MarieJeanette

The way that I do it is that I pretty much cut my mylar or silicone pieces in such a way that they butt up against each other fairly snugly*, but not so snug that they cause any buckling, if you know what I mean. Such snugness calls for some precision cutting (or very nearly so), which I do by first cutting each piece slightly longer that they need to be, then I very carefully adjust them down to size with the scissors until I'm satisfied. It's kind of a nerve-wracking task, but once the pieces fit to ones' satisfaction, one never needs to do it again (since they seemingly last forever). *By 'fairly snugly', I mean that although my pieces fit nice and snug for the most part, there are a couple of teeny-tiny gaps in a couple of spots (hey- nobody's perfect, lol), but happily they are so small that they are not problematic for me at all- i.e., no leakages. More than likely, that's due to the fact that I like to pour my batches at medium to medium-thick trace. All my corners/edges come out nice and sharply defined, not that that matters much to me, though, because I prefer to bevel my edges anyway (as lovely as they look, I hate feeling those sharp edges when showering).

I have absolutely no problem de-molding the fondant liners at all. They peel right off without any soap sticking to them. Bear in mind, though that I mostly soap with a 33% lye solution (sometimes 30%), I gel all my soaps, and I use a little sodium lactate in almost all my batches. HTH!

My favorite homemade mold liners are these (I should mention that my molds are the collapsible-type, which work perfect with them): 1) Heat resistant or "no-melt" quilter's mylar (found at Joane's Fabric store down the quilting aisle): http://www.joann.com/wrights-quilter-s-no-melt-template-12-x18-/prd37961/ I just cut it into 5 individual pieces to fit my mold, then dab some Vaseline on the back of the pieces to stick them in place. They are a thing of beauty to work with. I very lightly 'grease' the sides facing my soap with a tiny bit of mineral oil and they peel off like buttah, leaving a shiny, smooth surface to all my edges. They last forever, too! I'm still using the same liners I made about 4 years ago or so. and 2) Graceful Vines silicone fondant mat made by Wilton: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=409-414 As much as I love my mylar, I would go so far as to say I like these even more. Besides leaving a nicely decorative imprint on my soap, they need no 'greasing' on the soap-side at all (although they do need a dab of Vaseline to stick them in place to the mold).

I love Grapefruit Jasmine. I stocked up on it (as well Tassie Lavender) when SS closed up shop back when. It's the most perfect fruity/floral scent, and it soaps great. So glad to hear that Kelly Bloom has brought it back (as well as the Tassie). ......Oh! She still has Rosemilk (just took a peek at her site)! I love her Rosemilk! I haven't soaped it yet (I really need to do that), but it's absolutely wonderful in lotions and perfumes.

For my avocado soaps I use 1 tablespoon fresh avocado pulp ppo, finely pureed with my stick blender to as smooth a consistency as I can possibly get it, then I further stick blend it into my oils before adding my lye solution. I also sub freshly juiced and strained cucumber for half my water amount. I juice the whole cucumber, peel and all. It makes the most beautiful shade of dark emerald green juice. I add that to my oils/avocado right after the lye solution has been mixed in. To ensure that my beautiful, green soap does not turn tan/brown over time, I add 1 teaspoon TD ppo and 1 smidge of green chromium hydroxide ppo. It does the trick nicely. I haven't had a single avocado/cucumber bar turn tan/brown even after 6 years have gone by (I held a few bars back for testing). I also reduce my superfat % by one notch or two because my normal amount of bubbly lather gets diminished some by the avocado (which I don't ever like to happen! lol)

SweetCakes Lilac FO is awesomely realistic. I've never used it in candles, but I make perfume and CP soap with it and it's absolutely wonderful. It takes me straight back to my childhood days when we had a neighbor who grew lilacs in his yard.

I love Daystar. My absolute 'can't do without' faves from them are Paradise, Salty Sailor, and Milk Sugar Kisses.

