Hello

doesn't sound as good as Englishman in New York, but then I also can't sing...

My name is Sabine and I live in South London. Some people call it Croydon, but as this seems to have an association to Chavs and Kate Moss, I prefer to say South London. 

I have a teenage daughter, a cat, 1 fish tank (down from 4, since I just don't have the time to look after them) and propably several rats nearby - it is London after all....

I got into soap making by accident or through the fault of my boss - whichever way you want to see it. Just before xmas I wanted to get some last minute pressies from L___ and was shocked how much their prices have gone up. Lovely shop, smells divine, but you charge HOW MUCH for a couple of soaps in a fancy wrapper ?

I bought some designer perfume instead, was much cheaper (well Superdrug had a sale and reduced Nina Ricci and Paco Rabanne...). But it got me thinking. Couple that with the fact that my boss insisted on us working a full staff rota over christmas day and boxing day (12 people, 1 phone call all day !) and I was hooked.

I found Millersoap and started reading and yesterday I made my first batch of soap. I am also a member of The Dish Forum, which was very helpful when I was too scared to get started (sorry, it wasn't the lye which scared me, just the whole process) and the folks over there are very friendly, but it is all very american and sometimes that language baffles me just a bit (Tallow = beef dripping ).

Here is a link to my photos of my very first batch of soap:

http://www.pbase.com/madpiano/soap_making

And here is the recipe I used:

Coconut: 255g / 26%
Olive: 350g / 36%
Rapeseed: 95g / 10%
Palm: 250g / 26%

Water: 285g
Lye: 134g

Hardness: 40 - I wanted to achieve the hardness of Imperial Leather soap, is that about right ?
Cleansing: 18
Condition: 50
Bubbly: 18
Creamy: 22
Iodine: 58
INS: 153

Not sure what all these numbers mean, but I tried a sliver of soap today and it lathers up nicely (of course it is very harsh right now...). It smells like soap - no idea why this surprised me so much. But the next purchase is definitley going to be Fragrance. I like my soap smelling nice. L___ watch out, here I come !!!!

Looking around this site and board, I can see there are many links to further addictions (body lotion, bath salts, candles.....) so I expect to stick around for quite some time, hope you don't mind !

Cheers
Sabine

Hello Sabine,

Congratulations on picking up soap-making so quickly (you can post a pick in Soapy Showoffs) - click on the board, then on New Topic. When you're composing the post you'll see a black arrow and Aditional Options, click on that and you can load a pic from your hard drive - or open the pic on flickr and copy the url from the title bar window then click on the url icon in your post window (it's below the S one) and paste your flickr location in the middle.

UK soapers don't often use animal fats in their soap but the US ones seem to quite often (heritage of making soap in the pioneering days probably).

Do stick around, this is a lovely forum.

P.S. Why madpiano?

hello MP, you are welcome, I'm sure you would slip in easily and feel comfortably at home here, once you have met all the soapers. I'm amazed at how quickly you took up soap making and actually made one, a big congratulations to you, now you have inspired me to  make my first attempt.

Good on you and welcome!  I flung myself into things as well, doing a fair bit of research here and there and reading tonnes of posts here, asking questions, getting advice.  Experiment!  You'll be well on your way in no time, so don't be afraid to create and make a few disasters on the way...at least you're giving a go.

Hi MP, a very warm welcome to the forum.  My, you certainly threw yourself in at the deep end.  I am a lotiony potiony person so am not much help on the soap (only mae a few bars out of curiosity  ) but the soapers here really know their stuff (as do many of those new to soaping because they have done so much prior reading - as no doubt you have yourself).

I hope you enjoy it here and it would be great to see a pic of your first soap (plus, you will be able to reflect back on it in the future  )

Welcome again!!   :buttrf:

Hi Sabine
Well done on your first soap!
Using hard oils will give you a hard bar once cured. Coconut, palm, cocoa butter, shea etc. Best advice I can give is to get to know soap calc, highlight individual oils and look at their properties. Then try combining several oils and see how they work together on paper.
The recipe I used when I started which produced good results every time was
Coconut 33%
Olive 48%
Palm 19%

Look forward to seeing your results and chatting some more.

Hello! Welcome to the forum!

