Soap Making 101

[Carolyn]

oh we sell the 2 oz bars for $2 or 3 for $5; 4 oz $4 or 3 for $10.00. most of the people buy jsut one 6 oz bar cause it lasts a long time but they are $6 or 2 for$12. Little old ladies love to buy the 2 oz bars 3 for $5 for gifts and love to try all the fragrances. they can buy 12 bars for $20 and use them for "special stocking stuffers" or for Easter baskets, we have a picture of 2 of our girls on the label and people love that. The name of our business is "My Crazy Mother and I" and yes I am the crazy mother . Oh and the last digits of our phone number spell out GOAT--people never forget us

 

[me&thegals]

oh we sell the 2 oz bars for $2 or 3 for $5; 4 oz $4 or 3 for $10.00. most of the people buy jsut one 6 oz bar cause it lasts a long time but they are $6 or 2 for$12. Little old ladies love to buy the 2 oz bars 3 for $5 for gifts and love to try all the fragrances. they can buy 12 bars for $20 and use them for "special stocking stuffers" or for Easter baskets, we have a picture of 2 of our girls on the label and people love that. The name of our business is "My Crazy Mother and I" and yes I am the crazy mother . Oh and the last digits of our phone number spell out GOAT--people never forget us

That's awesome, Carolyn, especially your business name and phone number! Thanks for all the input. What is the "Wal-Mart recipe", if you don't mind sharing?

 

[valmom]

I finished my third batch of soap last weekend- I love how they are coming out, even the second batch that tried to set up in the pan! I added dragonblood scent to the third batch- I love the smell, but it turned the soap a bit brownish instead of the creamy color of the unscented batches. Do all FOs color the soap? Or was it just this batch? It didn't look brown in the pot, but as it ages it is darkening.

 

[Carolyn]

Here is the recipe that we started with
http://dairygoatinfo.com/index.php/topic,17.0.html
we use all goats milk for the liquid.
Yes anything with vanilla with darken the soap. Our dragons blood turns very dark--like a chocolate brown. Something to consider is to keep a notebook and keep track of each batch-then sometimes if things don't turn out right, you can look back and check things out.

 

[valmom]

Good to know that it is normal- I haven't done enough batches to know what "normal" is yet! I'm saving my recipes on soapcalc so far.

I am loving my soap! My first batch is 3 weeks old now. I am waiting impatiently for 4 weeks age to try it.

 

[Carolyn]

I bought books and books maybe 15 to 16 years ago after I got my first dairy goats-never did anything because the books were overwhelming, wish I had jumped in then:/, but oh well. Soap is going good now-- we always have people that only buy the small bars for gifts and think it is too expensive for themselves, others like the people that buy for skin problems have spent a lot of money on a lot of other products and feel this is a very reasonable--There is a little old lady that only uses it to wash her face in. We do not tell people that it will be a magic answer to any problems, just that it is made the old fashioned method with just oils, lard, milk and lye, we have problems with store bought soaps, clothes detergents etc, this works for us. Although we "hit" the craft fairs and the few flea markets that are here, but a lot of our customers have come to us by word of mouth,which the best advertisement. When we first bought goats, there was a lady that bought goats milk to put in her bath water for skin problems-bought several gallons a week--

 

[me&thegals]

Well, I had my first major flops tonight. I made one batch of soap with coffee and soy milk for the liquid, coffee grounds and a little bit of cocoa powder (1 T for 3.5 lb soap) and about 1.5 oz of peppermint EO. I'm tired of partial gels, so I stuck it in the oven at 140, then turned the oven off.

Then I made a batch of carrot oat soap, added 1 T of honey to 3.5 lb soap, used carrots, carrot cooking water and yogurt for the liquid and again stuck in oven for full gel.

Oops. The large containers of each soap got separated, soap and oil. My tall container of coffee soap had about 1-2" of oil floating on top. My silicone loaf pan of carrot soap had oil all around the edges and top.

I didn't know what else to do, so I dumped them one at a time into my saucepan, turned it on low, and beat it into submission with my stick blender and whisk until it looked somewhat soaplike, then dumped them back into their original containers.

What happened? What should I have done? They look like hot-process soap, at least from the online pix I have seen. I just could not bear to waste that much oil and time!

 

[Carolyn]

when I started, I used plain water and basic soap recipe. The hot process/oven process we now use for the darker and basic soap took 8 to 10 tries before we got it right. after several years, we still use a thermomoter and use the taste/zap test. Temps weren't right maybe. I know that honey can be touchy to use. I am so tired, bad bad cold and DGS is here, please excuse misspelled words :/

 

[savingdogs]

I discovered soapmaking on BYC and was happy to find this thread over here too, what could be more self sufficient than making your own soap.

I'm on my second batch, love how it is coming out! I used the "easy crisco" recipe that is all over the internet and it came out great.

I want to make a shaving bar next for my hubby to use on his face and for shaving my legs as well. Everyone has been really liking my soap, it is excellent.

I have some "essential oils" my daughter is giving me that were for making your room smell nice in an oil burner. Does anyone know if these are safe for soapmaking? She has some nice fragrances and isn't into burning the oil in her house anymore so wanted to give me some or have me make her some soap from some.

How do I know what kind of oils I have, is there somewhere I can look up stuff like that?

 

[Carolyn]

EO's need to skin safe and unless I knew they were skin safe, I would not use them and there is a difference. You could look the brand name up online if you could find them, if not, I would not use them. There are many FO's and EO's that don't work in CP either that we can use in HP. I like the salt bars also. We use bentonite clay in our shaving soap, adds a "slipperyness" for shaving (what a word LOL), although there are those who like the plain soap for shaving. Our whipped shea butter sells like crazy also. Good Luck