rebeccajo99

I've been using 1 tbs of FO per lb.

Is it better to use TBS to measure out the FO... I have been weighing out a 1/2 oz?

I am hoping to sit down and experiment some more once my stearic gets here (should be today) between that, bw and coconut oil, I hope to get my hard bar by the end of the month. (I have to set deadlines or else I don't get motivated and keep pushing things off)

I have an unrealted question to beeswax for you... how long should I let a bar sit before I determine it marketable... (provided i did my testing on lather, scent, color, moisture... all that stuff) I don't know now long I should let it sit to make sure nothing goes wrong with it... kindof like a shelf-life test.- does that make sense:confused:

that is really cool and I just found some tutorials on it. I always see it with CP, can it be done with M&P too?

Just thought I would give you an update on what happened with just base and beeswax. I got a hard bar... not as hard as I would like, but at least t was hard. So now I am really confused... is there a reaction going on between the fo that I am using and the beesewax??? I was going to try a different fo and see what happened.

Wow... that was quick. I decided what to order and placed my order on Thursday. I just walked out to my mailbox and it was there!!! Shipping was very resasonable too since they offer flat rate boxes!!! I can't wait to finish figuring out my soap recipie so I can start playing around with colors!!!

never mind on how hot... i just reread your post :smiley2: I am improsses right now of trying it beeswax and base only.

Candybee- When I was trying to melt the beeswax in the same pot as my base... it was getting up to 175 as that was when all the wax and base was melted. When I seporated the two (beeswax in microwave and base in double boiler... the base did not excede 150. I knew from watching my soap making videos that I should not heat the soap up too much and now I cannot find that video back to find out what temp was too high.

I have a thermometer that stays in the pot while the base is melting. What should be the hotest my base gets?

I will try that either tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the help, I will let you know what I discover doing just base and beeswax.

I've been twisting mine since Stella mentioned it as well. Mine still crul, but as it is burning, it is slowly twising around and creating the even burn.

unfortuantly since this is my first time ordering from EBC, I have nothing to compare it to It works great (at least I think) using it by itself and with FO added. I am doing an extreamly abuse test of one with just base and FO and so far I am impressed.

If the Palm Stearic does not work, then I know something is wrong.

Something is wrong. There is no way that in the amounts you have used you should have a soft bar of soap.. at least not soft enough that it can be squished together with fingers. I have honestly never had that happen. I do use the EBC base most of the time, and I've never had it behave that way. The beeswax additive should have made it quite a bit harder, not softer. Wish I knew what was going on here..

Just out of curiosity, what kind of bees wax did you use?

I wish I knew too. I have tried several batches (3 this week and 2 last week) trying to figure it out. I purchased the wax from Bitter Creek North. Its the white pellet kind.

well, it has been almost 24 hours since pouring the soap. I was hopeful because I could demold it after 2 hours which the last time I did the beeswax, it took almost 6 before I could demold. I just looked at it and it is as soft as can be... feels just like when I demolded it. My husband had fun with it and completly squished it between his fingers, so now there is a nice creater in one of my test bars. Don't know why my beeswax isn't working but off to try the palm stearic that Candybee suggested.

Candybee... I am using the Essintials by Catilina base. Somebody else mentioned to use that in another thread that I had questions on. Does is scare customers away when you put an "acid" on the label???

Also, is all stearic acids the same, I was looking at the one at Peak, but it does not say palm, it just says Vegi origin. I have to place an order with Peak here soon and would like to order it from there if I cannot get the beeswax to work.

I just poured another batch. This time i melted the beeswax (i used the microwave since when I tried to do it in my melt pot, it wasn't heavy enough to go into the water) and then added my fo to the melted wax (i read to do that on another post). I removed my melted base from the double boiler and then added my wax/fo mixture. Stired until all the lumps were out and poured into my loaf pan. If I had everything measured right, the temp of the base did not exceed 150- 25 degrees lower than adding everything in the pan.

I will cut tonight after the fireworks and let cure over night. Praying that this works.

Thanks for your suggestions. I will try to melt the wax before adding the base. I will do that this afternoon while my boys are napping. I'll post my findings.

This is just plain white base... nothing special.

I have had them cut and drying on my drying rack for almost 48 hours now. I poured those yesterday morning and they are not getting any harder. I am totally baffled on this

I have done a search, but cannot find anything. I am trying to put beeswax into my soap to get a harder bar, but I am getting the opposite. My bars with just the base and FO are much harder than the bars with base, FO and Beeswax. Can somebody please help me in figuring out what I am doing wrong???

