JacquiO

I use both FOs and EOs although I lean more towards EOs. They behave better for me and I find I prefer them in my soaps. I only use a max of .5oz EO per pound of soaping oils. Many EOs can be irritating to the skin and need to be utilized sparingly. EOs like clove, cinniman, or ginger I only use a max of 1ml ppo. Perfumery and fragrance blending is a big part of my craft and I often combine the two. For spearmint and eucalyptus I would blend them in a 1:1 ratio. No more than .25oz spearmint ppo. Mints can me irritating especially in the face and genital area when used in too high an amount.

Here's an article I found: http://www.permaculture.com/node/535 People get turned off by the word diesel but really all biodiesel is rendered and filtered cooking oils. It would be great for making bar and liquid soap that I would use for a mechanics soap or incorporate into homemade household cleaners such as dish soap, dish detergent, laundry soap and laundry detergent. I wouldn't super fat it when calculating lye and water

I agree with Steve...as a newbie go with local store bought oil. You needn't invest a lot when starting out in soap making. That's one of the things I love about this particular hobby. Wal-mart even carries coconut oil and castor oil. Look in their pharmacy for the castor. Get your olive oil when its on sale and don't bother with extra virgin. I've been soaping for over 5 years now and I still only buy my olive oil and coconut oil locally. For everything else - Soapers Choice. Also you can check out Essential Depot for lye, tallow, palm etc.

Lovely!

Wow! You've been busy. Beautiful!

Kewl!

Pretty. Bet they smell great

Very Nice!

I resemble that remark!

Welcome back!

What struck me funny when I read this is that this is the same exact recipe I use in my basic soap making class. I wanted percentages for really easy class room measurement. I use 50%OO, 25% PKO and 25% Palm. Knowing how certain oils behave I was able to surmise that CO and Lard would make good subs. I also mention crisco in place of palm if students want to stick to an all veggie recipe. This way they can play with local store bought ingredients before going internet crazy (like me). But this simple recipe produces a great bar of soap. Tight small bubbles and a creamy thick lather. And I can see how adding 5% caster could enhance that lather. I don't know if someone posted this link already but I found this posting really helpful when it comes to creating my own recipes: http://www.zensoaps.com/singleoil.htm

Hosted a Soap Felting Party which got me motivated to finish organizing my soap making area. Only two ladies from my soap making classes and a couple neighborhood kids came to make felted soaps this past Saturday but we managed to felt 45 soaps

Very nice

I have about 10 samples from CS's 99cent sale. I still haven't gotten around to testing anything. The Brandied Pear behaves well in CP, The Himalayan Bamboo accelerated a little bit on me, but smelled great.

Sorry I just realized I was looking at this kit: http://www.brambleberry.com/Beginners-Cold-Process-Soap-Kit-P5202.aspx I just read up and saw you linked to this $80 kit. So yeah to answer your question as a "CP expert" (I only teach it) I'd say no the "kit" is not the best way to go IMHO.

I recommend the book The Soap Makers Workshop by Robert and Kathrine McDaniel. A lot of really good information in that book, plus an instructional DVD. I also recommend David Fisher at About.com. A lot of helpful information, recipes, tutorials, and videos. Between Fisher and Brambleberry's Soap Queen Anne-Marie Faiola you can learn a lot just online. And there is also Teach Soap. I never purchased a kit. When I started out I purchased my first bottle of lye at Lowes (no longer carries it but I think Ace brought it back). And all my oils came from the supermarket. A shoe box lined in freezer paper as a mold. And cranberry fig wouldn't be my first choice of fragrance, but I had a friend that sold body oils at a flea market and I knew her supplier so I had plenty of fragrances to choose from that I could acquire locally. That and herbs and essential oils from my local health food store. I can't say I'd consider the $36.00 kit (plus shipping) a great value. All the info in the "$10.95 valued" ebook you can get for free right on Anne-Marie's site (not to mention Fisher's) I get an 101fl oz (5lbs 11oz) Olive oil for $10. 2lbs Coconut Oil for $6. A bottle of Lye at Ace is $5. A 4oz bottle of Castor oil at a drug store is $3. A pound of lard for less than a $1. Lard is a great sub for palm btw (or you can use Crisco). Use a cardboard box you have lying around the house as your mold. There I just saved you 10 bucks (before shipping). You could put that savings into the biggest part of your investment which isn't even in the kit. That's your scale, goggles, gloves, freezer paper and stick blender. All of which will run you around $50-60 I tell my students that getting into soap making is not a big investment. For certain hobbies (like candles for instance) I think all in one kits are a great way start because candle making is a huge investment. But soap you can produce large amounts with very little invested and you can stick to local sources for supplies. You only need to venture out online to purchase in bulk or get special colors, fragrances, luxury oils, professional molds etc.

First I just have to say Ewwwww! Motor oil is a petrochemical and yeah you probably can soap with it, just like any other fatty acid. We make candles from petrochemical derived paraffin and not tallow as in the old old days and some surfactants (bubbling agents) are made from petrochemicals but still... Ewwww! I have seen biodiesel soap making kits on the internet but thats just rendered (or filtered) used cooking oil.

I posted cut pic in a new thread but here it is again...

Yes you always need to think a season ahead. Order your fall scents in the spring and vice versa.

Never used nonalcoholic beer. Make sure your beer is completely flat. You can also boil off the alcohol if you prefer. It will make it behave better when you add the lye. Darkness will affect color. Beer IMO gives soap a nutty scent. I like to complement this with a citrus EO. Corona with Lime EO was one of my favorites and Guinness went quite well with a little lemongrass.

[ATTACH]23926[/ATTACH] So here they are cut. Love this swirl! So I spend way too much time on youtube watching soap making videos. Raise your hand if you're guilty of this too. After doing Amanda's (Lovin Soap Blog) contemporary peacock I decided to check out if there were any videos of this in action. What I did find was this woman who had 3 videos attempting a peacock swirl and failing all 3 because her trace was simply too thick. So I wrote her and even though I personally despise unsolicited advice I figured she could use some friendly tips on how to make this swirl possible. She writes me back and tells me what she was attempting was a paper marbling technique different from Amanda's. Well this piqued my interest so next thing I know I'm watching paper marbling videos and then I attempted what this other soaper was trying to do. First I went to wally-mart for toothpicks, nails and duct tape to make my comb and rakes Then I set myself up to do this swirl. At first I was a little over ambitious and used 7 colors. Tonight I tried it again with only 4. Well here were the results... These are considered traditional peacocks. I still don't have this down perfect. I need to watch those paper marbling videos a little more closely before attempting again, but my trace was perfect. The pastel one is scented with a Lavender Peppermint EO blend and the other is Eucalyptus Citrus EO blend. I post cut pics in about a week or so. Thanks for Looking!

No problemo: http://www.lovinsoap.com/2011/10/the-peacock-swirl/

Thank you everyone!

I love love love the way these came out!. The technique is so simple. I can't wait to try again.

I'm the same as Chris..I just sub my goats milk for my water. I don't calculate the milk fat. I also agree to sub PKO for the Coconut oil. I don't superfat at more than 5%.