Rebecca_IA

Julie, thanks for posting your recipe. It makes it much easier to give you a specific answer. You did not list the amount of water or lye you added to your batch, so I am making assumptions about those measurements. For the water, according to MMS lye calculator, you should have used 11 to 16 oz of water. And for a 5% discount, 5.96 oz of lye. The OO and canola are good for conditioning characteristics (in a bar of soap) but not a hard bar. The only oil/butter you added that makes a really hard bar is the CO, and it's only at 20% of the recipe. The lard has medium-ish hardness in a bar of soap, as does the shea (but it's a small amount). With a good cure and/or a water discount (first try the 11 oz of water instead of 16 oz of water) the bar will harden up nicely. Even though the OO is considered a "soft" oil, with a good cure, it will harden up nicely even if the batch is 100% OO. I don't have enough experience with just canola to state if it does the same as OO in hardening with time. If you are satisfied with how the bar works (not drying out the skin, cleaning and bubbles and lather), I would not change the oils/butters around. First try your next batch with more of a water discount (as stated above) and if that does not produce what you are looking for, you can try a steeper discount or try adding salt (1 T per pound of oils, not total weight of batch, just total weight of oils. For this batch it would be roughly 2.5 T of salt, don't use the salt with iodine in it). You could even try more of a discount and adding salt to your next batch and see if that gives you the result you are looking for. If still not what you are looking for, buy and try some of the sodium lactate or consider changing your oils/butters around a bit. Keep in mind though, if you are happy with this recipe excepting for the hardness factor, keep the recipe (for now) and try the other suggestions. When I am creating a new recipe, I try to keep the harder oils/butters to at least50% of the recipe, sometimes a higher percentage. And most of that 50% comes from CO, Palm Kernal Oil, Babassu, Cocoa Butter. Lard, Shea, Tallow and Palm are not has hard as those I just listed, so I will use less of these and more of the other ones. I do have several recipes that have approx 70-80% "hard" butters in them, but those recipes have a larger amt of lard, tallow or shea. I don't use Palm at all.

Julie, you only state you use about 16 oz of coconut oil in your recipe, you don't state the entire recipe nor the percentage of co that you are using. To give you an educated answer, we'd need to see your recipe.

If one is just starting out, please do not even try to figure out what concentration of a lye solution to work with. There are way too many other things you are just starting to understand to add one more to the mix, and with lye, a minor screw up could end up a big mistake, a costly one. So in the beginning, use the amount of water the lye calculators tells you to (or in the range they tell you to use) and don't question it. Once you've got the system down and you are understanding formulating recipes and what fatty acids are and how they blend together to make a great/good/poor bar of soap, then come back and pick up some of the more advanced issues of soap making.

If she's not happy with the credit towards a future purchase, tell her your counter offer is for her to return the product at her expense and when you recieve it, you will refund her money back to her (excluding the return shipping). This does sound fishy and I'd bet she's trying to get a deal from you, just because she can.

For SW PS - I sprinkle pink mica on the bottom of the mold and on top of the soap as soon as it's poured. It looks really good against the dark brown. I also use a fork to make a pattern on top of the soap before I sprinkle the mica. SW PS will not take a blink swirl. Regardless of what I have done, the swirl has been taken over and eventually turned dark brown. ICS's PS does not take over the blind swirl like SW's does. But after a few months of curing, IMO, it doesn't smell as good as SW's does.

I got a bar of soap in a swap that was pink sugar, and it was discolored, but not nearly like SW PS. She used a WSP additive that keeps the vanilla from browning (I think) and she used another supplier's FO, but I don't remember which one. The color ended up lighter than tan, maybe by a smidge or two. I do believe that Eugenia and I discussed this bar here in some thread. If you don't find the thread where it's talked about, I'll try to remember to look for it later (if you want it) and if I can't find it, I'll pm the woman who made the soap and ask her again how she did it.

Julie, I'm so sorry about that. I gave you the wrong website. Here is the correct address: http://scentreviewboard.obisoap.ca/ You'll have to register and wait for approval. Once you get approved, go there and sign in. Then you'll find a section in this forum for each FO company out there (or at least the very large majority of them) and under each company are the FO's they sell that have been rated. Once again, sorry for giving you the wrong address. Regarding the TD. I'm not sure who sells it. I bought it from a coop here at CT. The amount to use should be listed at the supplier's site (it's a pretty small amount). I'd look at www.brambleberry.com or www.the-sage.com and see if they have it there. I believe you'll want to look under their colorants area for the TD. There are 2 kinds of TD, oil soluable and water soluable. Both work the same, it just depends upon what you mix it with.

