Soapmaking

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Perfect, this all makes sense and looks like a great start point! I'll be making soap soon

It's fun, and once you use the good stuff, you won't want to use the grocery store soap ever again.

In addition to the soapmaking forum, there are several good youtube videos by Soap Queen and a couple of others.

It's hard to take good pictures of some of the steps, because it can happen so fast. One minute you're stirring, and the next minute you've got to pour the soap right away.

Make sure you have protective gear- eye protection especially, but long sleeves and rubber/silicone gloves. Lye burns can be very serious and safety is really important here. I say that, and I brew beer in shorts and bare feet most of the time so you know I mean it. I have only spilled soap batter once, but I sure was glad I had on gloves and eye protection. The lye water is very caustic and accidents happen, so that's a big deal. Otherwise, soaping is easy and the supplies are pretty easy to get.

Once you make a regular bar of soap, you can get "fancy" if you choose. I don't use fragrance oils or things as I'm trying to get away from all that stuff so I make my own, but many people love fragrance oils and they are cheaper than essential oils. I have a friend who does a blue/green colored soap with "ocean breeze" scent or something like that and she sells it by the truckload I swear. So once you get the basics down, you can do colored swirls and different decorative things, and pick your own fragrance if you want.

And from there is where I started making body butters, bath bombs, etc- because I had the ingredients on hand from soapmaking and winemaking.

All of this stuff makes great Christmas presents- and really now is the time to start making soap for Christmas.
 
The silicone bread forms work awesome. Just peel them back and the soap pops out..I think I got a 2 pack on Amazon pretty cheap
 
Built a wooden mold a while back and finally took a little time to try it out. It's roughly half of Passedpawn's recipe in volume.

I had a bit of trouble figuring out how much lye and water to add. Soapcalc didn't seem to show it obviously, so I used another online too, but my math says it's different ratio than Passedpawn's amounts.

In any case, the recipe made just enough to fill the mold just slightly mounded up. I did the hot process and added fragrance after the 1 hour cook. The fragrance was Almond Honey (I think. There were no labels on any of the bottles, and that's our best guess based on a google search of the selections by the supposed company and by the smell of it. But the smell was so strong I'm not sure if we're right!

I'll try to upload pictures when I cut it into bars.
 
Rule of thumb for properly sizing molds is area times 0.40 = the amount in ounces of oil that your mold will hold.

That's what I used. It was a good estimate.

Just need to read up some more on the superfatting and calculating the water and lye necessary. I am also not sure how much fragrance to use. The Honey Almond scent was very strong in the house. The bars are very strong too, but they are young. I cut and wrapped them yesterday. Forgot to take pics.

(imagine yellow bars of soap...)
 
Oops. Oh well, it will be smelly for a long time, I guess! ;)
Hot process can "gas off" the fragrance a lot more than cold ... you may be fine. It all depends on the vapor point of the fragrance oil. I use one that needs 6% to keep the fragrance at a decent level.
 
Hot process can "gas off" the fragrance a lot more than cold ... you may be fine. It all depends on the vapor point of the fragrance oil. I use one that needs 6% to keep the fragrance at a decent level.

Good to know. I'll have to double check the amount the next batch I make, which should be coming up pretty soon. I have a decent mold that makes about 8-9 bars. I want to make a cutting form to get nice, even cuts. The mold I made isn't great for cutting bars from.
 
Am I looking at the right fragrance oils?
I'm looking at Brambleberry and wholesale supply and it looks like everything is between $5 to $7 for a 2 OZ bottle BEFORE shipping. Seems expensive... I thought they were a lot cheaper than essential oils. At that price its pushing double the cost of the soap just for scent....is that right?
 
Essential Oils: for those OCD enough, just look around for essential oil distilling equipment. It's mighty awesome. Pricey. You'll drop $300 min to get into it one of these chemistry sets.

But I'm ready to do it. I've got magnolia and gardenia trees. For anyone with these, you know you want that short-lived fragrance around all the time. It's wonderful. I've been lusting over these sets for a while.
 
Hot process can "gas off" the fragrance a lot more than cold ... you may be fine. It all depends on the vapor point of the fragrance oil. I use one that needs 6% to keep the fragrance at a decent level.

This.
I'll add that citrus type scents tend to fade quickly also.

@JOHNNYROTTEN, yeah they get kinda pricey. You'll get a better deal buying at least the 8oz size, and if you know you like the scent, or would like to have "more on hand" I'd even go up to 16. My pockets are shallow most times lol. I've found the 16's allow my collection to build up a bit better, but I can't, or to cheap rather, to buy than one MAYBE 2 at a time.
I do think you pay a premium price for Brambleberry's packaging...all the way around. That said, they tend to have really great products imo.

I've also ordered and been very happy with what I've received from

https://www.naturesgardencandles.com/fragrance-oils

They put on some pretty decent sales from time to time.
 
Am I looking at the right fragrance oils?
I'm looking at Brambleberry and wholesale supply and it looks like everything is between $5 to $7 for a 2 OZ bottle BEFORE shipping. Seems expensive... I thought they were a lot cheaper than essential oils. At that price its pushing double the cost of the soap just for scent....is that right?
Check out Soapalooza: http://soapalooza.com/ ... the prices are fair and the shipping is not out of control. They have 1oz vials which add up quick but bigger quantities are less expensive.
 
