Rebottling gallons of soap oils

[Fire and Ice]

I just got into the large Soaper Choice Co-op and I am expecting several gallons of oils to be shipped to me by the end of the month. I need to order 1 & 2 lb bottles for breaking down the gallons and to make mesuring out the oils a little easier. What are the best bottle to have for making the transfer. I am assuming that amber 1# pet bottles would work.

I need advice. The oils will be stored in my VERY cold basement.

Fire

[mystical_angel1219]

HDPE bottles work best, or go the dollar store and find those big water bottles with spouts. With a 5 on the bottom. They are cheap and easy, plus no shipping charges. I bought some clear tinted PET bottles there 2/1.00 right before fall started. They come in handy.

[Fire and Ice]

Thanks Terri~ I'll have a look around! I hope you are feeling better these days.

My very best to you,

Fire:wave:

[Michi]

How much oil are you getting girl!? LOL

You might want to ask Jennie how/what she using to bottle the oils before you go out and buy a bunch.

A gallon bottle is not hard to use to pour out your oils. I wouldn't think she would send out anything bigger unless you are getting like 50lbs of one oil etc. Then she may leave it in what it comes in.

I know that when you order a 7lb bottle from soapers choice it comes in a perfect sized jug.

1 gallon is 128oz or approx. 8lbs (as I'm sure you already know) so depending on how much you ordered, you may get a gallon sized jug (or 2, etc.) And some smaller bottles for the extra, which you could then use to transfer from the gallon jugs as you use it up.

Therefore you may not even need to buy ANY bottles at all.

If you do need bottles, you could even use soda bottles. When I would get oils from shutterbug's co-ops she always used these (that she got new from a source) and they were perfect, especially for storing in the frig.

Just thought I'd throw that ou there before you spend any money on bottles.

[jbren]

I agree with Michi. The only oils I re-bottle are ones I don't use large quantities of, like Castor, Jojoba, SweetAlmond. The others I use right out of the gallon jugs. With PKO and Babassu which are solid, the jugs get slit and the oils are transferred to zip-lock freezer bags.

[CareBear]

I agree with Michi.

and I agree with jbren. I don't generally rebottle - especially not for soaping oils. I DO have a smaller (16 oz) bottle I use for my castor oil since I use tiny amounts in my lip balms, but besides that I just pour from the jugs - they are not unwieldy IMO.

Which oils are you getting?

[Fire and Ice]

and I agree with jbren. I don't generally rebottle - especially not for soaping oils. I DO have a smaller (16 oz) bottle I use for my castor oil since I use tiny amounts in my lip balms, but besides that I just pour from the jugs - they are not unwieldy IMO.

Which oils are you getting?

Well I needed to make the investment last so I bought quite a bit but I also know that I'll use it all too. I only had the funds to invest once so I invested in bulk for me.

Mango Butter 3#

Cocoa Butter 3 #

Babassu oil~ 7#

Castor oil~ 7#

Rice bran oil~7#

Shea Butter 3 #

Coconut oil~ 7#

Palm oil 7 #

Olive oil~ 7 #

PKO flakes~ 13 lbs

Sweet Almond oil 4#

Avacado oil ~5#

I know that it seems like a lot but I do plan to be soaping all winter with several 2 & 4 lb batches a week.

The other reason I asked is that I have a local supply of lb bottle that a local craft store is trying to thin out due to a switch in their bottles so I was going to buy a dozen or so of them. The bottles are fine and they had over 1,000 last month. I'm good friends with them so I was just going to pick up a dozen for a few bucks. They're 16oz PET bullet bottles. very basic but nice to have around.

Fire

[CareBear]

hee hee - no it doesn't sound like a lot. I am a hobbiest for the most part and get my CO in 50# buckets!

If it were me, I'd just get one bottle for each of the babassu, castor, SAO, and avocado and re-fill as they empty. The rest you can just pour off what you need from the gallons. If it's cold where you store them the CO and Palm Oil will be solid so you will either need to melt and pour off what you need each time or pour off into tubs so it's easier to dig out what you need. The butters & PKO flakes you can store in ziplock baggies (somewhere nice and cool)

[Fire and Ice]

Thanks very much for the advice, Carebear. I plan to keep them on my basement. The butters I will transfer to heavy freezer bags and store in bucket with a lid.

My basement is about 38 degrees in the winter when I don't fire the wood burner in the bsement. Candles sales are very low in the winter so I seldom fire it unless I'm making candles. I have to go pick up some wax tomorrow so I thought I'd get some bottles as well.

I've been reading on the dish how some soaper have entire pallets of oils delivered! I've seen the pictures of Bandicoot's soap barn and am just amazed. She must get entire semi's of oils delivered but then she makes 5,000 a week!

Fire

[CareBear]

Yea I'm stunned by that. But then again I soap in my kitchen with a grand total of 8 square feet of counter space shared with a toaster oven, coffee maker, and way to many pieces of mail I need to deal with...

[Michi]

That's really not a lot Fire. You'll be surprised how fast you'll go through what you've ordered especially if you make several 2-4lb batches a week.

The amounts on your liquid oils are all less than a gallon each, not sure how they will originally come to Jennie, but I can't see wasting the money or time rebottling everything.

And I'm sure that the butters and hard oils will be ziplock bagged already.

Don't worry about it, you'll be using all that stuff up so quick! You'll probably even be wishing you had gotten more (like I always do!), and if you make as many batches as you intend, you don't even have to worry about keeping it cold. As a maater of fact, you'll want the hard oils to be a bit soft so its easier to scoop out of bags/containers.

[kidsngarden]

My liquid oils are in gallons unless it's something I don't use a ton of. I buy sunflower 35 pounds at a time and it comes in a bucket. My hubby dumps oil from the bucket to a pitcher, I pour from the pitcher through a funnel into the gallons.

I have a pump for each kind of oil and it's on the current gallon I am using. If I am doing just a few ounces (like for bath bombs) I use the pump, if I am doing soap and using pounds of oils I take off the pump and pour right from the bottle.

Bethany

[Scent Cellar]

I buy all my oils in bulk from Columbus Foods and keep them in my basement. The only one I decant into smaller bottles is the castor oil for easier handling. The babassu in the gallon container is a buggar but now I melt it down as soon as it's delivered and pour it into a plastic pail for easy scooping.