jackie

Anyone know of a good duplicate of this fragrance? A friend gave me a candle with this fragrance and I love it. I'd love to find a close knockoff and make my own candle. The candle had 3 wicks--never seen that before but the throw was wonderful. I've never made a container candle (just pillars)-- yet.

My sister-in-law loves the fragrance of linden. We saw handmade soap when we were on vacation with this scent. Has anyone found a good f/o that holds up to cold process in this scent. I see Brambleberry has one but I have no idea how realistic it is.

Have alot of lemongrass. What's the best way to use it for soap--boil it?

I'm still a newbie but I do 2pd batches. It seemed much easier for me to find things to use for molds in that size over the 1pd batch. I don't want to do any larger till I have a recipe that I love, right now I'm experimenting so I do a diff recipe every time.

so diff mitre boxes have diff knife sizes? I have a mitre box but my wavy cutter won't fit through it--my pastry scraper does.

I never would have thought anyone would pay that much for a bar of soap no matter what name it had on it (it's still just soap) but I have been proven wrong.

thanks for the replies. . I'll get a little funnel and try the meas cup. I like the idea of hot water to sit it in if you need to stop. I do my crafts in my basement and it's been cool lately so stuff cools off real fast. The syringe I had was huge (to me anyway) but the balm cooled and hardened real fast in it, it was plastic. Not sure what it was orig for but it was still in sealed plastic and I immed thought of balm or lotion bottle filling. Guess I should have tried to preheat it. The creamers look nice, maybe I can find one locally at our rest supply store.

There must be a trick to this. I melted BCN lip balm base, added their strawberry flavor oil (which doesn't have much flavor to me even after adding some sweetner), and used a spoon to fill the tubes but it's messy and I kept having to remelt the base. Next time I'll try placing on a cup warmer or griddle but is there a better way to fill the tubes? I tried a syringe but it clogged as soon as the base started cooling.

Oops. Come to think of it, I don't know what it was made of, I had assumed it was stainless mesh. I didn't even know they came in plastic--gotta check on getting one of those. thanks.

Thanks. I tried straining just to be safe with lye water and it did ok (though after a few times I got a hole in my strainer--prob because I didn't rinse it off right away), but doing it with GM didn't work well so I didn't even try with the coconut milk--just kept stirring and stirring. Then I'd walk away and come back in a few mins and stir some more. Next time I'll try to be more sensitive to the feel and see if I can tell the difference.

As I was mixing in my lye with my artly frozen/slushy coconut milk, it dawined on me--when I mix lye with water, I can tell when it's dissolved because it goes from cloudy to clear (just like sugar does when dissolved in water), but with coconut milk, it's not clear to start with so how do you tell when the lye is fully dissolved? I just kept stirring and stirring and hoped I got it all dissolved. Anything suggestions to tell when it's dissovled? When I used goat's milk, since it's suppose to be diluted, I dissolved in the water part first then added to the goat's milk.

I'm thinking now it was the f/o. I saw on scent review board that a person said it gets very hot in the mold. Nice fragrance though. If I use it again in milk soap though, I'll try a slab mold.

I used peak's green clover and aloe f/o at .70 oz ppo. Only other additives are a little silk and sodium lactate. I made one (diff f/o though) in slab mold and had no problems at all but I understand the log will hold in more heat.

I did goat's milk soap in a silicone log mold and it went great, had plenty of time to play with it . Put it in the freezer overnight and it still gelled. I didn't want the gel because it darkened my colors. So next time should I leave it in the freezer longer or go from freezer to fridge. I came back later in the day after I took it out of the freezer to thaw and it did feel pretty warm so I stuck it in the fridge for an hour.

I've used lard (pure lard, not processed) and it worked just fine--no smell from it in the soap either. I hadn't thought of bacon grease but I don't see why it wouldn't work the same, it has a softer consistency than lard, has less smell (to my nose). Though I keep my bacon grease for gravy, cornbread and southern style veggies (it may kill me eventually but I'm 57 with no health problems).