JacquiO

My first attempt at a contemporary peacock swirl (paper marbling technique). I also attempted a traditional one that didn't come out quite as nice but will post cut pics of both soon.

Scented in Lime and Peppermint EO blend

Gorgeous in-the-pot swirl and I love what you did with the top!

seething with jealousy over here

No Problem ah-soy. If you're making your first purchase from Celestial. The primary kit is the one to go with. I love the wine color. And you can make colors light or deep and color blend the primaries. Like I did a really nice sky blue and emerald blend for my blue spruce scented soaps. My next kit will be the Harvest. With the spring kit the Violet and Indigo actually morphs to those colors. So they start out one color and change to the intended color after the gel phase. I had to play around a bit with those spring colors because I found that too much dye takes away from the intended color. Like with the Lime especially. The primaries pretty much stay true to form. HTH

I love the Celestial colors. I have the spring and the primary sets. However the Celestials do bleed, so there are certain applications I cannot use them in. Hence the need for non-bleeding micas and oxides.

I checked out the Conservatorie. Their prices are comparable to TKB but they offer no information regarding how their micas perform in CP soap.. At least with TKB some of the comments mention whether they morph or not.

So far this is what's on my wish list:

Neon Orange

Florescent strong yellow

Ultramarine Violet

Queen Kathryn

Midnight Blue

Copper Fine

Neon Green

Florescent Strong Pink

Omega Blue Matte Tone

Neon Blue

Hydrated Chromium Oxide Green

Pearl Green

Pearl Blue

Pearl White

If you used any of the above or had issues with them please let me know. Thanks!

I refrigerate my milk immediately after pouring into the mold. Log or slab. I do admit I occasionally get a partial gel. But either way it makes a great bar of soap and no cracking.

I meant to say favorite mica and oxides. I use those too!

Hi everyone,

Looking to place an order to enhance my soaping color pallet. Shame I can no longer get the POP colors especially the blueberry and grape. So I need to get some non-bleeding PH stable mica colorants. I'm gonna get the neons for sure and a pearlizer. What I do need is a good blue and purple too.

Question is what are some of your favorite micas? Don't be shy. List 'em here. If the color morphs but the morph shade is nice please make a note of that as well.

TIA,

Jacs

Another vote here for cocoa powder

P.S. My favorite EO combos are

Peppermint, Eucalyptus with a little bit of Tea Tree

And Lavender, Lemongrass and a little patchouli.

Orange, Lemon, with a little Litsea and Clove.

This is Quietgirl's Basic Soap recipe and I can tell you it doesn't slime at all. In fact it has a great lather. I just put both my suggestion with your oils on hand and my recipe side by side and the values are not exact but they are not that far off either.

I can no longer find it in the recipe section but this is what I use.

25% OO

25% Safflower

15% CO

15% PKO

15% Crisco

5% Shea (although I've subbed all kinds of butters for this)

Mine has an INS of 122.

Yours (with my adjustments) has an INS of 139 and that's with 10% Crisco and 10% GV.

I use 15% palm kernel oil and 15% coconut but PKO has a similar fatty acid content to CO (at least according to the American Palm Oil Council) so I figured you could just double up on it. Plus you don't have any Shea or other luxury butters in your recipe. I also add 5% of that or something else like Mango, Cocoa, hempseed, jojoba. But other than that my recipes values are not too far off from my recalculation of your oils. Like Scented suggested just try a small batch first to see if it works.

Lemongrass EO holds up okay for me but no true citrus EOs really don't. That's why I recommend anchoring with Litsea.

And above all just relax and have fun!

yep just weigh the cubes. If you're having a hard time reaching the exact number get as close as you can and add a little water at the end.

This is very similar to a recipe I got on this forum and it's an EXCELLENT bar of soap

I would do your percentages different and I think your results would be very good.

30% Coconut

25% OO

25% Safflower

20% Veg Shortening

I don't why you are using Crisco and GV shortening. Is the GV the all veg or one with animal fat? You could probably break that up 50/50. I don't know if you're working off a specific recipe you found or if your measurements are based on what you have on hand.

