MarieJeanette

The link that ScentLady gave you is a good one. That's pretty much how I do mine. I don't know exactly what kind of wood that my trim is made from, but just going by looks, I bought the same decorative wood trim that the E-How site shows in their pics. I bought mine from Lowe's. After I cut and sand the dishes smooth, I put a couple of coats of waterproof varnish on them. You can get the one they show on the E-How site, or you can use a different one if you can't find that particular one. I myself use a clear gloss spray varnish. It's called Helmsman Indoor/Outdoor Spar Urethane. The can says it protects from sunlight, rain and moisture and temperature changes. HTH! MarieJeanette

Having never tried it, I don't know, but I do know you can make something akin to vaseline. I did that once when trying to formulate a lip gloss that could go inside a lip balm tube. I cut back too far on my wax amount and unintentionally made a vaseline-like substance. MarieJeanette

I make both HP and CP (mostly CP), and I love the lather in both. I must be the odd one out in that I find that my HP actually lathers better than my CP. I should add that this is only when both are new and freshly cured (4 weeks for CP and 2 weeks for HP). A few months later down the road they both lather the same to me. I use the same recipe for both. MarieJeanette

OT's Watermelon Patch is the one that I use. It's very realistic and soaps great for me. MarieJeanette

That's weird that it's still in a liquid state after 5 hours. This is just a guess and I'm probably grasping at straws, but with summer temps hitting all-time highs in a lot of places, could your house be warmer than usual right now? With all those hard butters in there, I would think it would be firm by now. When I make my body butter, I always put it right into the freezer as soon as all the ingredients are mixed together, and then I let it sit there until it has firmed up nicely (a quick cool-down helps to prevent grains from forming in my butters). It doesn't take long for it to firm up in the freezer either- maybe 15 minutes or so, tops. Then I take it out and store either in the fridge or at room temp. I would try sticking it in the freezer for a short time and see what happens. MarieJeanette

That's the same thing I do. I have the same trim, too. MarieJeanette

At that temp, you're perfectly safe. I've done it myself many times with no issues. MarieJeanette

Reg- 'gel' is just one of the stages your soap goes through as it saponifies. It speeds up the saponification process. As the oils and lye chemically react with each other, the reaction causes a build-up of heat, which in turn propels your soap batter to go into a soft, transluscent or gel-like state. Don't worry, this is only a temporary stage. Once the gel stage reaches its peak, the soap starts to cool back down and then it hardens up quite nicely. It's actually not absolutely necessary to let your soap go through the gel stage if you don't want it to. The soap will saponify without going the gel stage, but it'll do so at a much slower rate. For instance, my ungelled soaps take a few weeks longer to cure than my gelled soaps. I personally prefer that my soaps go through the gel stage because I like to be able to unmold, cut, and use quicker, but there are other soapers who prefer to skip the gel stage for different reasons. Ungelled soaps tend to be much lighter in color, for example. In the end they are all good soaps, though. It just comes down to personal preference, such as the look you are trying to achieve in your soap, etc.. To skip gel, just pop your mold into your fridge for 12 to 24 hours after pouring. As an aside, my ungelled soaps remain caustic (they zap when the zap test is applied to them) for up to 7 days sometimes. But then they mellow out nicely and cease to zap during week 2. On the other hand, my soaps that go through gel might zap for a day or 2, but it's actually a very rare thing for me. 99.9% of the time my gelled soaps don't zap at all. As for making CP or HP- I actually do both. Mostly, I CP, but I HP now ang again whenever I'm using an ornery FO that doesn't behave very well in CP. I use sodium lactate and sugar @ 1 tbsp. ppo each in my HP to get a smooth pour. I used to have to glop my HP into my molds before discovering the sodium lactate/sugar trick, but since adding them to my HP batches, I get a nice liquidy pour. It's not as creamy-smooth of a pour as CP, mind you, but I no longer have to glop. The best way I can describe it is that it's the difference between pouring liquidy jam or scooping stiffened mashed potatoes. MarieJeanette

I personally don't use preservatives in my own lip balm, but if I'm not mistaken (and someone please correct me if I am), I think both Liquipar and Phenonip are supposed to be lip safe. Hopefully someone who's more in the know will chime in. MarieJeanette

I use very finely powdered stevia from the health-food store that I suspend in castor oil myself. I stress finely powdered stevia because stevia powder doesn't dissolve in oil, and if you use a brand that's on the more grainy side your balm will probably end up grainy, too. The one I have is so fine that its the consistency of baby powder, and so far, so good- no grainies in my balm. I use very little of it, too- just enough sweetness to ehance my flavor oil while leaving a subtle hint of sweetness behind on the lips. Also- about a week or 2 ago I experimented and made a balm with white chocolate chips @ 3% as my sweetener. I melted it along with my butters and wax. So far, it's holding up great with no grainies. MarieJeanette