1 lb of base

1/2 oz of fo

1 T beeswax

Heated in a double boiler until all melted (which was around 175) and the put in my fo and poured into my mold. I did cover the melting pot as well.

Thanks

Thanks Julia for the information. Since I am working with opaque soap right now, I'll avoid the micas for the time being.

Where do you buy glyceren. After watching my videos before I started, I really wanted to try the ultramarines. But I can only find those mostly in powder a few in liquids and no sample pack

I don't know what to get anymore. I only have a limited amount to spend, and then I'm done until I run out of testing supplies.

Yes, it is western michigan... just outside of Grand Rapids. Maybe someday we will run into eachother.

I have had issues with only one of my liquid colors leaving flecks, the ultramarine blue, but that only happened a couple of times and it was a very small amount of flecks. The rest of the colors blended in perfectly.

Off topic a little... I noticed you live in Michigan... Where abouts???

oh what to get... now I want it all:laugh2:

I'm thinking that I will try liquid to start... then move to the powders when I start making bigger batchs. (if I ever get to the bigger batch part) But then again, to start I will be doing all one color, so then it will be one pot at a time... hmmm

Candybee- I've always heard that liquid color are quicker to bleed (especially reds) than powdered colors such as oxides and micas. I don't know if that applies to powdered colors that are pre-mixed in glycerin or not *shrug*. Good luck!

~Julia

Are the powder ones hard to mix with your soaps? I have watched a few videos where they use powder to color the soaps, but they always edit to video so they don't have it competly stirred before they go to the next step and I cannot figure out what they mix it with. Do I take a little of my melted soap? I have been looking at the micas as well because of the "shimmer" effect.

I can only find the pop liquid in the sample packs... I don't want to purchase them if I cannot purchase an individual color once I am out.

I got my liquid colorants from C&S. But I do have the sampler pack of POP colors in from TKB. I wouldn't have any qualms about purchasing from them. They have good quality colorants.

kestagano-- which ones are the non-bleeding colors? I was just going to start a thread about them. I am looking for non-bleeding liquid colorants for my soap making. I mean ones that don't bleed or fade even after several months. I quit doing swirls and embeds cause I have been so frustrated with color bleeding and fading.

What is c&s if you don't mind answering. I think I am going to order from TKB, but want to look at other suppliers as well.

I am also interested in kestagano's answer. The reason I want to start doing colors is for the swirling and embeds. I don't want them to start bleeding after a while.

I want to start experimenting with colors in my soap. I have been looking at TKB and their sample color packs.

I am looking at this one...

http://www.tkbtrading.com/item.php?item_id=215&category_id=28

Has anybody tried this sample pack or do you recomend an different one.

Thanks

Thanks for your opinions on if 3 months is long enough or not. I know it will take work, but one nice thing about it being my aunt... i have up to the day off to decide if I'm ready or not. I tested my first last week and did not totally like how it turned out. I will be testing more this week now that I am back from the holiday weekend. I do like the aspect that I can pour one day and test the next. Unlike my candles that you do need to let cure for a week and then take hours of testing before you determine if that one is right now not. We will see how things go this week :smiley2:

Thanks for all of your help. My aunt gave me a goal date and I work best when I have a goal in mind.

A kiosk is $8500 per month for those two months so it would be cheaper.

Did you miss type in here?

Some other things you need to think about is employee's and the extra expenses that come with that. Approximently how many people come to the mall. I'm guessing here, but I would think about every 10th person who comes to the mall will look at your stuff and probably every 5th one from those will actually buy is my guess. That has to be a lot of people to make up the cost of rent and employee expenses.

Also, what do you mean "made to order" is that mean you take orders and then make it for them... like a custom order thing?

Thanks

I did read about steric acid. It can be used as a hardener, but decided against it. I was hoping that the beeswax would do the trick... something about writing beeswax on the lable sounds more appealing to me than writting an acid. I'm hoping that some people who use this base will chime in and say something as well.

I did test a bar quick to wash my hands. Initial observations... (before testing) great throw, just soft

while hand washing... scent smelled good, but did not leave it on my hands. (still don't know if I want to have a faint scent left on the hands/body or not). Did have a small lather, but would like a little more.

One of the video's i watched demistrated how you can use left over soap from another project for a new bar of soap, but it was good soap, not duds. So you say that I can just wrap this up and maybe use it as chuncks or something in another bar of soap?