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dcrog said:
How long till they can be used? I've read a few days to a few weeks.
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Well, they are safe to use when they don't zap.

BUT...........some bars are MUCH better with aging. I mean, much much much much better. I wouldn't even try or use a bar less than 3 weeks old, and would not give one away that was less than 4 weeks old. But for a salt bar or olive oil-heavy bar, four MONTHS is a minimum.

It's hard to wait, but this is one of those things that makes a huge difference. Even though the saponification is finished, the bar gets milder. Especially with salt bars, with a high percentage of coconut oil, this is very important.

I know from experience. I tried a salt bar at 4 weeks old and it made my skin feel dry and "tight". I hated it, and thought I'd really hate it forever. I tried the same soap at 4 months- and I loved it! My old "mature" skin loved that bar then, and still does. It makes a HUGE difference in things like that.
 
Okay. So now I have to figure out if the wife will love them, how many she will go through, and how many she will give away after she tries and likes them. Wouldn't want the pipeline to run dry on a hot commodity.

Oh and I forgot that last week when I made the bath bombs I mixed all my dry ingredients and I forgot one ingredient, citric acid which I was out of. So when my brew was cooled and put in the fermenter I made a mad dash to the LHBS to pick some up. Called ahead and he stayed for a few minutes for me to get there. Told him I was using it for bath bombs and he said they had been making them. He hadn't tried soap yet but was interested. Who knows he may start carrying supplies there for soap. He said the two kind of go hand in hand. Beer making and soap making. :mug:
 
chunkwagon said:
I've tried many, but usually stick with 2. Brambleberry and Natures Garden.
Imo, Brambleberry can't be beat for some of their silicone and other specialty molds. I'm also a big fan of many of their scents and they have an outstanding selection of colors and coloring options. Natures Garden has some nice scents also, but some just don't seem to hold as well BB. I guess I like Peak Candle also lol. They've got some really nice scents!
I tend to deal with BB for the most part. The selection is excellent and they seem to carry just about everything you could want or need for soaping, including stuff for liquid soaps.
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We have been using Brambleberry and Essential Depot. I guess we just started off with the best ones! :D Always good to find out if there are other places though. We should start sales by 2nd quarter of 2016. Working on the retail and wholesale licenses, now that the DBA has been authorized... Look for us soon! Raincross Soapworks :ban:
 
dcrog said:
What are you people doing?

I used to come here and read about various escapades in beer making.

Then one day this thread popped up on the Today's Post list. Then it all went to hades. Not really but it sounds more dramatic.

It started so simple with making a few bath bombs for the wife, who loves them by the way. Already have the scales and such just need to get a pitcher and a few things devoted to trying to make some soap. I'm sure I'll have to buy the wife a new Cuisineart stick blender since I've used hers to try this. I told here I washed it quite well but I'm sure she'll never use it again for food. :p

Picked up the coconut oil, olive oil, and some lard at the grocery. Lye was purchased at the local hardware store. Went home and built a wooded mould, lined it with plastic from a grocery store bag, and away I went. Went with Yooper's first recipe with the lard in place of the palm oil, still haven't found that locally yet. Found out that her recipe amount just about exactly fills the mould half way. No problem since it made 5 equal sized bars about and inch thick.

Last week in the middle of brew day I doubled the size of the bath bomb recipe and used some lavender epsom salts the wife bought. This was done while I was waiting for the mash to complete. I found that dixie cups make a nice mould that you can leave them in until they harden.

Yesterday morning nothing better to do so since the wife bought some sea salt to use in the bath bombs I decided to make some salt bars.

Coconut oil, olive oil, castor oil, sea salt ran through a food processor to make a powder, and orange essential oil. Just didn't read far enough through recipes to remember to superfat it by about 20% and left the soapcalc at 7%. I used 16 ounces of oil and an equal amount of salt. I guess we'll see how they turn out.

After the bread loaf pan, yes I bought one of those too, set up enough to cut I put the pieces in a cardboard box in an oven in the garage preheated to 170 and turned off and left them overnight.

