northwoodsgal Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Hello there! My name is Julie and I'm new to this forum board. I've been doing many different crafts for years, as a hobbyist. I'm experienced with lip balm, candle making and melt and pour soap. That said, for years I've wanted to make soap from scratch, so I've decide to embark on hot process soap making. I've now made four batches of hot process and I'm loving it. My first batch was *sort of* an epic disaster because a local homesteading guy sells lye and soap supplies, but doesn't know too much about it and at that point, neither did I. He said "oh yeah, this is the stuff to make soap with and it said 100% LYE in all caps on the bottle." Turns out it was KOH and not NaOH. You can imagine my surprise and feelings of ineptitude when the soap never got hard after sitting for 24 hours. In frustration, like a good scientist would, I reviewed everything and all my calculations. I looked closely at the small print on everything and the back of the "LYE" bottle said it was Potassium and not Sodium Hydroxide. I wasn't familiar with Potassium Hydroxide at the time and just assumed it was a special lye but with a quick internet search, I figured out that I was making liquid soap. I took the gelled liquid soap out of the mold and followed HP liquid soap instructions and I ended up with liquid soap. So, my first ever batch of homemade soap was liquid soap! Go figure. Out of the frying pan and straight into the fire... After grueling hours of trying to get to gel and nearly burning out my immersion blender because I wasn't using liquid techniques, but rather HP techniques, I thought: 'this soap making is for the birds!' Now, I find regular HP soap is a walk in the park-- so easy compared to my first challenge. I signed up to this forum because I saw someone mention the "byrdiejean" hot process technique and I'm really interested in it and love her videos in Youtube. I do small batches for me and family only. I like to keep as much of the end stage ingredients (essential oils, butters, infused oils) intact so after research what I can tell is that HP is best for that, but I'm hear to learn and I'm sure that will change cuz I'm so into all the decorative swirls in CP. I've attached a pic of my "Frozen" melt and pour bar of soap that I make for my nieces. Looking forward to being here! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest OldGlory Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Hi Julie and welcome Your Frozen soap is just beautiful, no wonder your nieces love it.I have never made HP, but I have made M&P and CP. There are some really fabulous soap makers here that I'm sure will be able to give you lots of good advice. Plus, there are hundreds of old posts that you can review and perhaps gather a lot of great info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vicky_CO Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Hi Julie Welcome to the board 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northwoodsgal Posted October 24, 2015 Author Share Posted October 24, 2015 Thanks for your replies and warm welcome, Old Glory and Vicky! Looking forward to seeing you around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puma52 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 (edited) Hi Julie! You make beautiful soap! Love the colors and I'm sure your nieces just love it! Fellow hot process soap maker here! Love it! Welcome! Edited October 24, 2015 by puma52 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trappeur Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 Hello Julie and welcome to this board...You will love it.... I don't make soap but soy candles and melts......I just drool over all the gorgeous soaps and buy em and stick them on my shelf and admire them....then when the soaps start to get some age on them, then I use them. Ha! Trappeur Ps: your soap is gorgeous! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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