I'm kinda like Chefmom- no special cutters or mitre boxes. I'm good to go with my ruler and a large chef knife. I just take my soap log or slab and slide one side of it flush up against something with a straight, flat edge so that my ruler has something straight and unmovabe to work off of, and then I measure with my ruler and mark off little notches where I want my slices to be. First, I make notches all along the top edge nearest to me, then I do the same to the top edge farthest from me. And then on the vertical side of the soap that's facing me head-on, I also measure and make guiding notches all the way down at intervals, and all the way across (no need to bother with the vertical face on the opposite side, btw). When I go to cut, I just lay my knife perpendicular across the top of the soap so that the sharp edge of the knife rests in the first 2 notches that I made on the nearest and furthest edges of the soap, and then I cut straight down, being careful that my knife follows the guiding notches that I made at intervals all the way down on the vertical face of the soap. Then I go on to the next notches, etc., until I'm done. Sure, it's not as fast as using a cutter, but it gives me perfectly uniform slices every time at no cost to me other than a few extra minutes of my time.

I've made both, and to be honest, I like my liquid soap so much better than my cream soap (I use the glycerin method of liquid soapmaking where you dissolve the KOH in glycerin instead of water, btw). The liquid soap is very easy for me to make, and my finished product is so much nicer than the cream soap, by far. When I made the cream soap, my desire was to create a rich, creamy concoction with the viscosity of thick, creamy lotion that I could put in one of those toggle-type bottles that can be squeezed, but that has not worked out for me. I was able to pipe one of my finished dilutions into the toggle just fine with my piping bag, but it was so light and airy from being whipped that it just wouldn't squeeze back out of the toggle. I got so frustrated with trying to coax even some of it out- to no avail- that I just tossed the whole toggle with the soap inside away in the trash. As for the remainder of the cream paste (which I left undiluted)- it's been sitting out of the way in a bucket until I figure out what to do with it. I might just scoop some out and press it 'as is' without diluting or whipping (it's a Play-Doh consistency undiluted), into a shaving mug for my hubby to use for shave soap. That's about all I can think of that it would be good for. My liquid soap, on the other hand, is wonderful. My favorite formula has cocoa butter and shea butter in it- it dilutes into a beautifully rich & creamy concoction that dispenses from a pump bottle just fine in spite of being on the thicker side of things. It's everything I hoped that my cream soap would be but isn't.

My favorite from BCN is their Violet Birch (a beautiful woodsy floral perfect for autumn).

I use them both together in 2 of my favorite formulas. I find that PKO (I use the hydrogenated flakes) lends a little more hardness and a little less cleansing to my particular formulas, but it seems slightly lacking in the bubbly lather department when used alone apart from coconut oil. Don't get me wrong- the PKO lends plenty of wonderful bubbles- but just not as much as when I also use coconut oil with it. I did an experiment once with PKO by making a 100% PKO bar with a 20% superfat, and compared it to my 100% coconut oil bar with a 20% superfat, and there was a definite difference between them. Although the PKO gave me lovely, hard bars that lathered wonderfully, they could not match the lather of my CO bars when compared side by side. The lather of my CO bars was slightly more bubbly and felt like it had more depth or 'oomph' to it than my PKO bars.

I cannot answer your question since I don't use borax, but I just wanted to mention that I add sodium lactate to my lye water, and it helps tremendously in getting my soap to release super easy from my molds. It also helps with other things as well, such as hardness, adding body to the lather, making HP batter more fluid, enabling liquid soap paste to dilute quicker and easier, etc... It's probably the most versatile and useful soap additive I keep on hand.

I proudly list lard, too, and have never had anyone question me about it or say 'eeww'. Trying to hide it can lead you into trouble seeing as how it is considered distinct from all the other kinds of animal tallows out there. The main reason being (although there may be other reasons as well) because people of the Jewish and Muslim faiths are forbidden from using pork products as a part of their religious kosher laws/practices. For me, it would be unconscionable to not list it- not only because of the kosher thing, but also because people could have possible allergies to it. I feel that honesty is the best policy when it comes to labeling.

I'm new to liquid soap and have only made it via the glycerin method (dissolving the KOH in glycerin instead of water), but for what it's worth, I diluted/dissolved a small 4 oz portion of my paste with water and a little honey a little over a month ago and it's holding up fine so far.

Other than with high CO/PKO recipes, the highest superfat I've ever used was somewhere around 23% to 25%, but it was as a result of a major accidental weighing mistake- in a canola oil soap no less, wouldn't you know it- not exactly the best kind of oil to be using when making such kind of mistakes. Needless to say it DOSed big time and had to be tossed out.

