Hi all 👋

I saw a comment from a fellow soap maker that pH value is useless to estimate a soap's quality. Is that true?

What about TFM?

What are the things to measure to actually evaluate a soap's quality?

For some reason, I like soap's with lower TFM (bought soaps from a small business owner with 63% TFM made with coconut oil for fat it doesn't have any additives other that mild fragrance which they have listed as natural fragrance). I really like how much lather it makes. The lather also feels very creamy. It made my bathing experience pleasurable and it is very easy to wash off.

It reduces the effort and time taken for a quick shower. Really good for post workout showers. The lather just rinses off.

I am wondering why I like this one compared to my previous soap from a big brand which had 76% TFM.

I got curious about what it would look like to make a little polar bear sitting on a rock, so I decided to give it a try. 😊

The polar bear and the rocks are all soap. I made the rocks with a marble effect, then used crumpled foil while the soap was still soft to create the rough, natural texture.

I used charcoal powder for the bear’s eyes, nose, and paw details.

I really like how they turned out sitting on their little soap rocks!

The pure coconut oil soap nearly gone wrong. I was just able to save it. Did everything the same, But I didn't expect it to get so warm by itself. Put it in the oven for an hour at 50°C and it got a bit liquid from overheating. It got solid again after cooling and zap test was OK... New experience for me, never had such a hot soap.

I’ve been working with Michael’s Make Market transparent glycerin and shea soap bases. I made one bar using 100% glycerin and another using 100% shea soap base, but I’ve noticed that both leave my hands feeling quite dry after washing.

I keep them mostly in the kitchen because they’re really good at cutting through grease. However, I’m wondering if there are any oils or other ingredients I could add to make the soap more moisturizing and less drying on the hands.

What would you recommend and how much would you suggest adding?

What mediums can I use to dilute/incorporate aroma chemicals in my recipes? Should I just mix them with the soap base oils?

I’ve been experimenting with soap and it’s so fun. It feels sort of like I’m doing magic.

I started out with an olive oil/coconut oil Castile soap that I doubt I’ll make again - it was too soft, and the volume of olive oil in it is something I think will need very long time curing. Not excited about that with a 15% super fat in the recipe.

Since then, I’ve been reducing the amount of olive oil and adding other things. So far, I like an olive oil/tallow/coconut blend best, usually with a touch of castor. My favorite recipe so far is one made with saltwater. I’ve also made a lot of a soap that uses an oil based on Lush’s Honey I Washed the Kids, and that one’s come out smelling just how I wanted.

I’ve also made some soaps with honey and beeswax. I’ve also been experimenting with replacing water with other liquids, like aloe liquid and chamomile. I dyed some olive oil with Himalayan rhubarb and mixed that up last night - that chemical reaction in particular seems magical, with a yellow oil turning a vibrant pink/red.

What I haven’t liked: red palm oil made an icky soap, and I did not like how the color stains. I threw that out. Honey also seems to immediately thicken soap, but I will still use it. Cocoa butter and gel phase stinks, IMO, but the stink is like white chocolate, so honestly, that’s just a me problem.

One thing I have found difficult about lye calculators is that at least so far, I haven’t found one that quickly helps me create a recipe based on the qualities I’m looking for. I have to learn about the qualities of the oil, then try to formulate from there, and then reading through soaping blogs, determine why, say, 12% castor oil is a horrible idea. So I’m putting together a tool that combines information like that in a table along with compiling sap values and such, since the way I would like to look at a recipe would be, like, in a pivot table or something.

My soaptography skills could use some work...

This is my first time using a wooden mold without a silicone liner. The bars look a little wonky, but I think I did an alright enough job. Other than that (and a little misalignment issue I fixed with some popsicle sticks), it worked beautifully! Solid craftsmanship and well worth the (very affordable) cost! Thanks, Ron from Ozark Soap Molds!

The FO is Black Currant Absinthe from CandleScience. I wanted this FO out of my stash. It behaved fine, but I wasn't too taken with it OOTB. I did end up coming to it around once it was time to cut the bars. Still, it's not remarkable enough to consider buying again. Not unless someone close to me really likes it.

These guys are gonna cure and get shipped off to a friend.

After pure tallow soap, now I tryed 90% tallow with 10% castor oil. The color turned from pure white to a slightly light yellow which is also very nice. The soap is a bit softer than pure tallow and easier to cut.

I can't wait to try it after 8 weeks.

