soap making

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WLLady
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soap making

Post by WLLady » Mon Dec 14, 2015 12:49 pm

well, my first ever batch of soap that i figured could not possibly have worked actually did. it cured for 6 weeks, and i started using it....and it makes soap bubbles (better in hot water than cold), but was harsh (hand moisturizer needed LOL). so out of interest i read the pH on the soap and it was about 8...which as i understand from good old google search isn't bad at all! so my question is....how to make a less drying soap??....obviously additives....but which ones?

so i am going to try again LOL. this time i have managed to get some coconut oil from costco, and have lots of left over cooking oil from various deep frying endeavours, and have some lard saved up. apparently coconut oil helps keep moisture so the soap isn't so drying? (or so one such soap making site that google put at the top of my "how to make soap" search said)

i also have some essential oils (thanks to a friend selling sentsy....lol) for making things smell, well, less like nothing and more like something LOL.

and bayvistafarm is supposed to come and visit and help me out sometime in doing this. i'm thinking maybe i should try a test batch and see what happens.

any pointers? oh, this is cold process soap....i'm not cooking anything, just melting stuff and warming it up and mixing it all together....and using lye-NaOH, not KOH.
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Brebis
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Re: soap making

Post by Brebis » Mon Dec 14, 2015 7:42 pm

I've only made soap a few times several years ago when I was trying to use up some sheep milk. It made a very nice soap but didn't use up enough of the stockpile of milk we had in our freezer at the time!
So, if you can find some sheep milk it does make a very nice mild and moist soap. It has 6-8% fat in it so better than other milk based soaps.
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Former dairy shepherd and owner of a menagerie of chickens and Pencilled Turkeys, now owned by three cats and a border collie x Australian shepherd pup.

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WLLady
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Re: soap making

Post by WLLady » Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:18 pm

Sheeps milk....i would never have thought of trying that!!

I just made a batch with coconut oil and corn oil and a bit of lard. Some food colouring for fun. This one traced a lot faster and better than the last....and i added some rose lavender essential oil...but it didnt smell much after. Its a nice colour though!!
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:giraffe: Pet quality wheaten/blue wheaten ameraucanas, welsummers, barred rocks, light brown leghorns; Projects on the go: rhodebars, welbars

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WLLady
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Re: soap making

Post by WLLady » Tue Dec 15, 2015 8:32 am

ha ha! i made another batch last night...and stumbled on something interesting. i used just plain old food colouring to colour it.....i wanted a nice lavender. well, i added the red and blue and got PINK! that was when it was first mixed. this morning-it's still warm, but the "cooking" is almost done-wrapped well in towels it was still nice and warm, it's BLUE! a very deep purply blue. so i guess my blue food colouring is pH dependent. good to know! LOL. it wasn't set yet though, so it's still wrapped to do its thing over the day and we'll see what it looks like tonight. i have to get the photos onto my computer first, before putting them up....don't have time right now, but i'll add them later.
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:giraffe: Pet quality wheaten/blue wheaten ameraucanas, welsummers, barred rocks, light brown leghorns; Projects on the go: rhodebars, welbars

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WLLady
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Re: soap making

Post by WLLady » Fri Dec 18, 2015 9:35 pm

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This is it directly after melting, mixing and trace....this is with red and blue food colouring in the amounts that should have made a nice purple colour...hm....methinks the blue may be affected by the pH of the lye....hm.
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This is the colour it was the following morning! cooled down, but not ready to unmould yet....it was still pretty soft, and firmly completely stuck to the bottom of the container! i love the colour, it's a little dark, but maybe next time if i don't keep adding food colouring because it's staying red i should be okay!
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After a half hour of fussing and getting it out of the container and slicing. nice even colour throughout, although it's way way darker than i thought it would be colourwise! LOL. live and learn!
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:giraffe: Pet quality wheaten/blue wheaten ameraucanas, welsummers, barred rocks, light brown leghorns; Projects on the go: rhodebars, welbars

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thegawd
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Re: soap making

Post by thegawd » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:05 pm

That is so cool Kathy! how much do you figure it costs to make all those? with 16 hands in the house we go through soap like crazy. we already make our own laundry soap, its way better and lasts way longer than store bought, plus for the price of 1 box in the store we can make like 4 times the amount.
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WLLady
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Re: soap making

Post by WLLady » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:33 am

Probably less than 4$. i bought lye from home hardware (drain opener, pure lye) for 7$ and only used about 1/10th of the container, and the oil is leftover oil from our deep fryer - i only have 60 liters of that...or more...so that was free, along with the little bit of bacon grease that i also cleaned and used..i would have bought it anyways, so i count that as free...i just clean it by heating it up and mixing with water, and all the nasties go to the water, leaves me clean oil. The coconut oil in it cost about 23$, but i only used about 1/50th of the container. the essential oils are expensive, food colouring is a couple bucks at bulk barn (and i used about 20 drops or so, still lots left). i got essential oils from a friend that does this scentsy thing, and i'm not sold on using them honestly.- 13$ for a bottle (i used 10 drops in this...bottle is still new basically)...so all those bars, for probably less than 3$. of course, i'm using recycled cooking oil. if you bought new i could bet you could spend as much as you want LOL
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:giraffe: Pet quality wheaten/blue wheaten ameraucanas, welsummers, barred rocks, light brown leghorns; Projects on the go: rhodebars, welbars

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WLLady
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Re: soap making

Post by WLLady » Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:12 am

Made up some more soap on the weekend....just playing with my new molds that i got for my birthday. Tried some different essential oils and some different colours, but used the same recipe that bayvistafarm and i used over christmas for the lavender soap that is awesome....
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I really really like the sheep mold LOL. i had made a pink sheep earlier, and this one was a little more red, so now it looks like it has pink ends on a red sheep. oops. guess i need to scrub the mold better. and the square ones that look greyish are actually light green, and going greener as they dry up a bit. i think i want to get some actual "soap dye" as opposed to using food colouring. i don't think the water based food colouring is getting through all the oil very well. the bars with the red specks are on purpose. i didn't completely stir the colouring in just to see what would happen. the red and white ones are lavender and chamomile, the green ones are peppermint and the darker reddish with lavender only.

i have another sheep mold (a slightly different one) on order, that i can't wait for it to arrive!
anyways, it was fun....and now i really should USE some of this soap....i still have about 40 liters (or more) of used cooking oil from the deep fryer LOL.
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:giraffe: Pet quality wheaten/blue wheaten ameraucanas, welsummers, barred rocks, light brown leghorns; Projects on the go: rhodebars, welbars

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Re: soap making

Post by SandyM » Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:48 am

Those should attend the picnic as well!!

I love the flower ones !! Well done. Most people struggle with lye for a long time before they get it sorted. You're a natural
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kenya
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Re: soap making

Post by kenya » Wed Jan 27, 2016 12:34 pm

Love the sheep one too!
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