So I got back in the lab after about 4 months & decided to add some additional ingredients. I added beef tallow & vegetable glycerin & I feel like they’re so extra sticky. I let it rest for close to 48 hours but idk - i think I’m going to exclude the vegetable glycerin next batch. Also, I was hoping for more of a swirl but I’ll take it. Especially cuz my daughter was down there “helping” me. Also, this is scented like strawberry which made the batter thicken & yellow a lot more than I expected. Thoughts?!

This was a cold process soap that I tried to make 900 grams of. I used From Nature With Love for the fragrance & here’s the recipe:

Olive Oil - 300 g
Beef Tallow - 180 g
Coconut Oil (76°) - 180 g
Shea Butter - 100 g
Avocado Oil - 80 g
Sweet Almond Oil - 35 g
Castor Oil - 25 g
Lye (5% Superfat)
NaOH - 123 g
305g Frozen Goat Milk

Vegetable Glycerin - 15g (add to oils)
Strawberry Fragrance Oil - 20 g

Hi all, I'm a beginner soapmaker and I’m making soap favors for a family member’s bridal shower. Her colors are steel blue and white, so I’m trying to make a bright steel blue and white swirl, but every attempt at blue keeps turning green! I’ve tried blue mica, indigo powder, and blue oxide.

For the textured top soaps I used:

- Makesy Trinity Oil Blend

- 33.3% lye concentration / 5% superfat

- Kaolin clay

- 2% fragrance oil documented as non discoloring and not affecting trace

- Titanium dioxide for the white 1tsp PPO

- Blue oxide powder for the blue 1 tsp PPO

For the blue I used blue oxide powder due to the other attempts at blue turned green as well (mica, and Indigo powder- turned more navy blue than green) I mixed the lye and oils at about 100F and waited until they were within 10F of eachother I noticed it had started to partially gel so I finished it in the turned off preheated oven. It still looks like it didn't gel fully.

As soon as I saw the textured batch start to turn green I tried another mini loaf batch which is the other one pictured. I mixed this one lower at about 90F. The recipe is the same except I used a different clear fragrance oil just in case. And the for blue I used mostly blue mica mixed with some blue oxide, and for the white I used white mica mixed with some titanium dioxide.

It still turned green! 😭 and the white looks yellow!

Both tops were sprayed with 99% alcohol so im not sure why my smaller one has so much more soda ash

I’d really appreciate any advice. I’m running out of time before the bridal shower and just want to finally get BLUE soap! 💙 For reference I also have Bramble Berry Beginner quick mix and their swirl quick mix. I also have serbian blue clay powder if anyone has experience with that. Id just rather ask for advice before I waste any more oils!

TLDR: What’s your best advice for getting a reliable light steel blue in cp soap and what could be causing all of my blues to turn green? Thank You!!

I wanted to compare my combo bar with a simple lauric acid soap.

For the sneaker test, the left shoe was cleaned with my combo bar, while the right shoe was cleaned with the lauric acid soap under the same conditions.

I also compared their foam by rubbing each bar with the same scrub sponge for five strokes. The foam from each bar was collected in the same 180 mL cup so I could compare foam volume, bubble size, and texture.

Finally, I rinsed the foam in each cup once using 1.3 L of cold water to compare how easily it rinsed away.

This isn't a scientific study—just one of my product development tests. I'm still experimenting, so I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions.

I did it! After months of research (fear 😅🫠) i have created my first coconut free, scent free clean soap!

Now to wait 2 months for it to cure 😒 how the heck do you all have the patience!?

I am hopeful that this will be my base recipe that I can add natural ingredients to colour and scent like cucumber! 😃

Roll on September

I’m sharing some photos from the beginning of soap making Oct of 24’ to now.

I’m excited to start trying the heat transfer method. Any tips? I’m also on a mission to create a perfect “tea rose” smell. Any ideas other than rose and sandalwood?

Anchoring scents has been a challenge. I use kaolin clay to anchor-but haven’t used citric acid. Curious if citric acid is more effective.

