Teach Soap

I purchased a "handmade" soap over the weekend and love it. I am curious about some of the ingrediants though. It has the normal Coconut, Palm, Safflower Oils, Goats Milk, Purified Water and Sodium Hydroxide. Then it also has Glycerin, Sorbitol, Sorbitan oleate,and Soy Bean Protein. The later ingrediants puzzle me. i know there are people in this group who can shed light on this for me. Is it truly a handmade soap as the boutique claims??

Rhonda

It's MP. Many soapers refer to MP & CP as handmade. I prefer to call MP "handcrafted", but that's just me.

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Genny

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

Yes cp/hp/cpop soaps, are all considered handmade. You put the lye into the fats and make the soap. With m&p, some company makes it for you, and you melt it and pour it into the mold. You may add some things to the mix (color, scent, up to 5% additives), but the base is premade for you. Kind of like heating a tv dinner. You can add some spices, but the dinner was made by the company.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

If you wanted to use the cooking analogy, I'd consider CP and HP to be "made from scratch", and MP made from a mix.



Anita

Thanks for the answers. I have only done CP so I wondered why they would add glycerine. So this answers that question.

Rhonda

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

Now you have me goin' "heat it up, eat it up, heat it up, eat it up!" You did it! I will be doing that all night long til I remember who said that. And in the end, it may have just been my Gramps! I actually got why you liked the mix comparison, and it works, but to MY tv dinners, I add, add, add! Maybe you just buy better tv dinners than me?

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

Pretty much, I just make my own tv dinners . . . for example, I made a huge lasagna and after it was done, I portioned it out and froze the portions. I make a couple dozen burgers at a time and freeze them. When the munchkin is hungry, it doesn't take long to fix something. And there are some nights when there just isn't time to cook so I take out a frozen dinner . . . heat it up and eat it up!

I agree with the "handcrafted" for MP and handmade for the rest. I just do the CP or rebatch. Someday I will figure out how to get CP soap out of the cute little silicone lamb mold and car mold I have. NOTHING seems to work. Should I be spraying with PAM?

Mineral oil is good to use on molds because it doesn't saponify.

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

I add some sodium lactate to the batches I am putting in those types of molds. You can also freeze them for a while and they usually pull from the sides, but that works better, especially for the more intricate molds, if you use mineral oil on the mold before hand or have the SL in the batch.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

You can also spritz the mold with dimethicone, which is a silicone oil. I've heard of people using food grade silicone spray from a hardware store though I haven't tried it.

I joined the world of CP after making one MP kit. I quickly came to the realization that MP is for that kind of soap that just look at but don't really use. You can make it to match those towels at your grandma's house that you just look at but don't use. I truly admire the artistry of some of the MP soaps I see on etsy. But for someone who wants more natural ingredients, less chemicals, more nourishing, gentle or clarifying formulas, then CP is the way to go. Now then, I'm so fascinated by the world of swirling and other artistic techniques I am seeing in CP. I've come to think of CP soap making as an art.

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Michelle

Reminder to Self: "Cut No Soap Before It's Time!"