Teach Soap

I took some samples to the post office to find out that my scale is way off. A package that weighed 4.8 oz was 7 there . I weighed it at the self service scale and at the counter to make sure it was not their scale. I was freaking out. I've only had the scale for 2 weeks and have made 2 batches of soap with it. I didn't notice it was off. I rushed home and grabbed my trusty old, non digital scale. I weighed something that I knew was a pound on it. It's accurate. Weighed it on the expensive piece of junk scale that I am now cursing. I got new measurements for everything by getting the weight I thought it was on the digital scale and then taking the weight on the old one. I ran everything through the lye calculator and found that my lye ratio still looked good (thank God), just smaller than it should have been. The only thing that might make the batch bad it that I used to much EO for the batch.

Here is my recipe with the correct weight if anyone wants to check.
7.7 oz of olive oil
7.4 oz of coconut oil
11.8 oz of vegetable shortening
1.3 oz of caster oil
.7 oz pepermint
.7 oz Eucalyptus
4.8 ounces of water
4.8 ounces of aloe
4 oz of lye

I called the company and they said that they will send me a new scale if I send them the old one, but I may not bother. I would have to pay the shipping. Plus, it will take 3-4 weeks. I will have to buy a new scale before then

That's too bad. At least your soap isn't lye heavy. Which EO did you use?

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

I used eucalyptus and peppermint. I was planning on using these as test samples. I am just going to remake the last few batches of soap. I want the tester to test the exact recipe. So, frustrating. My testers are going to be getting smaller bars now. It is very expensive re-buying ingredients.

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

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

Sorry you had soooo much trouble! At least you found out about it before a soap became lye heavy and burned someone. I have a calibrated gram weight that I will check my scale with at least every other batch. Because I need to pack up my soaping supplies my scale does get josseled around just a little and I like to make sure it is accurate.

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

Some scales can be calibrated. Did you check to see if that was something that could be done to your scale?

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

I had a similar problem when i bought a new scale. Actually it was my old scale that was the problem, it has since broken and i got a new one. I was confused why all my recipes (which i have been making regularly for over 2 years) would not fit into their regular molds. Someone on either this or another forum shared that 5 quarters ($.25) equals 1 oz as a quick way to see if a scale is correct. I was relieved to find my new scale was fine and my old broken one was the culprit.

Good luck!
Erin

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I soap therefore I am.

Okay would you believe I was able to dig up 5 American quarters? (Banks and stores in Canada accept them so we use American coins all the time.)

And sure enough 5 of 'em added up to 1.0 oz on my scale. Yay!

The Canadian quarters weigh less ... 0.1 oz each instead of 0.2 oz each.

(For the trivia lovers out there.)

Edit: I had to look this up b/c I'm a nerd that way but this is interesting:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does ... rter_weigh

Karri

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I soap therefore I am.

Karri, you're funny (i love the trivia though!)

edit: misspelled something!

Tried it too and it really worked, makes me very happy as I thought my scale may have been a little off recently one less new thing to buy.

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& Specialties, Inc.
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