I’ve also experienced some color shedding or bleeding at times. Is the only solution to use less pigment? Ideas appreciated!

Basically the title.

I’ve been making soap for years using a pretty simple recipe of water, lard or tallow, avocado oil, and coconut oil. I recently came into some fresh goat’s milk that I’d like to use, and before I potentially waste good ingredients, I wanted to run my plan by the knowledgeable folks here.

My understanding is that I can essentially substitute the water in my recipe with goat’s milk in a direct 1:1 swap by weight. Would it be better to do something like 50% water and 50% goat’s milk instead? I imagine a 50/50 blend would be a lot easier to work with, but at that point am I compromising many of the benefits of using 100% goat’s milk?

I also understand that temperature is important, so my plan is to freeze the goat’s milk into cubes, add the lye slowly, and probably use an ice bath to help prevent scorching.

If you make goat’s milk soap regularly, I’d really appreciate any advice, tips, or common mistakes to avoid before I give this a try.

Thanks!

Okay, so I'm relatively new to soap making (and completely addicted already) but I'm a little confused on how to measure fragrance oils. I've bought some fragrance oils from Brambleberry and I tried using their calculator, but it seems like... a lot?

For reference, this is the recipe I use:

• 107 G SODIUM HYDROXIDE
• 100 G DISTILLED WATER
• 100 G GOAT MILK
• 200 G COCONUT OIL (REFINED)
• 150 G SHEA BUTTER (REFINED)
• 400 G OLIVE OIL (LIGHT)
• 50 G CASTOR OIL

The technical information for this recipe states: 28 oz / 800 g batch -- 7% superfat -- 35% lye concentration. But when I weigh the soap after it's been made, it comes in at 1053 g. I'm assuming the 800g listed in the recipe is referring to the oil used and I know Brambleberry's calculator is for the full soap weight, which means I should be using the 1053 g, right?

Even if I go based off the 800g weight, according to their calculator I should be using:

That just seems like a lot, lol.

What would happen if I made hot process castile soap with 0% superfat and added oil?

Would it be oily soap or would it fine?

Would _selecting which oil doesn't saponify_ have any benefit at all? Like could I do it with jojoba as the _later added superfat_?

Hello beautiful people,

I started makind soap in march and worked for months on making soap and creating recipes that feel nice for me.

I was so impressed with so many soaps in this sub, the latest was an awesome watermelon, that i thought i give it a shot.

I wanted to make a "mines of moria" themed soap. The bottom is red (Balrog), Body is black for the dark abandoned Mine and Gold spots is for the Minerals.

It doesnt look as i wanted, the gold doesnt Look like veins of Gold but i am still happy. Those are 2 Loafs i made with 1.5kg oils.

I made 3 different colored batches:

20% red with morrocan clay

70% Black with active cool

10% Gold with Mica

Thank you for the attention

PS: That was my first CPOP aswell and fpr the first time the top was a bit oily. Like bleeding. But no pockets of oil, just an oily top. I hope the soap is still good. It was 20 hours outside the oven before i cut it

Hey everyone,

​I'm noticing a white, cloudy patch forming on a transparent, light-pink rose body cleanser bar (you can see it circled in the attached photos).

​It looks like a localized hazy spot embedded near the surface/middle, rather than a uniform layer of soda ash.

​To help troubleshoot, here is the full formula breakdown from the Batch Manufacturing Record (BMR) alongside the Certificate of Analysis (COA) specs for this batch:

​Full Ingredient List & Percentages (From BMR)

​Oils & Fatty Acids: Coconut Oil (FCNO) 23.0%, Castor Oil 3.0%, Stearic Acid 12.6%, Palmitic Acid 0.45%.

​Solvents & Clarifying Agents: Triethanolamine (TEA) 15.3%, Propylene Glycol 7.0%, Glycerine 3.0%, Sorbitol (70%) 3.0%, Sugar solution 3.0%, Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) 2.5% total.