I'm not sure if I like anyone who has contributed to this thread so far. :D:D:D

I'll go see if I can get a picture.
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You've sealed your fate in soaping :rockin:
Nice soaps! I think I've used just about anything that looked like it would hold some batter for soap molds..including iphone boxes (which are pretty dang sturdy by the way). I've hit up the $ store and Thrift/Goodwill for all kinds of supplies.
Soap is just like beer. You gotta fight like hell to keep your hands off the first few batches, but after awhile, you'll build up an arsenal and it gets much easier. Yooper is sooo right. I've got lard and salt bars well over a year old that are excellent. I let my soaps 'air out' for a few weeks, then pack away loosely in shoe boxes. Allows them to still 'dry' but also retain their scent more.
Palm oil can be a bit tricky to find. When I first started someone pointed me in the direction of Spectrum. Not sure about where you are located, but here in Colorado, just about every grocery store around carries it. Looks like this:

It's touted as a shortening, but it's palm oil and what you want. Check out the listed ingredients. Search the webs and hit up sites like Soapmakingforum to confirm if you're so inclined, but it works great!
It is usually located in same isles as baking items. I don't necessarily find it with the other oils.

Happy Holidays and Merry Soaping :fro:
 
Don't believe I've ever seen that around here, Kentucky that is, but I'll keep a look out. I think I've read the new crisco oil is soybean and palm oil. I may give that a try too.

Who am I kidding, of course I'll try it too. :D

Guess I'll be looking at all the shortening labels. :p
 
chunkwagon said:
Just fyi, Spectrum is 100% palm oil. It's not a blend.
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I couldn't google it locally, although amazon would deliver it. About 10.00 a tub which seemed a little high with shipping.
Found a place called the bulk apothecary and ordered it and a few other oils last night. Natural Essentials Inc. seems to be the parent of the apothecary.
 
@melana those look perfect. So my wife told my brother in law that I would like essential oils and he bought me some so I didn't make soap but I did make hand lotion and lip balm. I used coconut oil and shea butter in both but in different amounts and also vitamin e in both. the lotion has olive oil and lavender essential oil. the lip balm has no olive oil and peppermint essential oil. And I am more than willing to trade for soap

View attachment 1451265202234.jpg

View attachment 1451265212430.jpg
 
Those look great!

I made some lip balm yesterday, and some body butter today.

I should make a batch of salt bars, to replenish my supply since I only make about 4 bars at a time.
 
applescrap said:
Lip balm I wing ding I think it has extra beeswax so its okay
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Beeswax can be very "sticky" and not glide well.

My lip balm recipe took ages to get just right. Don't use "cups" or "teaspoons"- weigh the ingredients.

Try this one:

.25 ounce beeswax
.33 ounce shea butter
.33 ounce cocoa butter
.40 ounce sweet almond oil
a couple of capsules (poke a hole and squeeze out) Vitamin E
a few drops peppermint essential oil

Heat beeswax first, as it takes a higher temperature to melt. Then add the cocoa butter, and melt. Once it's cooling, add the shea butter, and then the almond oil. Stir in the vit E and essential oil, and the pour into containers.

It needs enough hard butter and beeswax to stay firm and solid, but not too hard so the shea butter and almond oil are softer.
 
Made Bath Bombs with Kim this weekend. My SIL watched.

I don't have a real mold yet, so I just pressed into some cookie cutters on top of wax paper. Seemed to work ok. Want to make some more soap before too long.
 
Kim and I made soap the other night. Basically Yoopers Original Recipe, but I cooked it in the crock pot to help speed up the cure time.

Kim wanted Blue soap, but when we added the color to the soap it immediately turned pink. I guess I will have to purchase some different dye for soapmaking.

All in all it turned out pretty good. I still don't have a soap mold, so I just poured into a smallish baking pan lined with parchment paper. I trimmed the rounded corners off to give it a more "standard" rectangular shape and the bars ended up slightly smaller than desired. Still not bad.

They have a slightly transparent quality, meaning they aren't a REAL solid pink. They need time to dry out. Yesterday when I cut them they were pretty soft, which was just about right for cutting. I had to press on the back of the knife a bit to get it to cut through the thick part.

I got 6 bars and more trimmings than I wanted. I should have pressed the trimmings into their own bars, but I was in a hurry to make a brewing supply run and my buddy was showing up real soon. I might have to re-batch those if they aren't soft enough to press, or find something else to do with them.
 
