sjconner

I am starting to make my own lotion. I really like what I have made so far. The only problem has been getting the water phase up to 176. It took almost 2 hours to get the water phase up to temp. I am using a double boiler method - the water stuff is in a bucket in a stock pot. I have my gas stove at about a medium flame. I am making goats milk lotion and am scared of scorching the milk. Please help me - this is not very efficient. Also what is the largest size batch of lotion you make? Thanks, Susan

Is more than just the top layer of the edges chalky and powdery? I get crumbly edges when I soap too cold. Susan

I order a variety of items from them. Some of their prices with the "free" shipping are still lower than other suppliers. Susan

I purchased the Caprabella Goat Milk Cream kit from Lotioncrafter. I made it this last weekend. It is soooo wonderful. http://www.lotioncrafter.com/formulary/Goat_Milk_Cream.pdf The directions say to heat phase A (water stuff) to 176 and hold. Later on in the directions, it says to weigh the batch and add enough distilled water to bring the weight back up to 1200 grams. I had to add almost half the water back in. I would think that adding all that unboiled water back in would reverse the effects of the boiling. How do you keep all that water from evaporating?! Or should I just boil lots of water and then add the 176 water to the other phase A ingredients before I mix phase A with phase B. Thanks, Susan

I made up some of the Apres glow scrub bars from the Dish's forum. They have a lot of salt in them with some baking soda and oatmeal for the scrubbies. It finally hardened up enough to use and the salt is pretty scratchy. Would sugar be less scratchy? Or should I switch to something else for the scrubbies? As soon as my sodium lactate arrives, I am also going to try Swiftymonkey's recipe off of her blog. I was thinking I could come up with something for my DH's mechanic hands. I don't want soap in it. Susan

Compared to the other suppliers, it is a very good price! I was just wondering if I checked the main suppliers for the amino acids. Trying to watch every penny! I am trying out the Lotioncrafter goat milk cream kit to see if I want to start making lotions. I spent last night doing the costs of all the ingredients to see if it would be a reasonable addition to my line. I need to replace my WSP Goats Milk and Honey lotion! Susan

I need to purchase some silk amino acids for lotion making. Lotioncrafter has 8 oz for $17.45. I have been looking to see if there is a better price somewhere. I checked WSP, MMS, the Herbarie, Snowdrift Farm, and the Personal Formulator. All of them are either more expensive or don't carry it. Any suggestions? Thanks, Susan

I was thinking that the plug in warmer wasn't getting hot enough. I tried 2 of these warmers - one from BC and the Scentsy one. I tried one of the melts I received in a swap and it didn't fully melt. I just don't think the 15 watt light bulbs get hot enough. Does any one know what Scentsy's melt point is? Susan

I bought some KY parasoy tart wax to test. I just started and have only tried one scent, BCN Sex on the Beach. I heated it up to 165 and added FO at the 1oz/lb rate. I stirred and poured into clamshells about 140. That was a couple weeks ago. Unless you are right on top of the warmer, I have no hot throw. I am testing in a Scentsy plug in warmer. HELP! What did I do wrong? Is it that FO? I plan to test a few others soon. Do I need more FO? Thanks, Susan

Looks like I will need to order from Peaks. Thanks!!! Susan

I have been ordering WSP's Black Raspberry Vanilla. It is now waaayyyy too expensive at $33/lb. It smells so good and soaps like a dream in CP (no acceleration or discoloration). Can anyone suggest a replacement? Thanks! Susan

I think I soaped it a little cool. I left it unwrapped on my kitchen counter - maybe 75* in the house. I didn't use a water discount. I unmolded it last night and it was just a bit soft. I didn't smell any ammonia and haven't tested it for zap yet. It is on the shelf to cure. Susan

I decided to try my hand at goats milk and honey soap. I used my normal soap recipe. I ordered goats milk powder and they said it was 4 oz of powder to 32 oz of water. I knew I was going to add 8 oz of water ... so I added 1 oz of powder to my warm oils. I stickblended it like crazy. I added 2 TBSP honey to a little hot water and mixed thoroughly. I added my lye water to my oils/powder and mixed. I then added my honey water. and mixed again. I did not add any FO or colorant. (I always test new recipes "naked" to see what they do.) It was rather anti-climatic. I used approx 90* lye and oils. I didn't get any heating and so far no yucky smells. It was still kinda soft after 18 hours. I hope it turns out! Susan

I am looking for microbial. What does stability testing test for? Susan

I found a video at Snowdrift Farms that shows their testing kit in use. It is a great video. http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/chekit.wmv I want to add handmade lotions but the testing is soooo expensive and I am basically a chicken. I think I would be comfortable testing a recipe at one week, one month, 3 months and 6 months. Any one else have any other ideas or suggestions. Susan

I am getting ready to start testing tarts. I am a soaper. I bought some of KY's parasoy to test. I also purchased one of Scentsy's plug in warmers to test it in. I figure that most of my customers will be "Scentsy" owners and I can say that I test my tarts in a scentsy warmer, etc. Susan

I bought some goats milk powder to CP with. I was thinking about trying it some anhydrous body butter. Has anyone put the powder in a body butter (no water)? Would it have any benefits? I thought I would ask before I tried it - don't want to waste oils, etc. Thanks, Susan

DH says I should do these in candy scents and get the local sweet shop to sell them. I haven't committed to trying that yet. They are a lot of work to do all the layers. I was having a hard time keeping everything in my pour cups warm - did a lot of reheating.

The soap trolls have set up camp in my house. I have had to rebatch my last 3 batches of soap. I use the oven bag method and it works really well! I am actually starting to like rebatching. How do you get a fairly smooth top? The rebatched soap seems to stick to everything! Thanks in advance! Susan

I tried to follow the directions on the Soap Queen Blog. She has a video. It takes patience and time. Susan

I bought some MP for the kids to play with and I couldn't resist doing a little playing. I bought some rubbermaid drawer organizers and went for it. I used peppermint EO - I knew it wouldn't turn the soap weird colors. The colorants are TKB. I tried to make the sorta yellow clear look clearer by adding a bit of blue - not sure if I like the bluishness of the clear. Otherwise I think it turned out pretty cool. I usually CP. Thanks, Susan

I only do unscented. A lavender/vanilla blend might do well. I have an empty bottle of WSP Sleeptime EO scented sanitizer on my desk. I made it for myself and its gone already! Susan

I am working on a copyright issue with my pin up pictures. I was going to use some pictures done by Gil Elvgren. He was a fantastic pin up artist. Brown and Bigelow holds the copyright for them and I am waiting on a response to see if I can use them. Please double check your images and make sure they aren't copyrighted or that you get permission. I was wondering why no one had done the western pin up design and it might be because of copyright issues. Don't assume that clip art, etc is in the public domain. It might not be. I decided to double check because I didn't want to have to face a possible lawsuit and redo my stuff again! Susan

I poured these into the .75 oz souffle cups BCN sells. It is the perfect amount of bath melt and easy peasy packaging. I label the side of the cup with the scent name and put the customer's melt choices in a tin tie bag already labeled with ingredients and directions. I sold a lot of them at $1 a piece. Susan

I am going to use "Giddy Up & Goat Lotion". Thank you so much for the help! Tomorrow, I am going to get labels printed out at the local office supply. Thanks, Susan