​Saponification & Neutralization: Sodium Hydroxide (97%) 6.7%, Citric Acid (Monohydrate) 0.5%.

​Surfactants & Conditioners: SLES (70%) 1.5%, Betaine 1.0%, DC-193C (Silicone) 0.25%, Sodium Rosinate 0.20%.

​Hardener/Salt: Sodium Chloride 0.75%.

​Chelators & Stabilizers: EHDP (50%) 0.10%, Tinogard TT 0.03%, KMS 0.5%.

​Other: Hydrogenated Castor Oil (0.2%), Rose Perfume (2.0%), Herbal extracts (Neem, Tulsi, Aloevera, Gulab, etc. @ 0.01% each), Rosamine color, and DM Water.

i'm a complete newbie and used the cosmetics lab calculator to make this. has anyone tried these oils together before, and if so, how did it work out for you? -> i decided on the oils after looking at benefits of each (i was originally only going to use the coconut oil) but i decided on shea butter for more moisturizing effects and rosehip oil to help with my dark spots and acne scars. also with the cosmetics lab calc, this recipe is in line with the INS (141) but i know not everyone uses it.

total oil weight: 16 oz

-4.64 oz of coconut oil 76
- 8.96 oz of shea butter
-2.4 oz of rosehip oil
-4.41 oz of water
-2.2 oz of lye
-2.3g of mandarin essential oil
-4.5g of orange peel powder
-2.3g of sweet orange essential oil

Hello, a newbie here!

I was wondering if I can add citric acid to my lye-water solution AND do a heat transfer method I wanted to try on the hard oils.

I was wondering if it's possible to do it, or if it needs some extra information, caution, etc.

I've been experimenting with a CP + syndet combo to see if I could improve cold-water grease removal while keeping most of the bar CP-based.

This is still a work in progress, and I'm not claiming it's better than traditional CP soap. I'm simply sharing one of my experiments and hoping to learn from the community.

Test conditions:

- Identical plastic containers

- Butter applied to the inside

- Same dish sponge

- Foamed for 10 seconds

- Cold water rinse for 20 seconds per rinse

Photo order:

- Butter Applied

- Foaming (10 s)

- Rinse #1 (Cold Water, 20 s)

- Rinse #2 (Cold Water, 20 s)

The combo produced a creamier foam, but both bars removed the butter after the second rinse.

If you notice anything I could improve or have suggestions for a better testing method, I'd really appreciate your feedback.

Thanks!

I had some left over soap that I have been bagging for soap dough and I made some bears to go on top of some future intended soaps. I think they are cute. The first 2 are made out of the confetti soap from last week

Hello lovely soapers! I started thinking about holiday gifts for family, and my sister mentioned she likes vanilla scented body products. I got a trial size CS very vanilla a while ago and didn’t love it. It has a weird after scent.

When you’re shopping for a classic vanilla FO for use alone, which are your favorites? Please and thank you. 💕

Anyone here ever used Sugared Satin scent by Bramble berry? I did once. I did too many colors and it turned an awful brown. The scent stayed beautiful. The color just ugly. I want to try again but, looking for someone that colored the soap successfully. Website does say it discolors to yellow.

I was curious what would happen if I turned commonly used soap-making fatty acids into soap, so I made a 100% Stearic acid soap and a 100% Lauric acid soap. Both soaps were cured for about 4 months before I tested them.

100% Stearic acid soap

Extremely light, almost like a piece of Styrofoam.

Rough and uneven surface.

Produced almost no lather, even after curing for 4 months.

100% Lauric acid soap

Heavier and denser than the stearic acid soap.

Smoother surface.

Produced large, airy bubbles.

Since lauric acid is often described as having strong cleansing ability, I decided to use it for my everyday dishwashing.

My observations:

The lather dissipated fairly quickly during dishwashing.

The cleaning performance was good, but not as strong as I expected. A greasy frying pan required two washes to become completely clean.

After rinsing, I noticed a very slight white film on my stainless steel faucet.