I save all my trimmings and scraps and rebatch into what I call my 'garden bars'. I throw in some coffee grounds or cornmeal and share em with my gardening friends. No soap waste!

I made lotion bars once. They were to greasy and draggy for me. I've seen on soapmaking forum, some suggest adding cornstarch. I've yet to try it.
 
What are the benefits of the salt bars over the traditional bars? I know I've read reference to a few of you (especially @Yooper ) making these but would these be drying for someone who is already prone to having dry skin? Would traditional bars with less salt and coconut oil be better?
 
Quadrupled said:
What are the benefits of the salt bars over the traditional bars? I know I've read reference to a few of you (especially @Yooper ) making these but would these be drying for someone who is already prone to having dry skin? Would traditional bars with less salt and coconut oil be better?
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Yes, no, and maybe. :D

Salt bars have 80%+ coconut oil- since most oils won't lather in salt water. But..........it's highly superfatted, like at 20%, so it's not really drying for most people.

The advantage is this- did you ever swim in the ocean, and then notice how soft and smooth your skin was? That's how these "salt bars" are- often called "spa bars" since the salt doesn't dissolve. It's a bit exfoliating, but not too much, so you have to use fine sea salt and not anything coarse which can cut. But it's got this rich, bubbly lather, and since it's so highly superfatted, it's not drying to my, um, "mature" skin.

Some people don't like them, but more do. You'd just have to try them to see. They take longer to cure, at least 8-12 weeks at a minimum, probably because of the high coconut oil. I'm the only one at my house (out of 2 of us) who likes them, so I make four bars at a time, so that I have a good cured one when I need them. They last a long time, since they are so high in salt.

They set up HARD and FAST, so using individual molds or a single small block mold is recommended. You can usually cut within a couple of hours of making them. If you wait, you can't cut them at all.
 
Yooper said:
Yes, no, and maybe. :D

Salt bars have 80%+ coconut oil- since most oils won't lather in salt water. But..........it's highly superfatted, like at 20%, so it's not really drying for most people.

The advantage is this- did you ever swim in the ocean, and then notice how soft and smooth your skin was? That's how these "salt bars" are- often called "spa bars" since the salt doesn't dissolve. It's a bit exfoliating, but not too much, so you have to use fine sea salt and not anything coarse which can cut. But it's got this rich, bubbly lather, and since it's so highly superfatted, it's not drying to my, um, "mature" skin.

Some people don't like them, but more do. You'd just have to try them to see. They take longer to cure, at least 8-12 weeks at a minimum, probably because of the high coconut oil. I'm the only one at my house (out of 2 of us) who likes them, so I make four bars at a time, so that I have a good cured one when I need them. They last a long time, since they are so high in salt.

They set up HARD and FAST, so using individual molds or a single small block mold is recommended. You can usually cut within a couple of hours of making them. If you wait, you can't cut them at all.
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Thank you for the thorough response! Looks like we'll try both. When you superfat the salt bars, do you superfat with olive oil?
 
Quadrupled said:
Thank you for the thorough response! Looks like we'll try both. When you superfat the salt bars, do you superfat with olive oil?
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No. It sets up so fast that I just add my superfat up front.

I did one that was 80% coconut, 10% castor oil, and 10% olive oil, and it's nice, with 50% of the weight of oils as salt.
 
Yooper said:
No. It sets up so fast that I just add my superfat up front.

I did one that was 80% coconut, 10% castor oil, and 10% olive oil, and it's nice, with 50% of the weight of oils as salt.
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Awesome, thank you! This will be my girls' and my next science excursion. My oldest is really looking forward to making soap, though I don't think she is as excited as me. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I've been dreaming about it the past few nights!
 
Made this as an experiment over the weekend.

IMG_20160104_144641_616.jpg


IMG_20160104_145044_894.jpg
 
Thanks @Yooper !

My girls and I took a swing at making soap. For the first pass we made Bastille soap and used no colorants or essential oil aromas and for quicker gratification we used the hot process. We molded into muffin pans and I expect we'll make a wood loaf or PVC mold and order some fun colors and aroma oils for the next round. The kids and I got a huge kick out of using some of the leftovers to make bubbles and wash our hands.

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