I love lard in soap, even better than palm. In the 3+ years I've been soaping I have not yet had a single person stick their nose up at my lard soaps or make negative comments about lard. I don't hide the fact they are made with lard either. It's prominantly listed right on the front of my label, as well as on the back label in the ingredients list. Oddly enough (at least in the USA, that I'm aware of), pig fat is disctinctive from sodium tallowate (beef fat), with its own distinctive name- sodium lardate. MarieJeanette

Yes- Scent Works Pureed Grapes. I have never smelled the real thing, but I use ScentWork's version in perfume and soap all the time. It smells lovely. MarieJeanette

I get a great lavender color from UM Violet and Titanium Dioxide. The trick is to use enough UM Violet. Don't be too skimpy with it. I make 2.5 lb batches of soap, and to get a really nice lavender color for that size batch, I use one level teaspoon of UM Violet and 1.5 teaspoons of Titanium Dioxide. That's for the entire batch, not ppo (I haven't figured out what that works out to be ppo yet). At this level, it never comes out grey, but always a very pretty laveder color. MarieJeanette

I use StarSan. Here's some info on it: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-3.html http://www.homebrewers.com/product/6022/StarSan_Sanitizer.html MarieJeanette

I use canned coconut milk (Grace brand), or the kind you can find on the grocery shelves in cartons, but not refrigerated (Aroyo brand). Both act the same in soap. I can't recall ever seeing refigerated cartons of coconut milk, though. I can buy refrigerated Goat Milk in cartons, but not coconut milk. MarieJeanette

If you live in the US, no ingredients even need to be listed at all as long as your product is true soap (oils mixed with lye) and you are making no health claims. In other countries they have different labeling laws. MarieJeanette

I add milks with my oils instead of with my lye because it's less fuss and muss for me. The method of freezing the milk and adding the lye slowly in the hopes it won't scald, etc...was just too much of a stress inducing hassle for me. Once I saw how much easier adding the milk to the oils was and how it still gave me excellent results, as well as light, creamy colored milk soaps, I've never looked back. First, I mix my lye with the minimum amount of water required for the lye to properly dissolve, and then I add the rest of my liquid amount as goat milk or coconut milk directly to my oils, stickblending the milk in either before adding my lye water to the oils, or just after when things are emulsified but not to trace yet. Doing it this way is easy peasy and so much less stressful for me. MarieJeanette Edited to add that when I want to make a 100% milk soap, I add enough goat milk powder or coconut milk powder to my milk portion in order to bring the milk concentration up to 100% for my entire liquid amount.

My OT faves off the top of my head: Jasmine Yin Hao Watermelon Patch Caribbean Pineapple Pineapple Blossom Peche de Vigne Confederate Jasmine Mediterranean Sea Salt Egytian Musk Chai Tea MarieJeanette

I use WSP's version of Sugared Spruce. It smells absolutely wonderful. It's good and strong, too. MarieJeanette

Others are also reporting this same probelm on a couple of the different soaping boards I'm a member of. I am able to log on just fine with no problems, and others are as well, but for some reason there are some that can't seem to log on at all no matter what they try. No one has figured out why yet. Lili has been contacted to see if it's a problem on their end. MarieJeanette

Washcloths for me, my hubby and son, except when we wash our hands at the sink. I once tried showering with just the bar of soap on my body after having read that there are some people that actually do it that way (I had never tried it before ), but I really didn't like it at all. It proved to be way too clumsy and awkward of a method for me to use. My washcloth gets me clean more easily and efficiently in comparison, and I just love the way my soap overflows with gobs of lovely bubbly/creamy lather when I use my washcloth. MarieJeanette

Congradulations on your CP soap and welcome to the addiction! I started out by reading in the archives of this soap forum and other forums as well. A good starting place are the threads that deal with lye safety, as well as learning about what kinds of containers are good for mixing lye in, etc... I think I read for a whole year or more before getting up enough courage to try CP. Stickies at the top of the soaping section are a good place to start, too. They have a lot of basic information for the beginner. Oh- and never be afraid to ask questions! MarieJeanette

I agree with your assessment if you soap it with a full water amount, but if you soap with 40% - 45% lye solution, it comes out good and hard the next day. Trust me. MarieJeanette

Per pound of oils (ppo). I use anywhere from .4 oz. ppo to 1 oz. ppo depending on the strength that the FO shows forth in my finished soap. MarieJeanette

For some people it does, and for other people it doesn't. It all depends on each individual's skin preferences. MarieJeanette P.S. I second the lard. It makes a great bar of soap!