Mixing my own soap

Urban Hermit said:
  • ... unless you don't have a microwave oven.
    • ... like me.[/list:u][/list:u]
      :roll:
Click to expand...


    • I heard that it can be bad for the soap (or if it was the scent, whatever) to use a micro. You could go old school and have a sauce pan with boiling water and put the soap in another, smaller sauce pan or cotainer, and put it ontop over the first sauce pan (without touching the boiling water). This is how you melt chocolate - old school :ugeek:
 
Mikael said:
Urban Hermit said:
  • ... unless you don't have a microwave oven.
    • ... like me.[/list:u][/list:u]
      :roll:
Click to expand...


    • I heard that it can be bad for the soap (or if it was the scent, whatever) to use a micro. You could go old school and have a sauce pan with boiling water and put the soap in another, smaller sauce pan or cotainer, and put it ontop over the first sauce pan (without touching the boiling water). This is how you melt chocolate - old school :ugeek:
Click to expand...


    • Most soaps can be melted one way or another but the hard commercial ones and some of the artisan soaps may look rougher when they've set as moisture will have evaporated and the drier soap has a changed texture. Commercial milled soaps are moulded under pressure.

      The heat does not particularly harm the soap since it gets hot when it's made.

      ETA - but overheating will not be good and may alter the texture (or make loads of bubbles) which is why I'm wary of the microwave.

      However fragrance is usually lost in the heating process, some fragrances being more volatile than others.

      When I'm rebatching soap I make shavings with a cheese parer and put in a jug or basin standing in water in a crockpot/slow cooker on LOW until the soap becomes the consistency of something like codliveroil and malt or lemon curd. The HoneySpice samples I sent out had been rebatched in this way.

      I melt glycerine soap base in the midrowave (bursts of a few seconds) or the crockpot method.
 
Briallen said:
Mikael said:
Urban Hermit said:
  • ... unless you don't have a microwave oven.
    • ... like me.[/list:u][/list:u]
      :roll:
Click to expand...


    • I heard that it can be bad for the soap (or if it was the scent, whatever) to use a micro. You could go old school and have a sauce pan with boiling water and put the soap in another, smaller sauce pan or cotainer, and put it ontop over the first sauce pan (without touching the boiling water). This is how you melt chocolate - old school :ugeek:
Click to expand...


    • Most soaps can be melted one way or another but the hard commercial ones and some of the artisan soaps may look rougher when they've set as moisture will have evaporated and the drier soap has a changed texture. Commercial milled soaps are moulded under pressure.

      The heat does not particularly harm the soap since it gets hot when it's made.

      ETA - but overheating will not be good and may alter the texture (or make loads of bubbles) which is why I'm wary of the microwave.

      However fragrance is usually lost in the heating process, some fragrances being more volatile than others.

      When I'm rebatching soap I make shavings with a cheese parer and put in a jug or basin standing in water in a crockpot/slow cooker on LOW until the soap becomes the consistency of something like codliveroil and malt or lemon curd. The HoneySpice samples I sent out had been rebatched in this way.

      I melt glycerine soap base in the midrowave (bursts of a few seconds) or the crockpot method.
Click to expand...


    • I Use a Bowl on a rack in a saucepan when i make the soap, much more control and no risk of scorching and wrecking the soap...

      just mentioned the Micro as a way to quickly melt the cubes into your favourite dish, my last samples will be sent out in small foil dishes just the right size for swirling your brushes on..... :shave :shave :shave :shave :shave :shave :shave :shave :shave
 
Will be sending out my last samples tomorrow in Lavender.....will send them in foil trays to make testing easier.

I have got some plastic pots to put the soap in, each pot will hold 100g of soap which i think is a fair size ???.....for those that have tested it, if i was to ask a fiver per tub is that too much do ya think ?

The tubs can safely go in the microwave so if people wanted to transfer to a different pot etc then just pop then in for 20 - 30 seconds and pour......no problem

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Right, My last soaps went out today to all testers, they are little cakes in foil dishes so should be easier to use, if you want to melt them in the microwave though, please take the foil tray off first !

The recipe has been tweaked to improve the moisturising effect of the soap after use, and I have changed the formula to make it easier to get soap into the brush and far less effort to lather....

The scent was going to be Lavender, but I realised after I was doing it that I didn't have enough lavender left so it is a Lavender lime Hybrid
3/4 lavender 1/4 lime.........smells quite nice actually :D

let me know how you get on, I have tried all ways and formulations to get this far (so much so that I have got about 3 Kilos of all different colour and scent Shaving soap that is now bath soap !) I can't seem to get any better than this so if the consensus is good then I will make it available to whomever wants it.

Fingers crossed

Steve
 
Better late than never I tried mine tonight :D

I'm super impressed with how 20 secs in the microwave makes it melt across the bottom of the pot! So much easier than trying to lather the normal sample sized lump of soap!

I tried the Rose scent tonight, very nice scent, I wouldn't mind it a bit stronger, but I appreciate I'm a but atypical in liking very strongly scented soap. I used the SOC brush tonight (see seperate thread :roll: ) and the lather wasn't outstanding, but I'm more than prepared to blame the brush for that!

Nice soap Steve, I'll look forward to trying the lime in the next couple of days, and the lavender in due course.
 
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