Teach Soap

I'm trying my first batch of soap this weekend. A very small one. After all of my reading I am scared out of my mind of the possible failure. Any suggesions? Words of wisdom? No fragrances or scents. Just olive oil, shea butter, and castor oil.
I am excited and petrified. Help! I need some encouraging words!

You'll be fine. Make sure you have a good scale and follow safety cautions. If you are making a small batch, I would suggest converting it to grams for more accuracy.

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

That is my plan. I cannot find my scale so I have to go buy another. I am thinking of doing a super small batch with water and lye and one using some milk I have left over from some baking to get the hang of it and know which one I like best. I am going to put some of the milk into some ice cube trays. Does that sound like a good idea? Much of the time I will be posting from my Kindle and that's partly what I use to look up recipes.
I hope people will post some suggestions and I will let everyone know how it turns out. I am super excited!

I wouldn't do a tiny, tiny batch for your first try. There's more chance of an error. 1 lb. converted to grams should work fine for you. If you have a recipe from a book or the net, make sure you run it through a lye calculator. Mistakes do happen.

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

I agree with soapbuddy. I also wouldn't make a soap with milk until you've made a couple of batches and understand what the process whole feels like. Milk can cause a mess of problems! The only batches I've ruined had milk in them and they overheated. Needless to say, I am much more careful now!

Good luck!

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

I am not familiar with grams. When I used the MMS calculator, it gave me milliliters and I've never used this unit of measurement before. I think it might be a worse mess if I try it. Any suggestions?

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

One more caution regarding making a small batch: size down your "soap pot" as well or else it's VERY hard to stick blend without splattering raw (caustic) soap batter. I learned this the hard way

Here's what happened: my first batch was 1lb in size and I mixed my oils into a big stainless steel pot because I read that is what I needed for making soap. Well, I ended up with very shallow batter in the bottom of the pot. Trying to stick blend that was tricky b/c I had to basically tilt the pot to the side to get enough depth in my batter (so I could immerse the stick blender).

Not really the optimal way to mix your soap "safely." It all worked out and I was extremely careful of course but small batches require smaller pots/containers.

Hope that explanation makes sense, but for a small 1lb batch you might want to use something more suitable than I did that first time. Maybe a medium sized pyrex container (glass) or something like that. Other gals might have suggestions too.

Karri

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I soap therefore I am.

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

Really? You see tutorials with glass Pyrex type containers used all the time (e.g. http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body- ... beer-soap/).

I had not heard about this caution before. Thanks Irena!

Karri

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I soap therefore I am.

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

Yikes! You're scaring me!

So can you use recycled plastic containers (yogurt for e.g.) or is that plastic to fragile/heat sensitive?

I'm scratching my head now as to what would be appropriate. I use my big steel pot for bigger batches but sometimes I mix a smaller batch for say a secondary swirl color or something like that.

Karri

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I soap therefore I am.

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

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CP newbie who's turning into a soaping addict!

Ack, I've been using glass too. Looks like I need to make a shopping trip for some new mixing bowls.