Bettacreek - New home? Plus a pic of some of the ladies here

[Bettacreek]

I'll post here in case anyone else is wondering. If you want to send your recipe or just the oils in PM you may. I know I don't really share my recipes, since they are mine own, lol. Anyways, I don't do the "zap test". To be honest, I've only ever had the "zap" when I botched a batch and had lye heavy swirls in my soap, and the lye spots where what zapped. The good batches have never zapped, even if it was just days later. I've seen different ideas on cure times. I think test running your own recipe is the best thing you can do. Personally, I cut my bars out and let them sit for six weeks, then before using, selling or giving any away, I take a bar and cut it in half. You should be able to see what is cured and what is not. Since you're just starting, maybe cut a bar now so that you know there will definately be the cured and uncured spots in your soap and you'll know what to look for with your recipe. I'll see if I can get a picture with my phone and show you what mine looks like when I cut an uncured bar. Of course, my molds make 28 bars of soap, and I have three people who use my soap here and I can always give soap to friends from the bars that I cut to check for cure. If you're making small batches, it's not as easy because it seems more wasteful, lol. But after your first batch, you can get an idea of how long it takes for your soap to cure (I've seen recommendations from 3-6 weeks for cure time) and then wait until that time period is up, then only cut one bar to check to make sure it's cured. Mine is a softer recipe so it takes a little longer to cure than some of the harder recipes. Let me try to get a picture so that you can see what partially cured soap looks like.

 

[savingdogs]

Gosh I haven't read your whole journal but I can see I probably should! You are making so many of the products I want to learn to make. I've made three batches of soap and want to learn to make goats milk soap as soon as my goaties are providing me with some milk to use. But I'd like to have 195 bars of homemade soap curing! That would take up quite a bit of space I would think, do you have some sort of rack?

I've been wanting to make soap again but am finding the fragrance to be so expensive, especially when I'm not familar with ordering these scents and not knowing a good value to order. Where do you get your scent from, do you mind me asking?

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm not sure how well you can see the center. It's a lighter color than the rest of the soap, and that is the uncured bit. The black specks are poppyseeds for exfoliation. The uncured bit is also very soft when you cut it. I hope this helps.

 

[Bettacreek]

Shoot, I finally got a chance to look at it on the computer. It's VERY hard to see the cure line. :/ REEEAAAALLL helpful huh? I'll try to find something on google images, lol.


Last night we hit the amish store (the closer, slightly more expensive one). I bought 14lbs of raw sugar, 25lbs of whole wheat flour, 1.5lbs wheat gluten, 5.5lbs steel cut oats, rootbeer extract and anise stars for soda, raw goatmilk (yummy, lol), stuff for bath bombs (have two shows coming up) and even bought 2.5lbs "real salt" (natural mineral and sea salt listed as the ingredients, and it has red bits in it). I'm hoping to get buckets and be able to hit the other store to get the 50lb bulk bags of some things. They're so much cheaper! The 50lb bags of raw sugar are $.65/lb or $.79/lb for the small bags while this store's small bags are $.95/lb and they don't have the option of 50lb bags.

We also ran into my dad at the store (he lives in the area) and stopped at his house to visit for a bit. He ended up sending his canner home with me!!! My friend also said that she had a ton of quart jars that I can have, since she only cans jams and jellies and doesn't use the quart jars. I'm so freaking excited. Now I just have to shoot a damn deer to have something really worth canning, lol. Time to start buying a pack or two of jar lids each time I hit the store.

 

[Bettacreek]

Gosh I haven't read your whole journal but I can see I probably should! You are making so many of the products I want to learn to make. I've made three batches of soap and want to learn to make goats milk soap as soon as my goaties are providing me with some milk to use. But I'd like to have 195 bars of homemade soap curing! That would take up quite a bit of space I would think, do you have some sort of rack?

I've been wanting to make soap again but am finding the fragrance to be so expensive, especially when I'm not familar with ordering these scents and not knowing a good value to order. Where do you get your scent from, do you mind me asking?

I'm sorry, I just now saw this post, lol. Most of my journal is probably useless garble! I just have my soap on cardboard around the basement. I hope to get a bigger bookshelf to be able to cure more at one time, but for now, some is on the one small bookshelf and some is on a table of sorts. Fragrance IS expensive as all heck. I buy mine at Brambleberry.com and most are $8 or more for 4oz. Some are stronger than others and you can use less, but some you really have to use a LOT to get the scent in the final soap. I'm hoping to keep upping my sales so that I can afford to order a nice lot of fragrances, but I foresee small orders (4-5 oils at most) for awhile. I get into somewhat of a panic when I start running low on anything, so the fragrances have really been stressing me out, lol.



