Teach Soap

Me too! I really love this Almond & Honey fragrance too. It smells very nice.

Congrats! That came out really well.

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

Thanks! I got about 10 or 11 sell-able slices out my small loaf mold. I posted a couple of pics on my Facebook page and now 8 of the slices are already spoken for. As soon as my new shipment of coconut and palm oils come in, I'm going to make some more of these because I just love anything with hearts on it. My heart column mold was kind of pricey but I think I'm going to get a lot of use out of it. I sliced up some of the small heart columns so that I could embed them in clear melt & pour for Valentine's Day.

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

Oh I definitely will be letting them cure I just mean they are spoken for when they are finished curing.

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

I like it.... did you fragrance this with honey? I really like the name.

Ignore that question... I just read page two! Still like the contrast with the red heart and plain soap.

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

Hey, thanks!

I found that mold at Wholesale Supplies Plus, they have some other cute tubes molds as well.

Brandy

I already posted the pics earlier on this thread. And the tube mold DID come from Wholesale Supplies Plus. I really like it.

I wonder if I should tailor my heart embed recipe in any way so that I can give it the best chance of adhering to the overpour?

Right now I pour the soap into the heart column mold wait for them to harden overnight (no gelling in the oven). Then I pop them out of the column mold the next morning and place them in a loaf mold and do an overpour. Then I gel the whole thing in the oven.

So I'm wondering, first of all, is this the best way to do an embed (not gelling the embeds, letting the embeds sit overnight, then gelling the whole thing).

Secondly, I wonder if using more soft oils compared to harder oils, etc, would be better (or worse) for the consistancy of the embeds. Would that help ensure the embeds will adhere better to the surrounding overpour? Or would that not matter in the least?

And what about fragrance? I put fragrance in the heart embeds now, but maybe leaving fragrance out of the embeds would make the embeds slightly less oily and that would help ensure a good bond with the overpour?

Or maybe it's important to always match my embed recipe exactly to the overpour recipe so the finished bar always has the same consistancy throughout?

And superfatting versus no-superfatting in the embed recipe . . . I wonder if I should NOT superfat the embeds?

I haven't actually gotten a chance to use any of the cured, embedded soap yet, so there may be no problems whatsover with the embedded hearts staying put. But I'm very curious as to the finer points of making embedded soaps, so "inquiring minds want to know" if anyone has any insight into these questions . . .

Thanks!

Midnightstorm, I always learn so much from your posts and the replies! Thanks!

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

I declare midnightstorm the goddess of us newbies. We all learn so much from your posts.

I will share what little insite I have and then wait for the experienced soapers to respond.
My embeds have been single and placed into or on top of poured soap and a few that I placed into an individual mold and poured over. I'm sure I broke all the rules but have had no problems with the embeds coming loose. I have used embeds that were anywhere from 1day old to months old, different fragrance (don't think any were plain), all were superfatted between 5-7% and the oils/receipes were varied. Many times I pour my embeds with left over from a batch and save them until I need them. The only time I had a soap come apart was one I purchased at a farmers market and that was CP soap embeded into M&P. Nice looking but did not hold up (and his base was very drying on my skin). The one thing that has been consistant is none of my soaps were gelled... I find that hard to accomplish when I use individual molds.
PS. I love your questions!

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