Travel soap in a tube

I have read about people using MP soap and putting them into tubes like large lip balm tubes or deoderant type tube.  You don't need a soap dish.  Just use and put the cap back on when you're done, no mess of a liquid soap and you can fly with it no problem.  Good for camping and situations when you need soap and there isn't any, or you just want your own soap.  I think it would work better not as a bathing soap, but as an emergency hand soap.  Only yesterday I was at a restaurant and their bathroom was out of soap.  Hmmmm… what a great time for a small travel soap in a tube.  I just received an order of solid lotion tubes and small deoderant tubes.  I think I might try this. 

Testing the recipes so far

So, I've been testing out my different soaps.  Hmmm…  you know I don't feel too much difference in any of them.  So far they all seem to lather pretty well and I don't feel too much difference in their conditioning properties.  But then I don't have particularly dry skin.  I don't know what I was really expecting, I mean soap is a wash off product.  But I was hoping that I would feel more of a difference between the soap recipes.  I'm still in the very beginning of the soap testing so I have many more to test out.  If I don't feel too much difference then I suppose that I can go with the most simple of recipes.  I'm kind of feeling bound right now.  I know I shouldn't make any more soap until I've determined the best recipes, but I have all these colorants and fragrances just waiting to be used.  It's kind of hard to ignore them.  I have been dabbling with some melt and pour to satisfy the soaper in me, but it's not the same.  Melt and pour is a different animal, I can still use colorants and fragrances and do things I can't do with cold process soapmaking, but the outcomes are totally different.  Not better or worse, just different.

Rebatched bastile

Ok, so I think it was wishful thinking about the lye liquid maybe reabsorbing.  I finally gave in tonight and rebatched it in the slow cooker.  It's in some square shaped silicone molds cooling.  I think I added too much water to the rebatch though.  It's a little too mushy.  That means it will take longer to come out of the mold because it has to dry out more.   I did put a small amount of the original batch into star shaped ice cube molds that did not gel.  I popped them out of their molds today and there doesn't seem to be any weird lye sweat.  I'm hoping they will stay that way.

Here's how cute the little stars are.  I'm not sure what I'll use them for, maybe an embed of some sort in another soap.

Bastile is sweating lye!

So last thursday 4/22/10 I made a 2 lb batch of bastile (90% pomace
oo/10%castor). I wanted to see the difference between gel and non gel so half
of the batch I put into the oven to make sure it gelled and the other half I
put into the freezer for 12 hours then refridgerator for 12 hours then out on the counter. Both batches turned out soft I unmolded both on saturday at 48
hours.  The non-gelled I had to be really careful with since it was super soft.
Anyway, I went to cut the gelled one today (which turned out just fine) and when
I looked at the non-gelled loaf it was sweating like crazy. Touched it and
licked my finger and got zapped. The liquid is beaded up on all sides and top
and dribbling down the side. This must have happened with in the last 24
hours. I have little experience with non-gelling soaps, why would the lye start
to sweat out of the soap at 3-4 days (the gelled soap looks fine)? I don't know. 
I took a photo today and the liquid is like a little stream coming off of the loaf.  I think I'll just leave it alone for a few more days and see what happens.

 

Mango Butter

A couple of days ago I made soap with Mango Butter.  It's supposed to be really nice for the skin.  I colored it a nice orange-yellow color and fragranced it with Mango Papaya FO and a little bit of Litsea cubeba EO (nice lemony scent).  I put them into heart shaped silicone muffin molds with a little extra going into star shaped ice cube molds.  The mixture got a little too thick so I had to glop them into the molds.  I unmolded them yesterday.  They popped out of the molds easily – yay for silicone and flexible rubber.  There are some little air pockets because I couldn't bang out all of the air as the batter glopped into the molds.  They were still a little soft, I probably should have waited longer….  Anyhoo, they smell great! Look nice.

Recipe testing

So, I have started testing my various recipes!  My first one is my original recipe.  My plan is to use each one for 3 showers then move on to the next one.  I'll see if there is any major difference in feel, lather, conditioning between the recipes.  Let the games begin!

Rebatch confetti soap – unsure of fragrance

Posted on April 12, 2010

So, I've checked my rebatched confetti soap…  Not sure if I like the fragrance.  The peppermint that I got from it seems to be fading.  Which leaves… I don't know what.  After all it was a mix of a bunch of different fragranced soap trimmings.  I definitely get 'soap' smell, but I don't know if I really like it.  So not only is it not that great looking but doesn't smell that great either.  Well, I'll let it do it's curing and see if the fragrance changes any more.  I'd hate to have to rebatch a rebatch.  But during a rebatch I can add some more fragrance.  I think also the slow cooker maybe getting the soap too hot, even on low, and the soap is overheating which is giving it an overcooked soap smell.  I might have to dump this soap in the end.  Sigh…

It's going to take me some time before I collect more soap shavings.  Maybe I'll just have to make a batch of unfragranced soap that I divide up into different colors and then make the confetti shreddings on purpose.  I'll have to remember next time that I do confetti soap to not put as much in as I did last time.  It was way too overloaded with trimmings.