Mon, 03/10/2008 - 10:06 — penny
Mike and I cleaned up the garage a bit this weekend, and I now have a dedicated soap making place! All I need is a hot plate and I don't have to go into the kitchen at all to make soap.
I made 2 batches...one coconut, and one mango sorbet. Learning experiences, both.
1) Color is tricky. Blue turns purple, and a nice fushia red turns coral. Perhaps I'm not using the right kind of colorants.
2) The two recipes I made this weekend saponified fast. Almost as fast as the Millenium Falcon. I think I waited too long before adding scents, as scents tend to speed up trace. Next time, I will get it to light trace before adding scents, instead of adding them at full trace. That way it's not so gloopy going into the molds. And has a nice surface texture.
3) I need to buy real molds so I don't have to shuffle juice into my pitchers just so I can have the cartons. I have been very good about not eating lots of Pringles for the cans. I am going to be buying a length of PVC for that instead.
4) Swirling colors in your soap is a pain in the butt if your soap is too thick. And if you don't make enough blue/purple soap, the swirl will not turn out.