Loulougirl

I'll have to post some pics in the gallery.. lol I did swirl pink and blue across the top, and it looks pretty decent, if I say so myself! LOL For my version of "room temp" soaping, this is what I do. I measure all my soft oils into one bowl. My hard into another. I mix up the water/lye and slowly pour it over the hard oils. The heat melts it all pretty quickly. Then I add my soft oils, start using the ol' stickblender, and away we go! lol

Thank goodness there's no cure, cause I don't wanna stop! lol

I've since made a second bath using this method, and am planning a third batch tonight! lol It just makes things so easy, I can't help myself!

I made my 3rd ever bath of soap today! This time, I tried the room temp. method, and used the hot lye/water to melt my hard oils/butters. Easy peasy!! I scented it with blue bubblegum from Daystar, I'm really excited about this one! Hope everyone's having a great week so far!

Oh wow, so pretty!

I'm finding it takes, practice... practice... practice!! lol

Thanks for the tips John! Those bombs in your avatar look awesome! I can only dream! lol I tried again last night, and I'm not sure what I did wrong this time, but all but one just sort of crumbled at the slightest pressure this morning. I added cornstarch, maybe that was it? *sigh*

Wow awesome!

When I made it, instead of kokum, I used half cocoa, and half mango. hth

Excellent suggestions scrochet! ty!

Thanks scrochet I have been running my air conditioner whenever I try to make em, but I don't really have any way of measuring the actual humidity. I wonder if that's all it is... lol I'll be giving it another go tomorrow.. fingers crossed!

Sorry to double post...lol I tried again, and... fail! This time... no cracking, but they developed bumps all over! Not the huge warty bumps I've seen before (my first batch). They sort of look like.. concrete. lol Feel like it too, man these ones got hard! LOL I never liked that saying... If at first you don't succeed.. but wow, does it sure apply to me now!

I'll be trying again this evening, I went today and got some wilton gel icing colors to use. Those orange ones above I colored with mica, and... it stained the tub!! It cleaned up ok, but man... lol I'm gonna try these gel icing colors in the bombs, and my bubble bars! Wooo!

Thank you so much for the advice Jeana! couldn't waste a whole batch on a cheap oil, had to be an expensive one. And isn't that always the way it goes! :undecided

Jeana, that's very interesting! Hmmm... I am really packin it in there hard! lol I was planning on tryin again tonight, maybe I'll just try to be a bit more gentle and not jam so much in the molds, see how that goes. I am using the ornament balls.. I cracked one half with the first batch I made I was pushing so hard! lol

So I've been experimenting with Bath Bombs. I don't feel toooo bad about all my failures, I've made some great powders, and my kids don't mind testing the "ugly, cracked and broken" ones. lol I'm wondering, to those of you who successfully make bombs, if you could shed some light onto what I may be doing wrong. I've tried about 5 different recipes, and I'm pretty sure I know what the "wet sand" consistency looks like. Well, maybe not tho. lol I pack them as tight as I can too! When they dry, all my bombs crack super bad across the seam, so deep that the two halves almost separate. And they've cracked down the sides as well. It's so sad, I really wanna make these! lol The recipes I've been using I got from Costal Scents, from the EBook, and from the little video from Kathy. The only ingredient I left out was the poly sorbate, since I don't have any. Thanks for any advice you guys can offer! p.s. This is what they look like..

I just googled bubble bar and got lots of recipes. hth

SO true! lol Sorry I don't have any tips, I'm still figuring out bath bombs myself! So far all mine crack severely around the middle.

lsg, your first one there, does it make a kind of paste? Just curious!

Aww, when I tried drying out my bombs in the oven, they started to melt! LOL Tooooo hot! wwjacks: bubble bars are a solid type of bubble bath, you crumble under running water.

Oh thank you Retro!

I love all the scents from Lush, gonna check out Daystar now! What I'd love to find is a good Blackcurrant scent like in The Comforter. Yum!

Sad news Chuck! Meridith, Hmm.. I must have missed that when I was researching milk soaps. Darn. I already recycled the can, but I'll look and see if I have more and check that out. Guar huh. No zap tho. I guess at this point I'll wait and see how the smell goes. Even if it's super stinky, I can still rebatch it ok?

Well, I made my second ever batch of soap last night. I had a can of coconut milk in the pantry, and thought it'd be fun to try subbing that for the water. I read all I could here and elsewhere about this, and froze the milk until it was slushy before I started. Well, as soon as I added the lye it began to trace and became pretty thick. I stirred it like crazy and it seemed to settle down. It didn't smell weird, or look especially weird, and I added it to my oils and everything else seemed to go just fine. When I unwrapped it today tho, there are tiny little white speckles all over the soap and... it smells awful!! I read the speckles could be from the milk, so ... ok, but the smell! I wonder what happened there. I'm wondering if rebatching it would fix the smell problem, or if maybe I did scorch the milk or something. Well thanks for listening to my woes everyone!

Thanks Billie! Now I just have to unmold it sometime today, making me nervous just thinking about it! lol