring worse. Before you bathe, put a thick coat of salve on the wound and cover it very well with a bandage. This is very important. If it gets infected, don't self treat, call the doctor. If you are advised to use hydrogen peroxide, mix it half and half with distilled water, do not use full strength because it promotes scar tissue. When I was 6, I got a horrible wound on my left eye, basically right on the brow bone. I have absolutely no scarring at all, excepting for the fact you can feel a bit of scar tissue. I guess I should say had because about a year ago, I could start to see a bit of a scar (with my age, I'm getting a very prominant wrinkle where the scar tissue is). My mother said she only used aloe leaves and vit e on all my wounds.

I use the 76 because it melts at a lower temp, therefore easier to deal with, IMO. I'll only use the VCO in a specialty bar, it's too expensive to use otherwise. You can go with whichever one you want. Between the 92 and 76, differences are very minor.

If you didn't add a preservative to this batch, refridg for up to a week and then pitch it. If you used a preservative, it depends. If your method of making and the preservative are effective, I'd say you're safe for up to 12 months. But the only way to know this is to test. I'm not sure if the info would be on here, but you can try to search here. If no luck here, search at the soap dish and in the archives. There is a lot of very helpful information there. Robin posted a link to an article about testing a while ago that contained some very helpful information. I think I have that book marked at home, I'll look and see if I do and if not, I'll try to search for it later on. It is a very informative article.

I can't remember the brand name exactly, it's something like lanolish, but it's 100% lanolin that's been processed so it's safe for the baby. It's sold in 1 oz tubes for around $10, medium purple packaging and tubes. Walmart sells it. A very small amount goes a long way, so although this sounds like it costs a lot, it really doesn't. And it's well worth the expense. If she can't find it, ask a clerk for help because they do sell it, it's just a small item so it can be hard to find on the shelves. This is the only product I'd recommend using on the nipples. Nothing else. Not even straight shea or lavender. Seriously. Other than that, air dry after nursing, use cotton bras and if she can afford them, cotton reuseable breast pads, not the disposible ones. She might want to wash her bras/breast pads seperately and run them through an extra rinse cycle, esp if she uses bleach in her laundry. And make sure the baby is latching on correctly, if not, this can cause some serious painful issues.

Let us know how the buffalo tallow works for you.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tallow_Soapers/?yguid=231575184 There you go.

Kymber, are you a member of the tallow soapers group on yahoo? I have a word file that has all this info in it and I am showing .140 for buffalo, but I tried to do a google to find more on this (just to make sure my doc is correct because I've never used buffalo before) and I can't find anything either. I have usage, 30% and SAP .140. I am sure if you joined that group and did a search within that group, you'd get more info on buffalo tallow. Those soapers deal with tallow more. If you need the link, I'll post it later.

Pink aussie clay, found at kangaroo blue. Keep in mind though, soap won't moisturize. At best, a soap can be formulated to be a gentler cleansing bar, but it won't moisturize.

I don't think shelf life would be an issue if you didn't superfat at all (use the zero amount when choosing your lye discount). But considering a 4-5% lye discount, the soap does have free oils in them and IMO, those free oils still have the same shelf life, so precautions do need to be taken, previously to using the oil and after the soap is made, in addition to making the soap (proper storage of short shelf life oils, storing soap properly and not out in the open, using a more conservative amt of short shelf life oils, using additives to prevent rancidity, etc).

If you choose to use the orange EO, buy the 5-fold EO, otherwise, keep in mind the regular orange EO is a photosensitizer. Lavender and Tea Tree EO's are also ones that are good to use on the skin for acne. (tea tree is already mentioned). If you aren't a member at www.makeupalley.com go there, sign up and do a search on aspirin mask. This is what my daughter does and it has greatly cleared up her acne. She had started getting the cystic acne on her chest/back and since starting to use this (face, chest and back), that has all cleared up in addition to the other acne. If you use the aspirin mask and/or a product with salicytic acid, make sure to have him use a sunblock (one designed for the facial skin).

Me too. But if you don't, keep in mind it'll be on the "stickier" side for a little bit, but it'll harden up. I don't see a difference beyond 10%. I'd drop that grapeseed oil down to 10% also, but that's just me. My preference is to keep the shortlife oils to 10% or less (and grapeseed is 3-6 months shelflife). With your bubbly and creamy numbers, your lather will be more creamier than bubbly, esp when using with just your hands, so if you want more bubbles, use a poof. It does look like a great recipe though. Have fun.

