Teach Soap

HI, I'm a new CP soap maker, I hope. My sister has a goat dairy farm in SC (Hissy Fit Farms) and We decided to try the soap making business. I have been reading and learning but nothing has helped as much as your questions and answers.
I'm not sure I'll ever understand the lye calculator or make my own recipes....that involves math yuckkkk...but I guess in time, t'll all make sense. I have notices that there are many do's and don'ts depending on who you listen to such as wooden spoons vs plastic , waiting 24 hrs to clean up and using food coloring to dye the soaps.
Can you use just Plain ol' food coloring?
I've ordered all of my supplies and have several basic recipes to follow. I'm very excited to get started but more excited that I found your group! I'm a fast learner (except Math) so hopefully I will be giving advice in the future.
I'll let you know how it goes!

Hi Joseysmom! I love the name of dairy farm!
Food coloring doesn't work very well in CP, you'd be better off trying some natural colorants that you probably already have in your pantry: paprika, turmeric, cocoa powder.

Your first batches should be small (1 pound or so) and made with no additives (colors, fragrances, milk) so that you can get a true feel for the process, learn to recognice trace, etc. ALWAYS run your recipe through a lye calculator before using it to be sure it won't be lye heavy.

For safety reasons, I don't use glass at all when making soap, and I also only use silicone, plastic or stainless utensils for mixing. You don't have to wait 24 hours to clean up, but it does make it easier since anything left on your utensils will have saponified and changed into soap.

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

Welcome! I would read this thread> viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3800

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

Great to have you here Josey's mom! You know there is nothing wrong with doing uncolored soap! Many times when I make goats milk soap, I use 100% goats milk to dissolve my lye and that will give me a nice creamy pale yellow soap (unless I have a vanilla based FO). There are also alot of your potential clients that could be sensitive to coloring and would prefer this, not to mention that you would save money by not having to purchase colorants!

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

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