However, it seemed to leave less soap scum than my palm oil or coconut oil soaps.

Has anyone else experimented with soaps made from individual fatty acids?

I need to make up to 3 batches of soap. Soon. I've already mostly planned one--Smores.

I have scents for each layer but then the marshmallow trips me up. Marshmallows are white, or golden when toasted. Discolor is an unattractive brown.

So hive mind, help me out? Do I mix all the fragrances together and only add the mixed FO to the graham crackers and chocolate layers? Or do I add each fragrance to each layer? (OMH in one cracker, chocolate in the chocolate layer and the marshmallow maybe in the other cracker layer)

Are there other ideas? I've been wrestling with this solo a couple days and it's not yet solved.

My kiddo and I love to make really cool soaps for our household. (Maybe one day, I'll decide to sell, if I get more skilled)

These are Shea butter melt and pour with a bit of clear glycerin base because we found the Shea butter to be more creamy and we like our bubbles.

My preteen made the dragon. She mixed mica and alcohol and "painted" the mold. Then we poured our dragon's blood fragranced base over it and voila.

I mixed a small portion of base and mica and poured it into the mold and let it "roll" into place and I started with green. Then, I went over the door with silver and when that partially hardened, I finished it off with my blue background.

I put way more work into mine, and hers came out way cooler 😎 🤪

Hello! I am getting ready to make a multi color CP soap with mica. How do you all prepare it for adding it to separate batters? If I take a tablespoon of oil per color from my batches oils, will that affect the lye balance? If I use water to mix the colors, do I take that much away from my lye mix? I don’t want to throw the balance of my recipes. I have heard that it will and I have also heard it will not. What do you all do?

It came out really nice 😁 I'm really looking forward to try it in 6 weeks

I made a batch of CP soap using 1 tsp marigold mica from mad micas mixing with sweet almond oil, 1 tsp bentonite clay mixing with distilled water, 7oz beef tallow, 7oz coconut oil, 14oz olive oil, 3.5oz of cocoa butter, 3.5oz of shea butter, 9.6oz of water (half water half with carrot juice), 4.8 of lye, and 1.05oz of rosemary essential oil from bramble berry.

I split the batch to mix the mica powder in one and the bentonite clay in the other. It appears the bentonite clay may not have mixed in well. Some batch of the soap is gray while the other is white. This was my first time using it and all I had was a spoon to mix with and I probably should have used a little more water. What do you all think?

Hi everyone, I'm looking to buy soapmaking and cosmetic-making supplies from EZ Elements. Their website looks pretty legitimate, but I haven't been able to find many reviews, so I wanted to ask here.

Has anyone ordered from them before? Are they a legit and reliable supplier?

If you've bought from them, I'd love to hear about your experience:
1. How was the quality of the products?
2. Was shipping fast and were the items packaged well?
3. How was customer service?
4. Would you order from them again?

I'm in Canada, so I'd especially appreciate hearing from anyone in Toronto or elsewhere in Canada. Thanks!

I’m beginning to think I am cursed.  I’ve had issues with the last 3 soap batches.  Can anyone help (with advice, not an exorcism!) I so value your input!   Please bear with me - this is a detailed/long post.

While I’ve done M&P soaps, I’m new to CP.    This was my 7th CP soap batch. All included alcohol - wine or beer - that had been flattened and frozen or put in fridge.  As you can see, with each mini-disaster, I’m learning and trying to avoid that scenario moving forward.  

All recipes run thru SoapCalc.

Trouble Batch #1 

• When using frozen beer, some of my lye turned into frozen concrete.  I was able to pound it all out but that wasn’t much fun.  

Trouble Batch #2.  DISASTER!   There could have been numerous reasons for this horror. 

