Starr

I found a woman on Etsy who makes these beautiful wire wrapped antique keys. At $50 ish a piece, it's a bit out of my budget but as I'm always willing to try something new, I thought maybe I could do it and found some great antique keys at the local flea market. Now I just need to get around to wrapping them, I've read up a bit on technique and things like that. Does anyone who's done it maybe have any suggestions for a good wire to use?

I once bought a 4oz bottle of liquid pearlizer off the Classies. It was from Therapy Garden. I don't think I ever used it, it was one of those cases where I thought I was going to do something and then ended up doing something else. It should work in something like a shower gel base, maybe they still offer it.

It's quite alright.

Depends on what I'm doing really. For HP, I'll use them cold. For CP, I take them out usually a few hours before I'm ready to soap, measure what I want and put the rest back in the fridge. For CPHP, I'll use them cold. With lotions and stuff like that, I add them with the water that I'm going to warm up so using them cold isn't an issue.

You should definitely refrigerate, especially if you're not going to use your oils very quickly. The 60ish lbs I just bought will last me roughly 9-12 months and I'm in a 4-season climate. Those oils and butters can get rancid just the same as crisco, olive oil, canola, vegetable, etc... and will have the same kind of funky smell. Ick.

Awesome stroll down memory lane.

SYR, I think I got out of the habit of doing that with far too many HP batches. I was always afraid that the heat of the pot, plus the heat of the lye solution, plus cook-time was going to overheat the FO and mess it up. I'm doing more CP or CPHP nowadays so I guess I should try to make myself get back in the habit of doing that. soy, hon, we ALL do it, it's going to happen at some point and it's going to make you feel like a doofus, just be ready for it.

I want to crawl under the bed and never come out! So, I finally had the materials, time, and energy to put up a pot of soap this weekend. I wanted to do it earlier this week but being a grown-up person won out over putzing in the workroom. Stupid Adulthood!!! Anyway, so today I get the dishes done, a little light cleaning and find myself with an afternoon relatively free and I'm practically itching to go play with my new oils and FO's. As a matter of fact, I reached that point with new FO's that I just couldn't decide which one to start with (I hate when that happens btw). So I found a little 1oz'er of CS's new Oakmoss and Amber that I got as my freebe with my last order. Oh My do I simply ADORE this scent. (Note to self, order more... LOTS FREAKING MORE!) but now I'm getting sidetracked... so... I also had a batch that didn't come out too wonderful of Amber Romance that's just begging to be rebatched and prettified. I'm planning on making some scrub out of some of it but I figured I could sacrifice one bar to the greater good of making a really pretty Oakmoss and Amber. I pop open my new fridge, get my oils, they're getting all nice and melty (doing a CPHP for those who are trying to keep up). My lye's getting all nice and happy with water. I grab my pop colors and start getting those ready, grab the scent and leave that out for later. And I figure a pretty ITP swirl with some curls of the not to pretty Amber Romance mixed through sorta embed style will do just fine. Time to stir... trace... YAY! split it, color it, mix it back up, get a nice swirl going pour half (okay, 3/4ish), toss my curls on the top... finish it off with what's left in the pot.. WOOT! I made soap! Wrap it in a towel and forget about it for a day or two. YAY! I haven't made soap in a while, this felt GREAT! Did you figure out what I forgot to do yet? I turn back around to start cleaning up and what very important thing did I miss? That's right, the 1oz'er of Oakmoss and Amber is still sitting there waiting to get used. Soap fail!

I half hope I never need that much space. I've found that I love making stuff when I want to and making exactly what I want to. I make stuff for me, my parents, a few gifty types of things and that's about it. It allows me to make stuff when I'm feeling up to it and struggle to clean up when I'm not feeling up to it. Oh well, there is my swap obsession but that's a whole DIFFERENT story.

Hmm. DPG is a real possibility, I keep that around for incense. What about using one of the dry-oil body spray bases? Would that maybe prevent some of the staining potential? OR... ooh, I didn't think of this. What about putting something like an air freshener blank in the bottom of the bowl then putting the petals on top? Would that work better maybe? I've never used them so I really have no idea how potent they might be or oily/problematic to this project. Any thoughts on that as an alternate idea?

Most definitely. Just like cooking oils they can go rancid. Some are more prone to it then others but refrigeration is the way to go.