Keep your breast milk frozen when you add your lye to it. It will keep the sugars in the milk from caramelizing when the lye reacts with it.

As far as adding the essential oils to your soap. The third mix especially needs to be anchored. Lemon and Mandarin oils don't hold up well in soap. Litsea EO is the best citrus-smelling anchor and adding a small amount of that will help it retain its scent. Lavender too needs to be anchored. I don't know if the rosewood will help with that. A little patchouli in batch 1 would help or the Litsea. Someone else maybe able to suggest another good anchor as well. Also be aware that the vanilla is going to turn your soap brown and it will darken as time goes on. I say don't worry about it and embrace the brown, but if you plan on coloring your soap it will effect it.

HTH,

J

I have a water softener and I use my tap water and it works just fine for me. I also recommend chilling your water in the fridge. I find that it calms the reaction when mixing in the NaOH plus it cools faster.

I always add my oxides to a little additional oil, water or glycerin. Usually an ounce at the most. I wouldn't subtract the water from your recipe. You maybe able to set aside an ounce of the oil but only if making CP soap. HP you want to stick to your recipe and add the blended oxides after the cook. The oil will just be a little superfat. If you're making swirls in CP soap mix your powders with water. Thinning out the soap a little helps with the swirling.

HTH,

J

Gorgeous melt and pour work!

Very Halloweenie. Nice!

Loving the colors! Absolutely beautiful!

That would be a great item to sell with my soap. My mom is a crocheting goddess. I'll see if she can help me learn this. God knows I have tons of plastic bags.

Beautiful work! It's nice to see you back at it.

I just wanted to add DO NOT leave your pesto pot on with the wax melted inside for more than a few hours. I've accidentally left my presto on over night and not only does it stink up your house it will ruin the wax.

I used to keep my pot on a beer 12 pack box filled with empty bottles (LOL how's that for improvising?) It was pretty stable and just the right height that my pour pot fit right underneath.

Pretty soapies!! my question is how much does your batch 'fluff' up? I usually do 3lb batches but I have this feeling that if I do that I will have quite a bit left over that won't fit into the mold.... true?

Same here. It fluffs up quite a bit. I was afraid is was going to over spill out my bowl when I was whipping it.

My 12 inch log mold holds 44 ounces of oils and I made only 32 ounces of oils and it ended up fitting perfectly in my mold. I had just enough left over to make one extra heart bar out my Wilton mold. I would advise you calculate at least 10oz less than what you would normally use.

I also wanted to add that David Fisher mentioned it really sticks to the molds. Even though I use a liner-free log mold I still lined it with parchment paper. I didn't want to chance it getting stuck or having the soap sides ripped up when I pulled the mold apart.

That is so creative, Luminous! I hope you don't mind if I steal that idea someday in the future!

I just made a batch and piped some onto my pumkin pie soap, it looks fantastic!! It was a little loose, I think I didnt whip it long enough, or I should have done a water discount.. but it worked well enough! I did make a bit of a mess because I made a really large batch for my kitchenaide... 42 oz batch and it filled my 42oz mold, plus a whole silicone mini brownie pan, and the "whipped cream" blobs on my pumpkin pie soap.

Luminous, your pumpkin pie looks fabulous. I can't wait to see what it looks when it's hardened and sliced into wedges. You could do so much with that. Banana cream, lemon meringue, chocolate creme, coconut creme! What an awesome idea.

What did you use for the crust?

I didn't do a water discount either but I whipped the heck out of it.

Try a good apple FO (I use Mac Apple) and blend 50/50 with the rose. It's been a great candle and CP soap seller all year round since I started blending it a couple years ago.

Apple rose blend was a great seller for me too. I also like to blend my rose with clove.

awesome! I was thinking this could be made into frosting for cupcake shaped soaps... or a big mess.. either way, its soap.. hehe

Me too! I was thinking of trying some cp cupcakes for x-mas. You can pipe this whip. It's pretty thick.