The TD won't make a brown soap completely white. It lessens the effect of the darker color, and in some cases, it doesn't lighten at all. Be sure not to add too much TD, that in itself can cause problem. Sign up at www.thescentreview.com all FO are listed under the company. When you find the FO, read the reviews. Some users are very specific, others use abbreviations, which can make it hard to read a review for a new soaper. "A" means accelerated. "D" means discolored (and they usually note the amount of discoloring and what it discolored too). If you find one that discolored tan or med brown, I'd say that would be one to try out the TD on and see what you get.

Jade, your rebatch is going to be more like doing the soap HP, by the time you are done, the saponification is complete and soap is ready to use (once hardened). Of course a cure always makes the soap better.

I don't see how the shape of the lye could make a difference. If it's still 100% sodium hydroxide, 3 ounces is going to weight 3 ounces regardless of the shape of the lye. I consistantly use soapcalc for all of my soap recipes now and I have not had one lye heavy batch. If I were you, I'd contact them with the recipe you have having such huge issues with and get an explanation.

No to the wax paper. Trash bags, sometimes the paper a label is on (full sheets of address labels), mylar, overhead sheets, but no to the wax paper. As for the lid, it depends. I have a log mold the lid fits into, right on top of the soap. I wrap a piece of saran wrap over the lid and tuck the ends under the handle so soap doesn't stick to the mold, or in some cases, I don't use the lid at all and place a piece of cardboard over the mold. My slab mold has a lid that fits on top of it. You'll need to look at it and see how it fits with the mold.

I think there are a lot of new soapers, that's why there's more issues related to lye, at least that's what I am seeing. RD - don't be overly concerned. Just make sure to follow safety precautions and keep all children and pets out of the area you are soaping in and clean up after the batch (and in this case, after the cutting). Find a soaper that's been doing it for awhile and follow a recipe of theirs. If you choose to use an FO, make sure you use one that you can find reviews on and one that is EASY to use. Until you are experienced, use a thermometer. Go to Kathy Miller's site and read up on all the info she has there. I felt more comfortable after reading her site a few times.

Possibly bloom from the beeswax? Or it happened due to cooling to fast (or is it too slow?, sorry, can't remember off the top of my head). Is it just on top of the lotion bar or through out it?

I also vote for using the mineral oil. Double check to make sure you cover the individual mold good. I have found they are easier to remove if the soap goes through gel. When I use them now, I stack them. Fill one mold, cover with saran wrap, place a piece of cardboard on top of it, then another mold. After all molds are stacked, I cover it up well with towels and let it sit for a day or two. Stacking the molds like this makes getting soap in those molds to gel very easy (not my idea, another soaper advised me how to do this). If you're still having issues, put them in the freezer and as soon as the outside of the mold gets condensation, turn the mold over and they should drop out. Don't twist or beat them. And, if you are still having issues, invest in some SL and experiment with that.

What about overheating and seperation taking place? Additives and/or sometimes the FO can cause this to happen. Unless it was a great deal of liquid, I wouldn't be concerned about the batch having too much of a lye discount. If you are real concerned about it, you could always rebatch to make sure everything is incorportated well, then cube it up or grate it up and add it to another batch. It's eventually going to end up brown? Add those grates to a very white soap batch and it'll look great.

If you are soaping at cooler temps, that can cause false trace. Recheck everything. Water - are you using distilled water? Using tap water can cause issues with your batch. Lye - should be okay here because others are using the lye from the same bag without problems Oils - are you using a new jug? You say you are using OO, are you using the same bottle you've made batches from before? There have been several companies that have been busted for selling OO and in reality it was a cheaper oil. Containers you are mixing your lye/oils and soap in? How are you cleaning them? Could they have build up in them that is not coming off from regular cleaning? Scale - have you calibrated it to make sure that is not your problem? When you measure anything, are you setting hot pots on the scale? (I only ask because I have one scale that would majorly mismeasure if I set a hot pot on it, I'd have to layer a few heating pads on it and then place the pot on it). FO - if you are adding it, have you used this FO before? Have you cut a bar in half and done the zap test there? Check it more than just the outside of the bar. You can always rebatch it, as long as it's not lye heavy and even then, you can still rebatch it, but you need to know how much more oil to add because of the excess lye.