Gerrie, did you heat and hold your phases? Did you have testing done on your lotion to insure your recipe/process/preservative did work? If you don't test the final product, you really have no idea if the preservative used, or if your process used or if your ingredients used will stand up to mold/yeast/etc. I'm not talking about having others use it to make sure it's something that works for them and they like it. I'm talking about sending the lotion to a lab and having them test it. IMO, this step needs done before anything is sold.

As for the lip balm cooling too fast, I'll share something I used (but no laughing allowed). I use the bottles Walmart sells for condiments (thank you to the person that recommended these to me, even though she's on another board). I added the oils/butters to the bottle and heated this in water (a faux double boiler type thing). When everything was melted together, I put the bottle in an old 100% wool sock and was able to pour all of my bottles without any loss of temp in the butters/oil mixture. The tubes I filled were rubberbanded together and set standing up straight in a shoebox. Around the tubes, I stuffed washclothes (between the tubes and the box) and when all the tubes were filled, I put the lid on it and covered with a few towels (just like putting CP soap to bed). No grainies at all.

It depends upon the mold I am using. I use martha molds, a log mold and an upland slab mold. So my bars come out to 3 different sizes. The martha mold bars are a bit longer. The depth of the bars are all about 1". Log mold bar is 2.5" (wide) X 3.5" (height) X 1" (thickness/depth). Honestly, I've not weighed this bar, so I don't know how much it weighs. The other bars are a bit bigger (I think). You can get a wider variety of answers on your own. Go to upland molds website and they provide the dimensions of the molds on their site and how many bars the mold makes, so with all that info, you can figure out the dimension of the bars. Keep in mind, if you want a thicker bar, all you do is make a bigger batch, so your bars could be 1", 1.5" or 2.0" all from the same mold and each bar would weigh differently. Does this help? Another thing you can do is take a bar of your soap and weigh it. If it's 7 oz, cut some thickness off of it and weigh it again. Keep repeating (cutting off the width and/or length of the bar too, not just thickness) to get the size of bar you want.

Generally speaking, when you buy a FO from a vendor that designs their FO's for soap, they will work, even if they fade on you initially. This is a generalization, not a hard rule. For specific information provided by soapers, not the vendors, go to http://scentreviewboard.obisoap.ca/ and sign up. Look up the vendor you bought the FO from and then the FO. After you've soaped it, go back and add your experience. The smarter vendors will provide you with more specific details before you even purchase, such as acceleration issues, discoloration, amount to use in soap, etc. This information is at least a good starting point. Don't forget, if you're not already doing it, to take and keep accurate notes yourself.

One week is not enough time to fully judge the FO. Set it aside to cure and check it in 3 more weeks. Sometimes even a bit longer. For orange EO, use the 5x, or litsea or even a very small amount of patchouli. Email BB and ask them too, they use to be able to provide me with specifics on FO's when I first started soaping, I'm sure it's still the same.

heat it and allow the excess liquid to "cook off". Also, it might not ever get as thick as commercial liquid soap unless you add a thickener, it depends upon the oils you added. You can add the borax, and then heat it too.

My experience has been the same, so I'm ditto'ing her post.

FYI - Martha molds are sold at Kmart's. They come in a one section (similar to the picture posted, excepting they are semi-clear) and a 3 section. They are Martha Stewart drawer organizers. When you are starting out, I'd make your initial investments small. Don't spend a lot of money on a specific type of mold right now, because you may get it and find out you absolutely hate it, but you're stuck with it because of the financial investment. Lots of different things can be molds. Go to the thrift stores and look there, you might be able to find appropriate bowls, different things to use as molds and maybe even a stick blender. And yes, I do suggest getting a stick blender. Saves lots of time.

Same as Crafty1_AJ, indefinitely. I've got some really old soap and although some of the FO's do fade, the soap itself is wonderful when it's aged. I've got a few bars I'll never use, because they were from the first batches I did (now that I found them, lol).

In addition to what Robin says, soaping too cool can also give you a false trace. Whether you can get away with it or not IMO depends upon the hard oils/butters you've used and the percentage of them used.

This is one thing I have to suggest about hemp oil, don't go above 10%. It's got a very short shelf life.