Tried my hand at HP...

[Christina]

And I really liked it. I used rosemary and peppermint eo's and some dried rosemary and mint leaves. I did the oven hot process because I actually use my crockpot for food quite often and wasn't willing to hand it over to soap quite yet. But I really like the oven process! It was so easy! I read several tutorials before I did it and I got kind of confused on a couple of points. First off, it says you don't have to cool the oils or lye down before you mix them....well, I didn't and the second I added the lye it all started boiling up and over my pot onto my stove...that was scary...so I dumped vinegar all over it and that stove is VERY clean, hehehe. But it all went good after that. After the initial 30 minute cook, I took it out and the tutorials said it would be the consistency of cookie dough and hard to stir....but it wasn't. It was translucent. It looked like they said it should look after the second 15 minute cook. I still cooked it for another 15 minutes after stirring, and it looked the same, perhaps a bit harder. Maybe it's just because I was doing a 3.5 lb batch so it cooked quicker....I don't know. Anyway, it smelled like a roast turkey when I took it out (from the rosemary), and I was worried it would continue to smell like that. I stuck in the eo's after letting it cool for 2 minutes and it just smelled AWFUL! Like rosemary gone bad. Anyway, by morning it smelled like it should and I'm happy. It seems to bubble a lot more than my cold process soap....I don't know why. I used the exact same recipe.

There's a picture in the gallery. Not the prettiest, but I really enjoyed making it. And it's a very weird feeling to know that I can actually USE this soap now....

Christina

[Christina]

Ok, I just went to make some more and now I realize why my soap cooked so much faster. My stove has both temps written on it and the bolded temp is celcius...so, I actually had my soap cooking at close to 350 degrees last night...but it still turned out really good...is it really so bad to cook it that high?

Christina

[krazeforsoap]

The highest oven temps I use is 200. You don't want your water to cook out of the soap too fast or you could end up with a lye heavy batch.

When you added your lye/water solution to your oils and had the overflow it sounds like your oils may have been way too hot. I melt my oils slow on low heat.

Checked out your pics in the gallery. Your soap looks great!

[SOAPFREAK]

Isn't hp a blast?! Everyone should at least try it once. I love the lather the hp brings. Even the longer curing cp doesn't lather as much as hp. You can achieve some really cool swirl designs when making hp. They are not like the flowing swirls you get with cp but they are unique in character. Their not as noticeable when unmolding or cutting but when using in the shower as the bar gets smaller you go "Oh isn't that pretty?" I add sodium lactate to mine just after adding the lye water so it's makes it's more pourable. I bought a crockpot at a garage sale for $2 or you can find them at Goodwill or thrift stores so cheap. I prefer to do mine in the crockpot.

Here's one I made that the purple swirls actually were hardening pieces and it was glopped into the mold. It was one of the prettiest ones while using.

[SOAPFREAK]

Here's another one with the first one shredded and added to a new batch. The fo I used would not come through very strong.