Teach Soap

I laughed so hard when my soap seized. Well there goes my first attempt to try "funnel soap".

So I sucked it up and took my pot to the stove to get it to gel quickly, stir crazily and goop it into my pvc pipe mold. That part went smoothly. *chuckle*

After viewing some posts here, I noticed that soap seizing can happen with spiced fragrances (my blend was Spiced Mahogany + Marakesh).

NOWWWWW i know.

Good thing about today: I got it into the pipe. Yay!

Glad you were able to save it! Yes; spice type FO's can accelerate trace or seize. Try adding 1 tsp. of lecithin PPO to your next batch to slow down trace.

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

Should I add the lecitin before adding the fragrance?

This batch I added everything as soon as my oils were mixed, didn't want to waste anytime since my desired effect was a thin trace....I guess I'll have to pick a fragrance that doesn't accelerate as quickly.

Add it to your cooled off lye water. It's water soluble.

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

Finally got the durn soap out of the pvc pipe. Was tricky at first, but a lil knife action helped. Hehe.

Fragrance is coming out rather nicely. I definitely need to work on getting air bubbles out. The love-taps don't seem to work on soap that is glopped into a mold.

Pics coming soon!

It helps if your soap is at a fairly thin trace when you pour it into a PVC mold. If you have problems getting it out, you can freeze it for a couple of hours (or overnight). When you take it out, run very warm water over the outside of the PVC. That should help get the soap out.

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

I hope I don't sound like a broken record because I feel like this keeps coming up lately.

I buy the thin flexible plastic chopping mats you buy in the kitchen section of any department store and I cut them to size so that the edges meet up inside the PVC pipe. These make wonderful reusable liners and I never have any trouble unmolding. And they are very inexpensive so you have nothing to lose.

I've heard one person say that they warp over time but I have never had that issue. Mine peel off the soap and flatten right out. I think maybe because I rarely gel my soaps any more so the molds and liners don't get any more heat than absolutely necessary. But I don't think you should have any trouble unless you put them in the oven.

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- Mickey!

I think these PVC pipes would stand oven heat (no greater than 170degrees). They are almost a 1/2 inch thick! It was a pain to cut them.

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

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- Mickey!

Got it. I've also read that swabbing mineral oil or petroleum jelly would help with getting the soaps out of the pvc pipe.

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

I lined my PVC pipes with parchment paper. I was trying to figure out how to get them out when DH came to the rescue. He got a soup can and popped them right out. Put the soup can on the floor and set the pipes on top and pushed. Soup cans are the exact same diameter as a 3" pipe.

The Swirl Muse may not have granted me with a shot at funnel soap, but I sure got some neat patterns!

This is what worked:

After the soap gelled in my pot, I took half of it and added Titanium Dioxide (via 1Tbl glycerin). Crazy stirring then took turns glopping the darker soap with the lighter soap into my mold.

Check it out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/K8 ... directlink

**tried clicking Img then inserting the URL but got no result. Just the word "Image".