Essential Oils: for those OCD enough, just look around for essential oil distilling equipment. It's mighty awesome. Pricey. You'll drop $300 min to get into it one of these chemistry sets.

But I'm ready to do it. I've got magnolia and gardenia trees. For anyone with these, you know you want that short-lived fragrance around all the time. It's wonderful. I've been lusting over these sets for a while.

I hear there are ways to make equipment to do this without breaking the bank. it's a very similar set up to distilling water or spirits. If I had plenty of material around here I'd consider it.

In other news, I found a box of some soap I made a long time back. I'm not sure exactly which scent it was supposed to be, but it ended up smelling exactly like Playdough to me. :ban:
 
I want to make a cutting form to get nice, even cuts. The mold I made isn't great for cutting bars from.

Miter box and wavy cutter...
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I hear there are ways to make equipment to do this without breaking the bank. it's a very similar set up to distilling water or spirits. If I had plenty of material around here I'd consider it.

In other news, I found a box of some soap I made a long time back. I'm not sure exactly which scent it was supposed to be, but it ended up smelling exactly like Playdough to me. :ban:

I like the Breaking Bad setup tho. Way too cool. I'll post links in a few.
 
This.
I'll add that citrus type scents tend to fade quickly also.

@JOHNNYROTTEN, yeah they get kinda pricey. You'll get a better deal buying at least the 8oz size, and if you know you like the scent, or would like to have "more on hand" I'd even go up to 16. My pockets are shallow most times lol. I've found the 16's allow my collection to build up a bit better, but I can't, or to cheap rather, to buy than one MAYBE 2 at a time.
I do think you pay a premium price for Brambleberry's packaging...all the way around. That said, they tend to have really great products imo.

I've also ordered and been very happy with what I've received from

https://www.naturesgardencandles.com/fragrance-oils

They put on some pretty decent sales from time to time.
Thanks for the link. In our cart we have (all 8 oz)

Oatmeal milk and honey
Black cherry bomb
vanilla bean
Coffee
White chocolate
apple orchard

Da bomb dye red yellow blue...I let my wife choose and she went a little nuts :p

Before I place the order I want to add something to give the soap a marbled look. I thought I'm supposed to used clay??? An help with what to order?

Anything else I should get to give the soap a " cool" look while I'm ordering...I've already broke the bank so why not :D

There is endless stuff in the "additive" section...its a little overwhelming
 
I hear there are ways to make equipment to do this without breaking the bank. it's a very similar set up to distilling water or spirits. If I had plenty of material around here I'd consider it.

In other news, I found a box of some soap I made a long time back. I'm not sure exactly which scent it was supposed to be, but it ended up smelling exactly like Playdough to me. :ban:

Ooooo, I think you're onto something here - if Moms could get kids to wash up/shower with your soap that smells like Playdough, you would be a millionaire!
 
Buy micas not soap pigments.
Thanks for the advise, I'll take out the apple orchard and get micas....anything else on the list I should revise before I order? Any sub for the apple orchard?
Your the soap guru and what you tell me to do...I'm doin:D

Edit:
Should I get involved with clays and additives or work my way up to that level?
If yes to the clays is there a starting point or is every bar different kind of thing...I was trying to get marble looking soap
 
It's really up to you how complicated you want to get.

That's a perfect point!

And each soapmaker is different. Some people who are "simple" like me- the reason I started making my own is to avoid all the crap in commercial soaps. So for me personally, I don't use colors (except sometimes coccoa for color) or fragrance oils at all. But if I was selling it, or trying to "convert" a bath and body works type of person, I might try something fancier.

I really like my plain soap bars. They are rich and nourishing to my skin, relatively cheap (since I render my own tallow) and that's why I make my own. I do use some essential oils, but not many. So even those do not have a strong scent.

Others may prefer color or fragrances.
 
That's a perfect point!

And each soapmaker is different. Some people who are "simple" like me- the reason I started making my own is to avoid all the crap in commercial soaps. So for me personally, I don't use colors (except sometimes coccoa for color) or fragrance oils at all. But if I was selling it, or trying to "convert" a bath and body works type of person, I might try something fancier.

I really like my plain soap bars. They are rich and nourishing to my skin, relatively cheap (since I render my own tallow) and that's why I make my own. I do use some essential oils, but not many. So even those do not have a strong scent.

Others may prefer color or fragrances.
I like playin around with the colors and would like to get into fancy stuff. Not to sell just to make it more interesting while I'm making it. Putting an artist spin on kind of thing. I've made 5 batches so far at its gettiing boring doing the same thing over and over....And my wife likes pickin up the soap and smelling them. So between the two of use not going have much plain soap :D
 
I like playin around with the colors and would like to get into fancy stuff. Not to sell just to make it more interesting while I'm making it. Putting an artist spin on kind of thing. I've made 5 batches so far at its gettiing boring doing the same thing over and over....And my wife likes pickin up the soap and smelling them. So between the two of use not going have much plain soap :D

That's how it starts....
 
Thank you!!!! I do try.... I still blame Yoop for starting this. :)

The stamp works just like a rubber stamp and you tap it into the soap with a mallet.
 
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