r/soapmaking

First timer here! I was trying to make soap by reusing some oils from a failed batch (the lye I had got for it was liquid so I think it probably didn’t have enough lye for saponification?), so I redid the batch with a different thing of lye (solid this time) after draining out all the water. It solidified but had a thick layer of oil on top (like jell), and it looks weird. What happened?

Recipe: 20oz olive oil, 12oz coconut oil, 4.5oz lye, 12oz distilled water.

Working on designs. I really like colored swirls on white, with solid tops. What do you guys think?

Wanted to do another batch of turtles in the sand. Turtles are M&P

I came up with a new essential oil blend that I really like, so I thought I'd try it out in some crystal soaps. These are SFIC crystal clear and white melt and pour soap bases, scented with a blend of Frankincense, Clary Sage, and Pink Grapefruit essential oils, and coloured with activated charcoal and a variety of micas and eco glitter. I poured some scented, thin bars of black, white, red and 2 pinks...some solid colours, and some swirled with a little white. Then I chopped them all up, arranged them in my molds, and poured some scented, clear soap with a little bit of gold sparkle over them.

Hello, I am new to soap making and would love any critiques on this recipe. I am striving for a moisturizing bar that is still hard and has longevity. Thank you!

We used olive oil, coconut oil, and castor oil.

Do you prefer individual loaf molds or slab molds? We use both. I prefer slab molds - but it is quite a thing to unmold and split.
This is our honey and rooibos soap as well as our oatmeal and lavender soaps.

I made goat’s milk soap for the first time and it turned out great! I did a 10% sf and 35% lye concentration. Coconut oil 35%, Olive pomace 45%, sunflower 15% and castor 5%

I am going to make another batch tomorrow :)

It truly smells like heaven in here.

I'm so excited it worked! I will try and post the cut in the comments.

I cut my third batch tonight. One thing I found very interesting is the recipe stayed the same (except fragrance oil) but I got a completely different color to my second batch. This one is a lot lighter. Process wise, this time, I put cardboard on top of my mold, wrapped it in a towel, and put it in a small ice chest for almost 48 hours before I cut it into bars. You can see the difference between the bars from the two batches in the third picture. The one on the right has been curing for a while now, though.

This soap is making me sad. Yesterday it was brightly colored. Today, it's starting to discolor. I even picked a scent i was CERTAIN had no vanilla and that I'd been sitting on and loving for years, not sure how I wanted to use it.

I guess if it continues to darken, it'll be only a personal batch. Probably will make another just as a contingency plan

I used lard, apricot oil, beer, (all used before), and Cameo Sachet from Studio Fragrance. I still like their products and I will continue to recommend them but dang I'm sad about this

Hi, I've made liquid soap from tallow for the first time. It's been 20 hours in the slow cooker and the paste is still an applesauce consistency and not a thick, translucent gel. The clarity test turns out cloudy. The pH is at 10. Did I do something wrong? Do I keep cooking it? I made coconut/olive oil liquid soap before and it got to the gel phase rather quickly.

My recipe: 600g tallow, 45g castor oil, 140g 90% KOH, 100g glycerin, 250g water (93% tallow, 7% castor oil, 1% SF, 2.5:1 water:lye ratio)