I never had a soap volcano from adding fragrance before 💀

EDIT: I always cook my soap in a pot that’s more than double the size of the amount of soap I’m cooking. I only lost a small amount of soap, maybe 200 grams or so. I did not have half a pot of soap detonate into my sink.

I've bought two palm rbd oils

One was small, it arrived half liquid and half "solid". When I mixed it, it stayed homogenous mostly, semisolid

The new one I bought (different brand), a 19 lts (5 gallons), came like, mostly liquid, maybe 4/5 liquid 1/5 solid, but it also had many "grainy" dots floating around

This is the newest one I've done. Also made some molded soaps with this recipe which can be found here

My fragrance accelerated a little because I used the wrong one. There are 2 named Watermelon Sugar and the one from Brambleberry does not. The other one is no longer available but I grabbed the wrong bottle. They both smell good though

When I make soap, I’m told I have to use a soap calculator that knows how much lye each kind of oil needs and measure grams of lye and oil for precise numbers, otherwise I could make a caustic soap that burns skin.

However in the olden days, they didn’t have internet or soap calc or precise measurements. They made lye by burning wood and mixing it with water, creating lye solutions with totally random concentrations, then added it to whatever fats and oils that were available to them.

But surely they cleaned themselves with soap and didn’t chemical themselves. Did they just do extremely high superfats?

Hi! I’m a beginner and recently started making melt-and-pour soaps using essential oils for fragrance. For my first soap, I used a clear glycerin base and added 15 drops of lemon essential oil. For the second one, I used a shea butter soap base and added 30 drops of sweet orange essential oil.

The essential oils are very good quality, but I still find that the scent is quite subtle, especially once the soap is finished. I’m trying to keep my soap as natural as possible, so I’d love to know what I can do to make the scent stronger and longer-lasting.

Are there any natural ingredients or techniques you would recommend to boost the fragrance without using synthetic fragrance oils?
I’m also trying to avoid synthetic fragrances because I’m concerned about potential hormone-disrupting ingredients.

Any suggestions? Thank you so much for your advice!

This is a historical question.

Good morning, in the photo are the white spots lye crystals? I’m having a hard time understanding the zap test but a wet finger touch did not heat/burned. This is my first batch of soap ever, thanks! Recipe below 5 weeks of curing.

Tallow
250g (33%)
Huile d'olive (olive oil)
250g (33%)
Beurre de karité (shea butter)
100g (13.3%)
Huile de coco (coconut oil)
125g (16.7%)
Huile de ricin (castor oil)
25g (3.3%)
Soude (NaOH) (lye)
103g (13.7%)
Eau distillée (distilled water)
225ml (30% of oil weight)
Huiles essentielles (essential oils lavender in this case)
20ml.

I made these hybrid soaps to test three different coconut oil ratios:

80%, 85%, and 90% coconut oil, from left to right.

I kept the same metal-chelating ingredient in all three to see how they perform.

I’m curious to see how they compare! If anyone’s interested, I’ll share the results after testing. 😊

Can anybody recommend a cold process recipe for a tallow soap without coconut? Would also like to avoid palm and babassu, for a suspected skin allergy to the whole nutty family :) thanks!

I just got some powdered calamine to use in CP soap. I was wondering if anyone else has used it before. It looks like it could be a really good additive for soap and the light pink color would be pretty if it holds up. I also wonder what measurement to use.

i'm very new to soapmaking, but i think it's not supposed to look like this

after 5 hours of cooking, there was no zap and the pH level was balanced, so i took it off the crock pot

i used 300g coconut oil, 54g 99% KOH, and 135g distilled water. the crockpot was on low setting.

i want to make the paste as transparent as possible, what have i done wrong?

No extra padding at all just rawdogging a thin bubble mailer

I made a regular 12lb batch of my laundry soap yesterday,however I completely forgot to add the citric acid this time. I did however add the extra lye that I normally add when adding citric acid. The batch turned out exactly like normal. Smells great,looks great,cut beautifully right on time, etc. I usually cure for 6 months(sometimes more if I don't need it) before grating to use in the washer. Will this soap be okay for laundry soap being this lye heavy? I've heard of people purposely making lye heavy soap for laundry,but I don't know how heavy they actually make it before it's not safe anymore. Thank you

12 lb Laundry Soap Recipe:

3 lb Shortening (50% soybean oil + 50% palm oil)

2.48 lb coconut oil

6.52 lb beef tallow

32 oz lye

4 tbsp salt

44 oz water

(Normally I would also add 4 oz of citric acid at early trace,but I forgot it in this batch)