TallTayl

Solid hair care products are fab for people who: Don't like excess packaging, Don't like to ship water, or Travel. No water=no TSA restrictions. The little flowers in that mold weigh about .7 ounces. In liquid form (which you can turn these into at home) each flower makes over 16 ounces of traditional thickness conditioner. Used as-is in solid form each lasts me about a month or more for my shoulder blade length hair.

The pink mold holds a special batch of solid hair conditioner bars for some special friends. The scent is a blend inspired by The Hobbit: Honey Meade, Tobacco, Pepperberry, Berries and green grass. Shampoo bars to match are about to be made. The nail polish is for the same group, also with a hobbit theme. It is a water-based polymer that i have been working on for years. it's non-toxic, non-flammable, and has nearly no odor. I have applied it while in a car and on a plane and nobody around knew the bottle was even open! Bonus: it dries really, really fast. For this special polish i had to choose a special colorant: COLOR SHIFTING MICA!!! Inspired by the Arkenstone, at first glance it looks like a plain white color. When you look closer you see a light purple sheen. When applied it color shifts from light pinkish purple to nearly invisible in certain lights.

Lol, i feel you in the temp issues. i live near Chicago. My shop was below 50 degrees recently. When you can see your breath it is time to turn UP the melters and leave them ON!

I usually hit the tops with the heat gun before the over pour. I can totally see the overpour over ice cold wax cooling with cracks.

It is a really good idea to use appropriate preservatives in water based products, like sprays. Bacteria, mold, fungi, etc. grow in a bottle of spray, and later are easy to spread all over a room when spraying it from the bottle. If wanting to use alcohol as a preservative, it takes over 20% of a high proof alcohol to do the job. You would want to use something like a perfumers alcohol in that case. Alcohols also help to emulsify most fragrances.

Not usually. Though, some frosting recipes loaded with confectioner sugar i have seen DO mold. Rather than preserve those, i would choose a more shelf stable, tub friendly formula.

Cracking all the way through, or just a few surface cracks?

I have been following along the FB group. Her business was based on fragrance dupes and recently started expanding to colorants, etc. Someone sends in an ounce of FO, she has it duped and sells it. The videos and photos on that site show it very soon after cutting. Many discolor more over time, but are not updated to show that. Make sure you request IFRA certificates before purchasing FO intended for skin use. Some, like You Snap The Whip, ended up with very, very low (less than 0.5%) usage rates for soap and other skin use. Someone above wrote that it is too soon to have feedback. That is true. While they may soap easily, there is little to no feedback about fading.

I don't refrigerate mine either.

Hard wax i drop on a concrete floor woth force. Soft wax i use a wire to pull through.

Sometimes the best answer is another question... I usually ask, "What do you mean?" Then the right reply for the situation is made a little simpler to choose.

This is a difficult question to answer. Generally, when people ask me if it is lye soap, they want to know if the soap is free of detergents/surfactants. Sometimes the answer they seek is more nostalgic, as in, "is this the old fashioned lard soap like grandma used to make?" SFIC and other melt and pour bases do contain some "soap". What separates them from what was coined "natural" soap is that they also contain ingredients (like surfactants/detergents, added glycerin, glycols, sometimes alcohols and other chemical additives) to allow them to melt repeatedly with heat, then resolidify.

Lanolin is a lipid, treated like oils and butters. it has a "required" HLB of 10, meaning you need to use the right blend of emulsifier to balance the formula and keep the lanolin in suspension within a hydrous emulsion. http://www.theherbarie.com/files/resource-center/formulating/Required_HLB_for_Oils_and_Lipids.pdf

The high oleic version is slightly less prone to DOS.

You can do the same using an emulsifier, like polysorbate-20. Even alcohol as >20% of the total blend will emulsify the fragrance and help preserve the blend.

Keep on plugging along and master that wax! Testing takes time. There's just no way to short cut it. Burning that same candle different ways over time will be enlightening. Postage to ship a great, finished, tested candle is cheap compared to possibly leaving a bad impression with one that burns poorly. What's the saying? You have one chance to make a first impression. Might as well make it a good one =)

i poke a pin size hole in the silicone and just send the wick through - no pin.

Love love love all of those Chefmom!

Gorgeous is right! The instructor knows the shrink rate, but i cannot picture in my head what 12% shrinkage will feel or look like without first seeing it, kwim? How much bigger do i need to throw the bowl/vase/mug to get what size i think i want for the end. Some were fired on Saturday, i guess i will have my answer tomorrow if i can make it in. Two of my bowls were busts. One cracked the whole way through the bottom while drying. Too thin, booo. The other i poked a hole through after trimming. Double boo.

Primal Elements manages a pretty brisk M&P business.

Chefmom, i would love to see pics of your work. There's something about pottery that has always drawn me to it. It's fascinating!

I can see how this is addictive. Trying to take a very conservative walk on this new path. Typically i dive in never caring how deep the water is. I can see a wheel and kiln in my studio, but am standing on the brake to not let them in right away. I think i freaked out the teach a little when i walked into the first class with a (short) list of specific goals. The list is kind of following along with his lesson plans. I wish i could move the pace along just a weeeee bit to get through first firing and see just how much this clay shrinks! Patience is being tested i tell ya! Do you have your own kiln chefmom? Have always wanted one, even if it is just enough for glazing and maybe some glass slumping. My inner magpie loves shiny things.

I have some, shared by a friend who has tried it. She "thinks" is adds "something". It is in the currently running "lather lover's swap round 2" elsewhere. I will upload the videos of the sink tests to my youtube channel along with the first round so you can see if it does anything visibly to the lather quality.

How recent is the IFRA certificate? The Fo could have been reformulated since the last cert was posted. Or the IFRA guidelines could have changed since the last cert. Best to ask. If it was not skin safe because of performance in CP then an awful lot of common retail FO's would be delisted pretty quickly.

Class has not gotten that far yet. Supposedly they will be glazed during the last class which is the last week of Feb. so in 8 weeks i should be through the entire process for several forms. I so want to throw some tumblers for candles!