Soap (not just for Thingmas!) WITH PIC.

n · Soap (not just for Thingmas!) WITH PIC.

Okay, here we are.

Best Book: Melinda Coss. The Handmade Soap Book £6.75 paperback on amazon.
It does turn up a lot on ebay because it was a Book People title, you know the people who sell books at your workplace. it always goes for about £5 plus P&P so TBH, I would get it new!

You also need thick rubber gloves, not the flimsy kind, sugar thermometers (2 is better than one) and this is not a guessable activity, you really need them.

Old Clothes (very).

Mask (the caustic makes fumes.)

Dedicated stirring things. I use wooden handled rubber spatulas (cheap ones) and they are marked SOAP with marker pen on the handle.

For moulds I use the small plastic storage boxes you get in IKEA. They come as a set with one 12 x 8 ish one two middle sized and four small. If you don't mind cutting it yourself a large plastic box is fine, but the small ones which are about 4 x 2 are really good for bloke-ish soap lumps.

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GrannySmith

Brillent, thank you very much for this Very Happy

GrannySmith

Another question, do you have to wiggle the soap out of the plastic, when it has set or does it just plop out ? Very Happy

n

If you wait until 24 hours until it's both cold and solid, it will come out, perhaps with a knife run around the edge... or the other thing to try is putting it in the freezer ( after the 24 hours) just for half an hour. The coldness seems to help it to come out with a bit of wiggle of the plastic box.

You don't want to fill the boxes, that would make bricks which are too big to hold, I think mine are about half-full. I'll go and see if I can get some out to take photos of.

BTW, there are recipes on the web, but for me, if you are going to do this, you really do need the book.

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n

Here you go.

The brown one at the front is coffee grounds soap, slightly gritty for exfoliating. This was before I learned the freezer trick so it looks like gingerbread where the tin hasn't been greased properly.

The orangey one is called St Clements and is my favourite. Good hard soap which doesn't go slimy and gives good bubbles.

The green one is called Scrub-a-Dub and has green cosmetic clay added to draw grease and grime out of the skin - I made it for adolescent faces!

I made all of these last year and they are all I have left, so I do need to make more. The green one is the one I made in the IKEA boxes, the others are hand cut. But the hand cut ones have a certain charm too.

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Piglottie

St Clements is one of my favourites too.

I dont make soap anymore as there is only MrP and I and we ended up with so much Smile

, but I used to use the plastic trays that come as packaging on meat/veg stuff like that. You dont really get an even finish, but you can use a cheese grater (like the ones for Edam) to smooth it out. I also used to use the freezer trick, although the soap gurus I know dont advise it as they say it negatively affects the soap (although I never really could tell).

I used my normal kitchen utensils whenever I made soap but just made sure I washed everything thoroughly with some vinegar in the washing up water. Never had a problem.

Its a great hobby; very addictive and quite magical, like alchemy Smile

If anyone wants a reasonably priced supplier of good quality essential oils to use in soapmaking, I used to buy all my oils from seller holmes_mill http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Spirit-o...ageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm

Happy Soapmaking! Smile

Blossom

Could you use those funky shaped ice cube trays you get in ikea the rubbery ones...for heart/cross etc shaped ice cubes???! Smile

Piglottie

I dont see why not Blossom! Would make nice little guest soaps too Smile

n

I think it would work too, but perhaps not the crosses, I wonder if they'd be a) a bit uncomfortable to actually use and prone to breaking when the soap got wet after a few uses and b) a bit tricky to get the soap out of. It's firm when it's set after 24 hours, but not actually hard IYKWIM.
Nice size for guest soaps though.

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Blossom

Oooh I hadn't thought about that! Laughing

The heart ones would be nice and they do little donut shaped ones as well! Smile

I think they'd be easy to get the soap out of as they are like the silicone baking trays...all bendy! Smile

If anyone should happen to want any...I'll be going to Ikea sometime soon...the Nottingham one is only half an hour away from me! Smile

These are them here:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/20099892
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00099888

n

The hearts look the best. I think the others would be a bit angular to use as a soap. Must have a look next time I'm going past our IKEA here.

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