RobinInOR

And here's a pic of a palm oil refinery just for grins.

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/10467919/Palm_Oil_Refinery.jpg

http://www.bombainsurance.com/

It's through RLI - which excludes candle sales and anyone with a gross over $5K/year

Right! Have fun and good luck!

They've had it out for a couple of years. There was a study at Carnegie-Mellon about a caffeine patch - no where near that much can diffuse through the skin that fast. And since it's just a wash off product, it's mostly gimmick. I doubt you get too much caffeine.

I've found that pretty normal with milk soaps - ammonia smell. It fades.

I've testing my formula, subbing tallow for the palm. For me the tallow bar is much creamier - I like it a lot better.

Next year I'll be doing both types I think, if all goes as planned.

Yes, read that on their home page. I really need to pick up a couple of cases of clamshells - the shipping is expensive because of the bulky box. Guess I'll just do it further down the road.

Or if someone lives in the area, order it and have it shipped to them, and you can pick it up on your way

Have fun shopping !

I love the feel of fall in the air - starts getting me psyched up for the holiday season. What kind of yummy fall/winter scents are you pouring?

This weekend after market (only 4 more after this one ) I'll be finishing up a new wholesale order to ship on Monday, so lots of labeling and lip balm shrinking.

Then I'm taking inventory and starting to ramp up stock for the holidays. I've already got all my supplies in I think - I don't like ordering after Sept. So this weekend will be lavender - L sage, L mint, L plain, face scrubs and serum, L lip balm, bath tea. I've got lots of lavender products.

Have a great weekend!

Anywhere from .1 to .7 oz ppo. I like EOs to be a tiny bit subtle, but I still get people at market who tell me my soaps are too strong.

The one's I'm low on are spices, lemongrass/litsea, mints, tea tree, eucalyptus, rosemary...

The content of tins that I got back previously had definitely been on fire. The warning label on bottom was scorched black. The fire my daughter had burned the little holder the tin was in, the tablecloth and even scorched the wood table under it. Carole

And that's where tins can be more dangerous than glass. Glass is more of an insulator - the tin will transfer the heat directly out to the surface it's sitting on, and glass won't do that as fast.

Or she meant with her air conditioning on, she's not getting the gel she wants

I'd think it would be OK in the shade. As long as it's not hotter than a warm oven... it would be like that.

Or we mess up the same way

Is it a new FO? Some FOs will do that - or your batch might have overheated, or you poured at a thinner trace and it separated on you.

Leave it for a day or so and I bet it will reabsorb. And check it to make sure it isn't lye heavy.

There's a mod to osCommerce where once you've set up the category and all the things in the category, you can set up each of your items with the colors/scents you want right on the item admin page - using your ctl-click or shift-click to select multi items. Maybe Zen has something along those lines? The way osC was set up was a definite bummer, and zen started with the osC code base.

Here's a chart of lye strength

http://www.candletech.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1978

I tend to use the 38% solution. I was having too much trouble with stronger solutions.

Excellent news! Nothing better than having holes in the display "sold out"

Label the way it should be labeled and sell people on the ingredient. Why have something in your soap that you want to hide?

I've got my basic recipe and a couple of different ones that have one extra oil in them. Otherwise I just change additives - clay, silk, liquid type, herbs, powders.

Guess some of you are getting or got lots of rain. Hope all is well.

This is a busy weekend. After market, have to make something of everything - catching up after an unexpectedly good fair and market. So lip balms of every kind (I am *so* out of lip balms), and 8 batches of soap - lavender, rose, lavender mint, more lavender sage, sandalwood vanilla, .... I think it's time to increase my batch size again - I've started making the same scent every 3 weeks to keep up.

What's up at your place this week?

For the meatballer I just use a medium pressure. I scoop up a lot of mixture between the 2 halves, leaving the halves about an inch apart. I don't pack anything down, it's just 'loose'. With my other hand I remove about 1/2 of the mix between the 2 halves (so it looks like a thin pillar of mix between - think of an egg timer sort shape with the meatballer halves on both ends and some mix in between), then squish them together so the edges touch. That extra mix seems to be enough to add to the 'pressure' once I close it together. Hard to describe.

You'd have to test the body spray to make sure none of those ingredients stain or do something weird if you're spraying then ironing something.

Nice - congrats! Stock up on boxes for all those orders

Can't answer your first question, but the off topic section isn't in the same section with the classys and coops, it's in a separate section below that. do you have that minimized or hidden by any chance?

I found BBs Provence Lavender much sweeter than any bulgarians I've tried. And you have to keep trying - one bulgarian isn't the same as another, and it can vary from year to year.

Lavender OOB will usually smell like that - you're smelling too strong a concentration. Put a drop on a qtip or coffee filter and smell that.

Here's one of the lists on the web - http://soapnuts.com/shelf.html

You can probably google more.

The more double or triple bonds in the fatty acids, the shorter the shelf life. Linoleic is one - grapeseed is 68% linoleic acid.