Teach Soap

plschrader: you're not a slow learner. You're and Midnighstorm are doing and trying things that I didn't know existed until after I joined the forum. Believe it or not, we're all learning a lot from you guys.

I don't use a loaf mold. I use a square or rectangular mold with dividers. I have a 9-bar, 12-bar, 15-bar and 24-bar mold. If I'm trying something new, I always use the 9-bar and make about a 2.5 pound batch.

I cut the loofa into small thin pieces about half the size of a dime and just threw them into the pot after I mixed the lye-milk and oils together. That was a mistake as they all floated to the top. I had to wait until a fairly medium-to-thick trace to pour so they would be better distributed and not all float to the top. Doing that in a loaf mold works good....not so much for a bar mold because the bars along the border turn out lopsided.

I just took the bull by the horns and tried it anyway. I love sharing trials and learning outcome from you guys.....and I stopped with the pain meds last night so you can't blame them.

Loofah won't float or not as much if you get it wet first, then squeeze as much water out of it that you can before using it.

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

I didn't know it floated.....like shot dead fish in a barrel.

Thanks for the advice soapbuddy. I think my next loofa adventure would be putting it into a 3" PVC pipe mold and just pour soap over top. Then slice, serve and enjoy.

A lot of time fragrances that go brown go yellow FIRST - like a bright ugly gross yellow (see this photo: http://twitpic.com/24scce for example of yellow soap) and it's hard to color over those types of colors. But for soap that's going brown anyways, I usually don't worry much about trying to color over it and just go with the brown - and then do a competing light colored swirl (like this one: http://soap-queen.blogspot.com/2009/11/ ... ation.html - also shows a nice progression of yellow to brown).

And my first 5 batches of CP soap completely and utterly failed so take heart =) Your soap really doesn't look bad. It's nice country chic look and I am sure many people will be glad to give it a good home =)

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

Midnight, your worse batch looks better than some of my good batches! What I see is a cement something... so if it turns out that it is not lye heavy... save it until fall, write a tombstone message on it and give it away as halloween soap!

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

Thanks, Anne-Marie. Those links were helpful. One of those colors is kind of like the color my soap turned - a neon yellow/green. It'll be interesting to see if the color changes again as it ages.

Bubbles2, you are right! My soap does look even more like cement than it does wet sand!

Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit” I thought this was all fun if it had to do with soapies!

This thread is going to H*ll in a handbasket.

We like "going against the grain here". You guys are driving me up a wall with this stuff.

(Yes!! 2 for 1 and you saw it here first!!!)

Your friends that are afraid of lye did they get samples from a hot batch?

Over fragranceing can cause a burning sensation in soap also.

Oh no, everyone loved all the soap they were given. But as soon as one of my relatives heard the word 'lye', they looked at the bar of soap like it was a poisonous snake!

Did you do the zap test on this batch yet?

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

No. Not yet. I'll have to try it later

Y'all crack me up!!!!!!!!!!!

i think it looks good