Keep in mind, some FO's will make the batch easier to gel. Keep notes on what worked for the particular FO and what didn't work. To prevent gel, you could put the mold in the refrid or freezer before pouring. After you pour, you could just cover with saran wrap and put a fan near the mold blowing the heat away from the mold. Or if there is a ceiling fan in the room, that might be enough to continuously blow the heat coming from the mold away. I wouldn't put it in the freezer to stop gel. Refrig, okay, but not the freezer.

Or you can continue with the set up you are using now, excepting add a heating pad (possibly 2) on low temp. Keep an eye on it and when your soap is just about there, turn off the heat. Or work towards preventing gel. Either way will give a uniform look to your soap (which is what I am assuming you are after, since this doesn't affect the quality).

You really need to contact the supplier and ask them. It depends upon what kind of preservative is used in the lotion. Some of them can't be heated over a certain temperature and if they are, they become ineffective. As long as the preservative can handle it, warming it just enough to thin it out a bit is okay. It will thicken back up.

For a stain remover, I would use a bar of the soap, wet the stain and then rub the stain with the bar until it has a good coating of the soap on it. It won't be like the stain sticks you buy from the grocery store. For laundry soap, do a search on the board. I am sure there is a recipe here for it. If not, I'll ask the person I got mine from for the okay to post it here (it's not mine, so I can't post without asking). I use bars from batches that ended up not smelling so well or looking so good and add enough lye to bring it to a 0% discount. I do not make special soap just for laundry soap (another good way to get rid of stinky or ugly soap) and I do add orange EO to the laundry soap. And rinse with vinager. It is a whole lot cheaper making your own and it works just as well, if not better than commercial brands, IMO.

If there is a warning against using the EO during pregnancy (or any other health condition) that avoid it altogther. Don't breathe it in, don't use it in your work room with a mask on, don't use a product that has the EO in it, nothing at all, avoid it all together. Even just breathing in EO, you are getting the effects of it. If there is not a warning against using the EO during pregnancy, than I would take regular precautions X2 while using it, just to be on the safeside. Does this answer your question? I'm not sure if it does or not, but I do not want to leave you with an incomplete answer.

I'd stick that blend in your refrig and wait until after you have the baby. Better to be safe than sorry and I highly doubt your doctor will have the knowledge about these things. If the EO blend is in an amber or cobalt colored bottle and in your refrig, it will wait for you. You're using it for soap, not for a theraputic use, so the time frame isn't as important. If it's not in the proper colored bottle, put it inside a small box (and then the refrig) and be done with it for now.

If you made the soap with sodium hydroxide, it will never be true liquid soap, because sodium hydroxide wants to harden the soap (I'm trying to find an easy way to explain this). It'll be more gel like, thicker if you've added not much water and thinner if you've added a lot. I make my laundry detergent using bars that didn't come out quite the way I wanted and it does seperate. I just SB it at least once, sometimes twice and then it no longer seperates. If I SB it a few times while it is cooling, it doesn't seperate at all. When it's all heated up, it's very thin, liquidy, but it thickens up a lot. SB it a bit and then let it sit to see what it does.

As long as you keep it in sealed containers, you're fine. Did you do too deep of a water discount? If you do too deep of a water discount, sometimes the lye will have issues with completely dissolving. Or is what you are seeing is lye scum? Sometimes if you don't mix it in a very clean bowl/pitcher, you'll get (what I call) scum that forms. For example, if I use the bowl that I have mixed my oils in before and I didn't make sure to really scrub the bowl after the last time I used it, the oil left on the side of the bowl will mix with the lye and form this scum. I did have an entire lye mixture I ended up putting down my drain after the first time I washed my soap dishes at the house I am in now. The water is so hard that it left a coating on my bowls and I actually had floaties in the lye mixture. They were so bad I dumped it and started over. This time making sure I dried my dishes after I washed them. I hope this gives you some ideas.

I believe they went out of business. Maybe someone else can recommend a replacement wax.