If you use the heat resistant quilting mylar sheets, you shouldn't get any warping. At least I don't get any warping from mine when I do CPOP (I bought them from Joanne's).

I've found that candelilla wax (as well as carnauba wax) add a wonderful glossy shine. I make a special lip balm for just the ladies with 19% candelilla (no beeswax at all) that glides on super smooth and shiney. MarieJeanette

White Peach Iced Black Keemun Tea Vaniglia del Madagascar Blue Sugar Blackberry Basil Rosemary Mint Tupelo Honey Tahitian Tiare Heavenly Blue Lotus Pureed Grapes (Pure Grace dupe) May Lily Green Irish Tweed Provence Pink Sugar Sweet Layer Sakura Hana White Lilac Frank & Myrrh MarieJeanette

I have used both and have never noticed any difference in my soap, whether CP or HP. I personally would save my money and go with the tech-grade. MarieJeanette

I like soaping with FOs. MarieJeanette

It sounds to me like your soap went through partial gel. The part that is white and soft like cream cheese is the part that did not gel. I've had that happen on ocassion. Nothing to worry about, though. It hardens up as it cures, as you've found out already. Although the bars might not look completely uniform in color, it's still perfectly good soap. MarieJeanette

Have you ever tried the 'Split Method'? I make GM soaps a lot using the Split Method and they are not smelly. This is how I do it: Instead of mixing the GM with my lye, I split my liquid amount in half. One half is water which I mix with the lye, and the other half is fresh, room temp.(not frozen) GM* that I add to my oils, either just before or just after adding the lye solution to my pot. That will make a 50% GM soap. If I want to make a 100% GM soap, I do the same, but I add enough powdered GM to the fresh GM to bring the concentration up to 100%. *I use the Meyenberg brand of fresh GM that is sold in a carton in the refrigerated section of my grocery store on the 'lactose intolerant' shelf. Depending on your GM method of soapmaking, the soap may or may not exhibit an ammonia or perm-like smell when first unmolded, but it should go away after cure. When I used to make my GM soaps by mixing my lye with the milk, or when I used the canned version of GM, I would always get that icky ammonia smell at first, but it always cured out for me. Now that I do the Split Method with the fresh GM I no longer get any of those initial yucky smells in my GM soap. MarieJeanette

It really and truly all depends on the specific FO. I use FOs from both WSP and SweetCakes (among others), and have definite, good quality FOs from each one (WSP and SC are both on my list of favorite vendors). I also have tried some from both that I did not work out for me. But with me, that's neither 'here nor there' because I've had hit-or-miss FOs from every vendor I ordered from. You just have choose your individual FOs wisely no matter who you order from by reading up on the ScentReview board before you decide to buy. MarieJeanette

I use ScentWorks version. I don't make candles, but I use it in CP soap and I agree with Sharon in KY that it is super strong. It's so strong that I only need to use it at a fraction of the normal recommended usage rate for it to last and last. MarieJeanette

When I make salt bars, I use a 'full water' amount, meaning I don't take a water discount. Your choice of iodized sea salt is perfectly fine. I use fine sea salt myself. And the graininess is perfectly normal. That's actually the way a salt bar is supposed to come out. Being water soluble, the salt in salt bars does not dissolve, and is not supposed to until you bathe with it. When you bathe with it, the surface salt dissolves and makes your soap feel like a polished river stone. That's one of the cool things that makes these types of bars so unique. Yes indeedy, it is, and how! I think my brain almost exploded when I was trying to figure out how big or small I should make my salt bar batch so that it would fit in my mold without overflowing because of the salt. After making some initial calculations (which ended up being a little off in reality), I finally just had to figure it out by trial and error, making sure to takes notes as I went along. By the third batch I had it figured out. As a basic plumbline of sorts to work off of, if you are going to add 100% salt as per your 100% oil amount, you can expect your soap volume to increase only by 1.25 to 1.5 times. Here are some threads to help you out with this question: http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61500&highlight=volume http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91794&highlight=volume http://www.craftserver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54778&highlight=salt+bar+mold+volume HTH! MarieJeanette