Teach Soap

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JULIE

The Lord is my Shepard

I think your soaps look fantastic, Helen! Welcome aboard the soaping addiction train.

Congrats on your first batches, Helen58! Great job!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Thank you so much for your lovely replies ljm1180 and robertw98144.

It's so nice to be able to get other soaper's opinions on my own creations. I was so addicted to soap making videos and it took me forever to work up the courage to try cold process as I've been doing melt and pour for the better part of a year now. I'm really glad I took the big step and moved up to cold process. So much can go wrong but then again there is so much that can go right with these cold process batches that I think it's worth even making the mistakes. As long as I'm learning from the mistakes I figure I'm entitled to make as many as I want

Have a great soaping week everyone. I'm off to check my latest batch, although I don't hold out too much hope for it. I had a problem with the top (a TD white) when the at the last minute the top kind of accelerated and was a bit difficult to put in the mold. Oh well, this one might end up being for my use only... I always seem to have a problem when I put Titanium Dioxide in something. It seems to either create a bit of crackling in the finished product or accelerates trace way too much. Has anyone tried using just a white mica or something similar to lighten the soap? It doesn't matter what I pre mix the TD with, whether it's oil, water or a small part of the saponified batch itself..I always have problems. Does anyone know of another product that would give you the same effect (whitening) but isn't as prone to being as difficult as TD?

Thank you all for your help and kind comments and I'm happy to be a part of this soaping community.

I've always put my TD in my oils and stick blended it before ever adding my lye water. Don't know if this is the right way to do it or not, but I've now made about 6000 bars of soap and have gone through alot of TD and it seems to work for me.

I don't know about using ph strips on soap. Do you use them on dry soap? If you wet the soap, are you getting the ph of the soap or are you getting the ph of the water used to wet the soap? If you're using the ph strips to test for lye, I would think it would be better just to do a zap test. Wet your finger, rub it on the soap and touch it to your tongue -- if it tastes soapy, that's good. If it "zaps", your soap is lye heavy. Neither method will determine if you used too much fragrance, which can irritate your tongue. For that, you use a fragrance calculator.

So fill me in on the ph strips . . . I'd like to know their purpose

Congratulations on beginning your CP journey -- your wallet might never forgive you, but it is worth it!
Jill

TD can accelerate trace. The crackles from TD happen when you gel your soap. If you don't gel, they shouldn't happen.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Oatmeal Milk and Honey all veggie palm free with coconut milk

by , on Flickr

Ahutchins9 . . . your soap looks wonderful! I really like how it patterned! Wow!

Jill

Love your oatmeal soap!! Did you use something for the brown line? Maybe cocoa powder? That looks real nice!
-Sherri

Helen58, congrats on your first batches. They came out great!

ahutchins9, your OM & H soap came out really nice. I like the layered look and the colors.

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Linda

I learn so much when I can't leave well enough alone!

The last few days have been busy, I have been trying to master a tiger stripe, but I ended up with some pretty soaps as well as a nice stripe. Here goes, HOPE these pics are small enough
[/URL]Cool Water TypeSex on the beachSandalwood

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

I'm doing , and I'm so excited that this turned out. This week we did an . I wanted to push myself, so I did a slightly more complicated version. I did the elemental swirl twice - once for each half of a loaf mold separated by a cardboard divider.

I designed this soap to be named Four Elements. Red for Fire, blue for Water, yellow for Air and green for Earth.

Setting up for the pours:


Cut bars: