Greek

thanks ladies.

here's a lotion recipe that I've used, in ounces: 9 water 9 aloe vera juice 2.2 shea butter 1.7 SAO 1.2 ewax 1 glycerine 1 grapeseed oil teaspoon Germaben I swear I love the consistency because it's not too thick or too light, but soon as i put it on my hands this lotion dry the hell out my hands. When i had stearic acid it did not do that but SA made my lotion too thick so I removed it. Please help ladies, thanks.

Hi all, i've been reading on the benefits of aloe vera on skin, i would like to start adding it to my lotions as a 50/50 mix with water, i know i have to boil the water to rid of any potential problems, do i also boil the aloe vera leaf juice? i buy mine from wholesfood and it comes with a preservative. what do you guys recommend?

Thank you all. I will indeed take more accurate notes and forget about this soap till maybe next month or something. funny thing is, it soaps very well, i break off the cured parts on the sides to test it and it feels wonderful.

i wish i had posted this question earlier because i can no longer find the exact measurements. but your guess sounds about correct. i wish to do another batch but with less oils. this sucks, i was so excited when i saw my soap trace , will it eventually cure or should i just discard it all together? i cautioned anyone at home from using the soap.

thank you all. yes the soap is cutup. the recipe was: castor oil 1 oz coconut oil 9 oz palm oil 4 oz shea butter 2oz sunflower 16 oz olive oil 6oz lye was around 5 oz can't quite recall.

i made a loaf of shea butter soap early last month and till this day the soap is still very soft in the inside. the only parts that have harden are the outer layer on the sides. what have i done wrong? i believed i gelled my soap improperly. i put it in a wooden box and covered it with comforters and towels, only to unmold it in 36 hours.

does the butter turn white and fluffly like whipped cream or does it just whips up to a lotion like consistency when you melt and freeze it? I usually hand whip for an hour or so but looks like you guys are cutting down time!

How do you whip your body butters? By hand mixer (very time consuming if whipping shea) or by standmixer? do you melt it first or just whip it out the box? Which do you prefer?

thank you so much PA. I hope to start this weekend, but i'll have to go out and buy my equipment. goggles, thermometer (my glass one broke) and gloves, maybe a face mask. lol

Thank you prairieanne, I'll see what I can do. I've been so desperate that I've already brought my lye and wooden box for CP. I think with the exception of lye, CP is quite easy to do. the only thing that worries me about it is the time it takes to cure. i will continue to experiment with MP and take you up to your suggestion, I visited the vitaminshoppe a week ago and saw a can of powdered goat milk. so i'll go back to pick it up.

That's my thing also, I have at least 10 lbs of MP sitting at home, I will keep experimenting till I can figure out what the problem is, and if all falls I will switch to very basic CP recipes. but i don't want my to feel like my money's gone to waste.

I've done a search and i find little snippets here and there and i have tried every suggestions but can't find a remedy to this situation, so I'm asking again...I have a shea butter and goat milk base from sfic (i purchased them from brambleberry) I am playing around with them (which is outrageous because I paid almost $40 shipping) but the point is no matter what I do, these soap bases dry the hell out my skin. I don't know what to do and I've let others use it and they all say the same thing so I know it's not me. I don't think it's the base itself because when I try it outright without melting it is fine, but once it melts it gets that way. I don't know what is going on. I don't overheat my pot, i stir in the remaining cubes till they are all melted away from the hot water, I add my oils and try to do so without killing the latter, I've even worked it without adding anything and the soap is still drying. I then tried covering my base while it melted and poured it in the mold still covered to help keep the moisture and that just made the soap soft, I've added glycerine, shea butter, cocoa butter, almond, castor, LS all of that and still get the same thing. i've let the soap sit for days, I've tried wrapping them as soon as possible. Seriously, you guys seem to have so much success with these bases but i'm not. this sucks can anyone suggests something i may be oblivious to when it comes to this?

can you buy some shea nut oil and just add lye to that?

i have seen some cubes on etsy http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_gallery_3&listing_id=22668855&ga_search_query=sugar+cubes&ga_search_type=tag_title&ga_page=&min=&max=&order=if you take a look at the ingredients it looks like just sugar, glycerine (shave soap) and oils, maybe a preservative here and there. i'm guessing that's what the vit E oil and grapeseed extract are for.

i definitely understand. I was just playing around with it to get the consistency i liked. I tend to work like that, get it to where i want it and then tweak it a little bit to really get it going. btw what is INCI, because i do plan on giving some away in the near future.

Thanks Coco, I made some this weekend and added honey to my original recipe and avocado oil instead of almond. My cubes are still soft, but I wonder how long they will stay that way.

yes it makes sense, but i don't think i heat mine too hot either, as soon as the soap is melted i remove it from the double boiler and continuously stir the remaining small blocks till it melts. i'll cover my melting soap to help retain moisture see if that'll help.

i've been experimenting with sugar cubes which i absolutely love, but i cant get mine the way i like them. (soft so they could break off) for example all i use is sugar (white, pure cane) a MP base, castile liquid soap and almond oil. i add more sugar than there is base, kind of an over saturation point, yet my cubes are always hard so the sugar soap doesn't lather unless you break the cube in half, which is fine but when the soap is too hard you can't really do that. Anyone can suggest how to make my cubes soft? I've tried putting them in a ziplock back right after i pop them out the mold so they could retain moisture, but they still harden so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

thanks prairie!

thank you all, will do! i have the castile soap from bronner and it does help! this saves so much money! do you recommend adding the additives at the same percentage sfic does? they add honey at 5%, goat milk T 20% i think and so on.

do you think it'd be better to save money by only investing in one kind of soap base (clear glycerine) and adding the additives to create the different kinds, like adding shea to create a shea butter soap as opposed to outright buying the base, or adding goat milk's powder and ect? I'm thinking about doing it like that, it saves so much money, instead of buying all different type of bases. my only problem would be to be very careful to not cut down on lather. anyone do it like so? can you share your experience or tips?

thanks to everyone for your help. i'll keep researching.

i swear this is so frustrating i cant find any information. the only piece of info i have received is about zoning regulations. do they just hire anyone at these state dept?

did you have to acquire a license to start your business? i live in nj but i can't seem to find any info. i called several departments and they keep giving me the run around, i was even told that i may not need a license to sell soaps, bb and candles. i want to make sure that is the case. do some state not have that requirement? im presently on the phone with the clerk office for zoning conditions.