I bought a bag of white silk rose petals, I want to scent them to put them in an antique black glass bowl. I'm not really sure exactly how to approach this. Do I dilute my FO? If so with what? Will it leave oil like stains on the petals? Help Please?!

I do both but lean more towards B&B. And no, there's never quite enough room but I'm pretty close now.

I bought a new fridge this year for my soaping oils. I had a little 2ish cubic foot dorm type fridge and with this year's Soaper's Choice Order I just KNEW I was going to need something bigger. So I found a very reasonably priced 4.6 cubic foot fridge that I REALLY thought was going to be enough. Have you figured out how this story ends yet?... That's right, I now have my little 2 cubic foot stacked on top of my 4.6 cubic foot. It's a freaking tower of refrigerators in my workroom.

There are people with bee allergies that can be affected by both wax and honey. It's not as common, but it does happen.

I had one (Teflon Coated) that was altered w/a spigot, I bought it used on eBay. Not sure how long the first owner used it, I got about 4-5 years out of it before the Teflon flaking became an issue. Bought another one on a Black Friday Sale, didn't bother to alter it, I figure if I get even another 4-5 years out of it for the $20 I paid, I won't be upset.

I've had scents that couldn't hold up to process soap at all. CandleChem's strawberry was the first time I encountered this disaster. I've had scents get both stronger and weaker with curing but never a disappearing, reappearing scent. What scent was it if you don't mind my asking?

I haven't tried those jars but have used the Libbey cube shaped ones. If it's for a wedding, some cello and curling ribbon (I'm thinking either your friend's wedding colors or just some iridescent white) might be nice though. Could be very time consuming though depending on how many you have to make. Hope someone can give you a better answer.

Stinky Shea worries me too. I used refined and unrefined without stinkyness. Occasionally when my nose gets unrefined Shea just the right way I get a slightly clay like smell from it but it's VERY faint (and being the non-trusting type when it comes to my nose, I've been known to run to DH or anyone else who's around and go "Hey, could you smell this?"). If you've got that much stinkyness from your Shea, I'm almost wondering if you got a bad batch.

So glad I'm doing away with Coconut. PKO on the other hand, well, someone will be prying that from my cold, dead hands but lucky for me I have a small surplus of it that should hold me a good while.

I'm a skewer person too. Very cheap and easy, very multi-purpose.

I'd suggest taking whatever got covered in graules and just running water over it (preferably over a bucket or basin to keep the wax out of your plumbing. Why melt it if you don't have to? When you're done, take a tea towel or something similar and line a strainer, strain the water and throw out the granules (since you don't know everything they came in contact with, I'm not sure I'd try to salvage them).

I bought from them a couple of years ago. Some WONDERFUL knock your socks, shoes... wait, that's TMI. Anyway, I cannot seem to replace their amazing Dragon's Blood so I was wondering if anyone knows what happened to them, who might be carrying their oils, etc.... Anyone.. please?

Faerywren, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought a lot of shortening was including Palm nowadays. Admittedly, I haven't used it in my soap in... well, too long and I never liked it so it wasn't something I used for terribly long either. I thought I remembered it adding hardness. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Miba, a good rule of thumb (which can and is broken from time to time) is to try for roughly a 50/50 split between liquid and solid oils.

It could be a lot of things but I doubt it's the dryness of your air. It could be a measuring issue or a recipe issue or a mixing issue even. It could be a cutting issue as well. I've never had to saw at any of my soaps. I've used straight and wavy cutters and occasionally just say "whatever" and have grabbed a knife (I have a special cheapy yard sale set I bought just for crafts). Typically, you push straight down and it should go through pretty easily. I suspect there's too much hard oil in your recipe especially if you're using that high of a shortening content. I would suggest putting your recipe through soap calc or a similar calculator and checking it out, even a few ounces off can cause a major difference. If you've got a scale coming in, that's even better. Measure by volume isn't terribly accurate, even a lot of chefs and cooking guru's have changed over to measure by weight. When I'm measuring my water for example, I often use a glass measuring cup as a guide. If it calls for 6oz of water, I'll fill the cup roughly to the 6oz marker then weigh it and add/subtract as needed, 6oz by weight and 6oz by volume are always different. With a scale on the way, those are two very easy things you can try to help fix the problem that you're having. When you do cut, try cutting larger bars, sometimes if you're cutting thin ones, they're more prone to breaking. HTH