RobinInOR

Very nice and smooth looking.

You could also buy a Xyron and make labels out of your paper. Might be too thick to curl around a small diameter properly but might be worth a try. I just color the background of my regular labels the same color as my parchment paper - it blends in fine with the look.

You kind of have to experiment with the numbers - find a bar you like and then use those numbers as a baseline. My base recipe comes out like this. 43% - Hardness 17% - Cleansing 52% - Conditioning 21% - Fluffy 26% - Stable Yours looks nice. Mine's a bit more cleansing and bubbly than others - it's designed to bubble in hard water. Lots of different ranges will still make nice bars.

Quite an improvement - nice job!

USPS says flammable is 100-141, combustible is 141-200. I think many of the airlines have their own numbers to determine flammability, unless the FAA has come up with general rules. I'd think anything over 200 wouldn't be questioned, over 140 would be fine but probably open to interpretation.

Great idea! I'd like to use the bottles I bought for lotions, though I want to go to straight screwtops - I find the disc is too messy with oil.

Yours sounds like a nice blend. I've found that messing around with the percentages and oils can really make a difference in feel too. So experiment - it's fun and *easy* Now all I have to do is find a non leaking bottle For testing when I was on a business trip, I just stuck it in one of my disc top PET lotion bottles. Oil all over my bag the top came loose.

Love all those colors, especially the Patch, great green.

Yup, no soap needed (gasp! ) Did I really say that? LOL.... Works on the principle of like dissolves like. Just rub the oil blend on your face - don't wash it first. Best is to massage it in and wait 15-20 minutes, but I do a fast one, just massage it in for a few minutes. Then wet a washcloth as hot as you can stand, and press it against your face for a few minutes or until it cools. Maybe do it twice. You don't have to rub hard, the oil will come off in the cloth. It works for many people, but some people find they get more breakouts. Really depends on your skin type I guess. Try something like 1/2 oz of castor and 1/2 oz of something else - sunflower, olive might be too heavy, but some use it. Or avocado. Or RBO. That would be a 50%/50% mixture. If you wanted to use a 75% castor/25% something else, try .3 oz oil to .7 oz castor (close enuf).

Mostly it's the degree of hydrogenation - how many double bonds are in the fatty acids. The fewer double bonds, the more hydrogenated, the harder the oil. Shortenings might be a blend, you'd have to look at the ingredients. Sometimes there is cottonseed or canola in them. Otherwise I'd think the shortening and the soy (hydrogenated) would be pretty similar in feel. Hydrogenation doesn't affect the SAP value, supposedly, but might make a difference in the feel of the bar. Hydrogenation also extends the shelf life.

I too love the oil cleansing method - there are long posts about it on the SoapDish where a bunch of us are trying it out. http://www.soapdishforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7675 Castor oil is great at cleansing - add a bit of lavender and/or tea tree EO and I would think that would be wonderful. Right now my testing is on 50% castor + a mix of other oils I've got around. Wonderful stuff!

I probably have a 50/50 mix of EO/FO soaps, and the FOs do seem to sell a bit better. Will just depend on your target market. I've sold at a "crunchy granola" (that's the term around here, no offense ) and sold FOs 2:1, which really surprised me lol... I have more fun with the EOs though, I love mixing. Some EOs do fade quickly and need to be anchored with base notes. Another disadvantage is some of the nice ones can be spendy, though there are EOs that are prices comparatively to FOs. Soybean oil is nice and conditioning (and inexpensive!), but a very "soft oil", so I would make sure to use enough hard oils to compensate. I've also heard some people have problems with DOS (dreaded orange spots) when they use too high of a percentage of soy. Natural color work great - you won't get the very bright colors of the synthetic dyes, but clays, ultramarines and oxides (if you want to consider them nature), herbs, spices all make nice colors.

$10 doesn't sound bad for someone designing a graphic for you from scratch. A web banner is just a standard graphic that's a standard size - 468 x 60 I think is the usual full banner, and you want to keep it small - 10-15K if not less... And yes, you'd want a gif if you want it animated (seems like they all are now-a-days).

Love that lavender - it does look like a smile

Call Pourette for custom molds I wonder if there would be a way to mcgyver up a temp mold - something like taping together a bunch of 1/2 gallon milk cartons (trying to think of something simple that doesn't stick to wax) just as a test - or a bunch of ice cream cartons or something. Probably wouldn't give you a smooth finish though. Or maybe do a smaller model using a log mold to give them the idea, then go get custom molds? When I had Pourette make mine the molds were average price, with a $50 setup fee I think - it wasn't too bad.

When I sold them I wrapped them in foil and put them in a 2" frosted box for $4. Before that I wrapped them in plastic, then tulle, sold for $3. But mine were bubble bombs, not just fizzie.

It should be fine. It has a pretty low melting point, so during these hot days it will probably be liquid. Coconut has a pretty long shelf life.

I drop the last number - I'd measure 4.6. I round down for lye, up for oils.

Sounds like it's going to turn out nice - good idea to use a discoloring FO as part of the design pattern

So far I've found that relationship true between candles and soaps - if you use less than usual in candles, you'll probably be able to use less than usual in soaps. Course CP can do strange things to fragrances I usually test at .5 oz ppo since I'll probably have a 1 ounce sample and do 2# recipes. At least I can tell if it works OK, and know if I need to go up for my next batches.

What kind of preservative are you using? Long shelf life is going to be dependant on preservative.

Nice! Like the 7 shelf version - we've got the 5 shelf ones from Costco...

Some people have had luck with wax paper, but I've found it usually sticks and shreds and is generally a mess to work with. Freezer paper with the waxy side toward the soap doesn't stick. The main brand I see in grocery stores is Reynolds. Though Costco has huge huge rolls of it - that would last a lifetime.

Yup, where there's flame, there's soot. You brought up something interesting though that I've never thought of - particle size of soot. Whether it's light or dark color doesn't matter to me - light color soot that I can't see isn't any healthier than dark color soot that I *can* see. I've seen references to paraffin soot particle size as being anywhere from .06 - .1 micron. You mentioned soy was a micro size. Any idea of how small? I couldn't find any tech references. In any case, I've read that anything less than 1 micron can get stuck in the lungs. To my way of thinking, smaller particles could be more of a danger - they stay in the air longer and are thus more easily taken into the lungs. I'll have to go google, I like collecting pieces of info like this for some web pages I've got.

Haven't tried them *in* products, but out-of-bottle Tish has really nice ones http://store.scent-works.com/