Teach Soap

My first mold was a plastic shoe box I picked up at Home Depot for .68 cents! They make great starter molds! As for a good cutter you can use one of until you can get a proper cutter. I still use mine in fact, I believe it was an Irena idea!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

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Carrie
Wife to my Best Friend and Homeschool mom to 7 beautiful gifts

Conrgats on your first batch!

I use Dollarama here in Ontario for most my candle and soaping needs...spatulas, bowls, little FO container(they look like something you would get side sauce in at a restaurant) and fits 1 ounze perfectly for my small batches. I am only careful when buying anything metal in the dollar stores, I always look for the specific words...stainless steel

I also use my sink to put the lye in, not only is it off the counter and safe away from me spilling it but if anything happens it will hopefully be contained in my sink!

I have only made a few batches myself and I love it. The waiting game is the worse for me. I am just getting to my end period and have started to give a few to my family to try and give feedback on...so far the first batch was a hit

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www.fostersfields.ca
https://www.facebook.com/FostersFields

Foster, just keep an eye on local recalls! One of my "stainless steel" whisks from Dollarama was recalled for possibly having toxic ingredients! That store is unfortunately known for having this type of recall issue. Like toothpaste with antifreeze and formaldehyde, and baby teethers full of toxic fluid and lead paint. You can get some alright stuff there too of course! But I'd keep an eye out, just in case!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Be aware that some stainless steel that comes fom China is not stainless steel at all.

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

I use a spackle knife or putty spatula from the hardware section at the local store to cut my soaps. Its super sharp, flexible and comes in a variety of widths. It has a straight edge it's not beveled like a chef's knife would be, so it slides through the soap really easily and gives nice straight cuts. You might have one of those lying around in the garage or workshop?

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Kristen D. Vineyard
visit my blog http://washwithvegetables.blogspot.com

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www.fostersfields.ca
https://www.facebook.com/FostersFields

It gelled!!!! I didn't insulate or oven process, but, I'm pretty sure my soap gelled.

soap.jpg [ 19.59 KiB | Viewed 3832 times ]

The white bar near the top is a sliver that stuck to the paper during pouring and fell off this afternoon. That bar is roughly the color the soap was when poured. Looks like I might have a little ash as well. The divot in the center is from my accidentally applying a little too much pressure when testing if it was set

When soap gels it becomes a little darker and temporarily soft. See my pic here> viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5450

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

Yup, it definitely gelled. Really wasn't expecting that. Maybe because it was so warm yesterday?? I mean, the only other thing I could have done to keep it from gelling was put it in the fridge.

Talk about being exact... I have a small hard plastic scrapper I got from the thrift store... this seems to work better for me at scrapping out the oils on the side of my container. Once scrapped I put it back on the scale to see if the tare brings it back to 0. That way I know I got all of the oils scrapped out!

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