LibertiORDeth
Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2007
- Messages
- 2,992
Check out my avatar ya'll.
I put up my current avatar a few days ago and it's only my second one here. First person who guesses what it's from gets a virtual chocolate chip cookie.
Are you some kind of yongrel groupie? This is the second copycat of a yongrel thread you've done.![]()
I put up my current avatar a few days ago and it's only my second one here. First person who guesses what it's from gets a virtual chocolate chip cookie.
NEPA - I like yours!
Hey soapmistress, I'm curious as I've made soap before myself--and actually taught other people the basics of it. What's the deal with your "thing" with soap?
Do you make specialized stuff or anything? Just really curious. Oh, and what do you use for your source of lye? (Forgive my ignorance, I used straight sodium hydroxide as it was done in a chem lab--but that made for a pretty harsh soap if you don't process it enough.)
I just started making my own about 9 years ago cause I was spending WAY too much money at Bath & Body WorksOne of my friends said "Hey if you made beer you would be a brewmaster so that must make you a soapmistress" and it stuck. I use straight sodium hydroxide and do cold process method but most of mine go through a hot gel stage cause I'm too impatient to cool everything down much (I like it that way though cause it doesn't have to cure forever). I use a calculator to figure the saponification values of the different oils so that I can put an extra 5% oils to make sure it's not lye-heavy. My next batch is going to be a black pine-tar soap that is supposedly a old-timey remedy for eczema and acne. I cracked open the tin of pine tar I bought and it smells godawful - like Pine Sol mixed with Beef Jerky. Blech!
Very cool. I make a lot of my own concoctions as well, but, since I'm lazy about making soap--I usually just get a very mild liquid soap and add strange things to it in order to make it to spec.
You should make a YouTube video of one of your specialties!
Speaking of liquid soap, where in the world do people get potassium hydroxide? Is there any real-world over the counter source for this? I'm not really into ordering by mail and paying hazmat fees for stuff. Any ideas?