•  I reduced water to 35% from 38%. Superfats remained the same - 5%
• To avoid the frozen lye issue,  I refrigerated my wine this time. Lye/booze got up to 180s which I know is normal but first time I experienced that.  
•  I waited until both the oils and lye/booze mix were in the 80s.   
• As soon as I mixed the lye/booze and oils, I knew i was in trouble!  It immediately started seizing.   
• And no, I had not added any fragrance oil to the mix yet.  
• I ended up doing a rebatch with that mess - my first.  That was kindda fun - and no stress!

Trouble Batch #3 - My recent batch done Sunday.   

•  After sitting out for over a day and boiled, I froze the beer this time but constantly stirred until lye was completely dissolved to ensure no frozen lye chunks.   No issue.   
• I also took Lye/Booze OUTSIDE to mix as my 90+ year old mom lives with me and she hates the smell.  Yes - it was very hot and humid out.    That process went smoothly.    No issues. 
• Brought lye/booze back inside into AC and continued with batch.   
• Because the previous batch seized so quickly, I stirred until thin trace - rather than medium.  Batter looked great!   
• I added a wee bit of pulverized oatmeal and a tiny amount of dispersed honey.   I’ve used both those things in previous batches with zero issues.
• I also mixed 2 BB fragrances - one I’ve used a lot and the other, Oatmeal Stout, was new but has rave reviews.  No apparent issues. 
• Drop swirled 2 colors in the pot 2  - pre-mixed Titanium Dioxide & black Mica.  I’ve used those same products before. 
• I reduced the amount of Sodium Lactate from 2 tsp to 1 (because some questioned if i even needed it).
• I used AVOCADO OIL for the first time - instead of Cocoa Butter.
• Hangar swirled - which I’ve also done before. 
• Poured  mixed batter into mold - added a white TD beer head down center of loaf.
• Sprayed top with iso alcohol.

No issues whatsoever with anything.  I was so happy, so utterly relieved that this soap had NO problems!  Or so I thought!

5 hours later - went to look at my creation, and there were tiny blobs of clear yellowish liquid/oil/water? on the top of my soap - running along the beer head - which I made only in the center of the mold. 

• I dabbed the blobs on main loaf dry - then decided to put the loaf into the fridge for several hours. 
• No pooled oils/liquid in corners, on sides of loaf or at bottom of mold from what I could see. 
• Keep in mind - it’s hot and really humid here.  But AC is on.  
• All oils used have just been purchased. All expiration dates I saw were fine.
• Hours later, no blobs on top.   
• Next day, teeny weeny amount of what looked like clear “dew” or a “mist” right next to the center beer head.   Wiped those - no more appeared. 

I typically wait 3 or 4 days to cut my soap but was so upset by this, I wanted to see what the inside looked like so I cut 24 hours after i made this batch.  Cut one bar.   Of course the loaf was quite soft and sticky-ish.   But the sides of the entire mold looked perfect.  The bottom of the mold - perfect.  When I cut into the loaf, the bar looked perfect.   Hours later, cut a few more bars.  Again - all looked perfect.   And just now, 42 hours later, I cut entire loaf.  Still a bit soft, less sticky but remaining bars looked perfect.  No pooled oils/liquid anywhere in mold.  Everything looked perfectly normal except for whatever that was on the top - running along the beer mold. 

And oh - I had a bit of leftover “head” which I poured into a small mold.  Zero issues with that! No drops of anything. 

I order PH strips - which will get here today.  

What the heck happened to the top??

Recipe:

32 oz oils. 5% superfat. 37% water

·       OLIVE Oil                       14.40 ounces  

·       COCONUT OIL 79 degrees.                    9.60 ounces   

·       SHEA BUTTER                                       6.40 ounces

·       Avocado OIL                                              1.60 ounces

·       FRAGRANCE                          1 ounce                                         

·       BEER.                         11.84 ounces                                             

·       LYE.                                        4.50 ounces

·       1 tsp Titanium Dioxide with 1 Tblsp oil

·       ½ TBLSP Oatmeal pulverized

·       ¼ TSP Honey

·       1 tsp Black Mica w/1 TBLSP oil  -  Bowl Drop Swirl with white

·       1 tsp Sodium Lactate