As for the pictures, I found a picture of an 8 ton bar of soap (in a gross astringent blue color), numerous pictures of lines of bars sitting to cure and weird pictures that really have absolutely nothing to do with soap or curing, but I cannot find any pictures where anyone has cut a bar open to show the cure line. :/

 

[savingdogs]

Yes, I ordered from Brambleberry too and liked the fragrance, but it sure went fast. I used the Baby Rose and it was lovely, and they sent a sample of one of their best sellers and it was nice too. But it sure went fast.

I'm a soaping beginner, do you have a suggestion for me? I'm on a real budget so I'd like to order something cheap and nice smelling that doesn't have Sage or Lavender (allergies) and won't speed up trace as I want to use goats milk? There are too many choices for me to be able to decide and I want one that uses the least so it goes the farthest. I actually had to break down and buy store bought soap this week because I could not figure out what to order.

I was tempted to make unscented, but I'm wondering if that will make our bodies smell fresh after washing with it? We are making the soap mostly for ourselves and I give some as gifts.

 

[Bettacreek]

I haven't ordered much from them to be honest. I just started soaping as well. I went through their bestseller list and picked what I thought I would like the best to start out with. I chose their white tea and ginger (VERY strong, a little goes a good way), oatmeal milk and honey (not strong at all, seems like you have to use a ton to get scent in the soap), lilac (pretty darn good, it's not too strong, but not too light either) and they sent a sample of some kind of scent (I couldn't find it on their list) that smelled like sticky buns. Wow was it to die for. It made me drool for real. I didn't get a chance to use that in any soap though, since it disappeared with some of the scents I had from the craft store and aaa-chemicals. I haven't noticed a difference in trace with any of them, but I am fairly unconventional with soap, I mix by hand and don't pay a whole lot of attention to it to be honest. The oatmeal, milk and honey does darken the soap a bit in the end, and lilac does a smidge, but personally I like the different tones it gives the soap, since I don't use any colorants.
Unscented, it gets you clean. It's good for people with terribly sensitive skin, but if you're "normal" I can't really say that much for it. If you're in a pinch, go for it, but I like to smell good, lol. If you like mints, I can never say enough about the peppermint/spearmint essential oil blend (equal parts of each). It's perfect for scrubby soap (poppyseeds) and if you're anything like me, you won't want to stop washing yourself. I liked it so much the first time I got to use it that I almost missed Steeler's kickoff because I was busy washing myself over and over again, lol.

 

[savingdogs]

Is the peppermint from Brambleberry too or are you making that? I have mint plants here. I was wondering what I might have here to make scents from.

I love lilacs, but white tea and Ginger sounds like the one I should order, I need a little-goes-a-long-way kind. I think that will be a hot tip for me. Sounds like an asian restaurant and we love those.

We do have allergies and that is why we started making soap, as well as wanting to be more self sufficient. So I don't want to use ingredients like Sage or plants related to them.

I have heard that it is hard to make light-colored goats milk soap so that is why that Ginger and white tea one sounds good.

So have you any luck with shampoos and conditioners? I tried researching them, but most of the ingredients were so expensive and had to be bought in bulk. It would be committing to several years of the same shampoo....but I actually use more conditioner than anything else because my hair is fine and dry and curly.

Have you talked to Morgaine on that other thread about soap? She is very interesting.

 

[Bettacreek]

I used to be a complete conditioner hog. My hair is very thick and in order to be able to brush it, I HAD to use conditioner, no matter what shampoo I used. Right now I'm experimenting with oil treatments. If you want to be super simple and cheap, buy a 16oz container of coconut oil at Walmart for $5. Wet your hair with the warmed oil and brush through gently (it's a little harder to brush than with conditioner in it and you don't want to break the ends any further). Wrap with a shower cap or plastic wrap, wait at least half an hour (or over night) then you shampoo it and you're done, no conditioner. I prefer this way because it brings my curls out much better than if you brush after shampooing, but it doesn't make it look unkempt. Now, I did attempt it once with using my liquid soap to wash it out and it was still oily, like I hadn't washed my hair in three days, so I'd test it out on a day that you have free time to be able to wash your hair more than once if you don't use commercial shampoo.
As for making your own shampoo, I've been diddling around researching it. I'd like to make a "poo bar" and turn it into a liquid and try it out, but many folks recommend using jojoba oil in the shampoo and I just can't afford it, especially if it doesn't turn out and goes to waste.

Right now I purchase my essential oils. I've been interested in a home distillation set up for herbs, but I just don't think I'd have the room to plant enough to be able to get enough oils!

 

[savingdogs]

I'll have to try that coconut oil, I wanted to get some of that anyways. Thanks!