r/soapmaking

Tallow and Goat milk soap. Love how this batch came out with the tentacles, mermaid bodies and colorful shells! It’s a salty florally mix and I’m in love!

I have done a couple of batches of soap with some inexpensive fragrance oils from Amazon. They came out just fine, but the fragrance seems ok and does not meet my expectations of a good premium smell.

My first batch was an olive oil, castor oil soap with 6 % superfat. For the second one I added shea, cocoa butter, sodium lactate, kaolin clay, colloidal oats.

First batch was not a hard soap. A soap barely lasted a couple of weeks. Second bath is still curing(hoping it will be a harder soap) and will know it's status in another 4 weeks.

But as mentioned before, I can smell them but does not smell premium. BTW, the conentration is correct based on Brambleberry calculator. Its is strong but not premium smelling.

Doing research online I came across Vinevida. They have a masculine set for like 20 bucks. Seems a good size to experiment with. However, I could find the same fragrance oils on Wholesalesuplliesplus as well.

Any thoughts about these suppliers? Whats a good recommendation?

Are there any ones I should stay away from?

Thanks

...technically. on paper.

My plan was to make an ombre from pink to purple to blue and scent it with black raspberry vanilla. My beer accelerated trace and was remarkably dark. Since it was so dark, I figured a different scent would be smarter. So I wanted to pivot to Dark Kiss and a red, pink, copper ombre. Dark Kiss also accelerates. I tried to mix in the first color and it already was thicker than scraping/sculpting texture. So another pivot. Two colors: red and natural, slapped into the mold and slammed down repeatedly.

It filled the mold. It hardened on time. It cut nicely. I filled in air bubbles with the scraps.

This soap is TECHNICALLY a fail. Because it's not what I planned. Because a LOT went wrong. Because my end soap kinda looks like a brick.

But I'm still going to label and sell this soap and not feel even a touch of guilt. No one else knows what I wanted out of the soap. No one else saw my plans for the design or the fragrance. All they'll see is a soap. And they'll know it smells nice.

Remember that even when a soap goes a bit sideways and you have to make several unplanned pivots...

As long as your math (and dissolving) is solid

Even if it's lumpy and ugly

It IS still soap

I love this soap, it's so freaking nice 😁. White like snow. It looks like little snowy mountains. But it's get rock hard after only one day. I put a little lavender eo in because my kids don't like the slightly smell of the tallow.

I made these laundry soap bars using a NaOH/KOH blend.

Recipe:

Coconut oil — 80%

Palm oil — 18%

Castor oil — 2%

Citric acid — 2%

Sodium gluconate — 1%

Washing soda — 2%

Baking soda — 1%

Note: The NaOH amount was calculated to fully neutralize the 2% citric acid.

I added washing soda because I heard it can help with stubborn stains, and baking soda for its deodorizing effect.

I’ve been happy with its performance on everyday laundry so far, and I’ve noticed a nice deodorizing effect.

I also tested it on an old blouse with stubborn stains, but the soap was only two days old at the time, so I think it’s too early to judge its full cleaning performance.

I’ll use it more after it has cured longer and see how it performs. If using washing soda separately turns out to be more effective, I may not add it to the soap at all. I’m also considering testing a higher percentage, but I want to see the results first.

One thing I noticed while making it: washing soda is surprisingly difficult to dissolve! 😅

I made my first Olive Marseille soap,

and I truly enjoyed every step of making it.

Now I just have to wait a whole year for it to cure... I’m not sure how I’m going to be patient! 😅

I stamped a little four-leaf clover on each soap bar as a small gift, hoping that good luck will find whoever receives one. 🍀

I’m really happy with how this little batch turned out.

Don't get me wrong, I love mashed potatoes (one of the best comfort foods), but not expecting my first tallow soap attempt to look like this lol. I'm still getting the timing down with the lye solution and oil temps. I used frozen goat's milk and distilled water for the NaOH solution; it didn't get above 110F and cooled down more quickly than expected. I attempted to heat it up by adding 1/2 tsp of honey, but that didn't seem to do anything so I held the bowl over the stove for a couple of minutes and it started getting more pumpkin orange. Mixed it into the oils when they got to 115F and stirred by hand until trace. I added 1 tsp of coffee grounds and 2 tsp ea of clove and vanilla EO. Trace got like a slushy gel which was darker because of the coffee, but lightened to give me the mashed potato look when it hardened. The scent so far is much milder than expected. Tbh, for a couple of reasons, I didn't like working with the tallow that much, but I'm still a newbie so I'll try a few more times and see if it just wasn't a good first impression. I also used one of those silicone highland cow molds (not shown) so we'll see how that comes out....

Hi everyone! I am looking into creating a design inspired by these nails I saw on Pinterest and my question is, how do I do the layers, particularly the purple, green and white. I didn't find anything similar. The closest thing I saw was very uniform circles, but I couldn't find the technique anywhere. I might be missing a big, obvious thing so forgive me if I am, I am just coming back to soap making after a four-year hiatus. Thank you :)

Between my experiments I'm of course still making other soaps 🤭 🤭 🤭. This one is made with good German (Bavarian) beer and tea tree oil scented with lemon grass eo because my son loves this scent and I try to convince him to use it. It just worked with the hand soap and I'm hoping it will work too with this one.

I really love how it came out and there is absolutely no sign of soda ash on this one.

I feel like cold process soap is so hard to do. Well it’s too hard to use cavity molds. I learned my lesson trying to put my soap that was setting up too quickly into some ornate cavity molds. It looked so good as I did a little drop swirl with some turmeric. I crammed the batter into the molds and to try to safe the tops I put bubble wrap over it, it was so gloppy.

Next time a loaf mold all the way. I am getting too old to stress out over this. As soon as my lye is used up melt and pour here I come.

According to my Fitbit I got 42 heart zone minutes making the batch.

It’s in a plastic container curing up. I hope it works for me. I hope the mod lets me post.

Has anyone formulated and used a dog cold process soap? For Fur based dogs, not doodle varieties.

It’s my understanding that the pH needs to be a little
different for their fur, but that it can be done with cold process. However, I’m not going to rely on what AI told me and thought I would ask the masters!

If you’ve formulated a dog bar or if you know for sure it’s a terrible idea, would you mind sharing?? Scent free and dye free of course. Thanks!! Puppy pic for cute. Happy soaping 😜