As far as all of those figures are concerned, the only one I worry about is the INS value - I believe that it indicates something about the hardness of the soap (although if you have an actual hardness value that is probably more helpful). Apparently the ideal INS value is 160; this should have a good balance of hardness and conditioning. I work this out on my spreadsheet as I am deciding on my recipe; I play around with it until the values please me. My lowest ever soap was 113, and that took forever to harden but was really, really nice a year later (I made it again this year; no idea how it's doing at the moment...).

I would recommend keeping a spreadsheet of all of the soaps you make, along with details of when you made them and how they turned out, plus any issues you had. I find mine really useful. I can e-mail a spreadsheet to you, if you want...

I hope that wasn't too obvious a demonstration of my ignorance about the Numbers that Matter...  :mwaha:

Hi MP

Welcome and I hope you enjoy it here.  Loads to learn and some very knowledgeable people who'll help you out if you get stuck.

Jo

hello from a nother newbie, i too just jumped in and started making soap, I only found this forum after I had made a few batches and I'm already hooked

Look forward to seeing you around

hello & good stead for 2009

Hi Sabine and welcome to the forum!!

Hello All

and many thanks for the warm welcome and many helpful answers. You all must have the patience of a Saint ;-))

I have now made 2 batches of soap. The second one was a combination of Lard. Coconut and Castor Oil, ungelled and with Lavender & Patchouli EO. Smells nice but took a looooong time to harden. I was getting worried I used too much Castor Oil, but looks ok now and makes a nice difference to the previous orange batch (pictures to follow soon, promise)

so, now I have made 2 batches of soap, can I call myself a professional and start selling it big time and roll in the cash   :mwaha:

[joke, of course - I am glad neither of these croaped and I still don't know what I am doing]

The next lot is in planning for tomorrow. If I ever make this a profession I have to stop reading so many online forums and get making more soap, lol.

Tomorrow's batch with be several experiments thrown into one - bad Idea, I know, but needs must...

I want to make some Valentine's hearts. I have those Ikea Ice Cube trays and one of them is heart shaped. I have some Patchouli and Vanilla EO left, so that will be the smell. As white is boring and orange looks wrong, I am going to make an experiment with Red Food Colouring. My local corner shop sells it in powder form for 60p. It contains Sodium Chloride, E124 and E102. Recommendation from a mum - if you have toddlers, NEVER use this stuff in food. But as toddlers are allergic to soap in general, I should be ok. And anyways, the soap is for me and my BF. No toddlers (yet).

After reading and enquiring on another board (yes people were wondering about my sanity when mentioning that I am using food dye in soap), I came to the conclusion to make this my first venture into CPHP soap. This will also mean I can use Vanilla as a smell on it's own (the BF hates Patchouli). As Valentines Day is now less than 4 weeks away, I will have to anyway, to make the soap ready to use. But apparently if I add the Food Colour after the cooking process together with the Vanilla Oil, I have a chance that it will be red and stay red....

Can I use my normal CP recipe for CPHP soap and keep some oil back for SF and the food colour ?

I'm going to copy this into Soapmakers Discussion (oneway or another).

Welcome Sabine, it sounds like you are well on your way!! Congratulations 

Hello

my little detour into HP soap and using food colours went well (have since found out that my food colour also has a CI number and is used in cosmetics). I am in a divided mind about HP soap. It's fast, which is great, as I am very impatient, but it also makes it very hard to get soap into small molds (Ikea Ice cube trays) and my little Valentines Herats look decidedly rough.

I filled the rest of the soap into a Pringles Tube and that came out really well, although some airbubbles are there.

I really need to take some pics soon and upload them....

I made some more soap today, Oven HP again, as I really wanted to know how this one turnes out. I call it my "credit Crunch Soap". I collected all the drippings from my George Forman Grill for 1 month and made soap from that today. I am suprised how nice it smells, no fragrance used in this soap. It was a very small batch (244g of Oils, mix of Lard and Beef drippings) and apart from not being able to use the stick blender as the amount was too small, it was really easy to do. I washed the oil in hot water and let it cool outside, then just remelted the clean fat (could have probably done with a second wash) added lye and water, mix to trace (took forever and a day) and popped it into the oven. I used a spreadable butter dish as a mold, should make 2 bars.

Hardly any clean up and it is setting nicely. I am really starting to consider single oil soaps for the future, so much less fussing about...I am following the single-oil soap thread closely. Can't wait for the results.

But Credit Crunch Soap cost me about 1p to make and I am already starting to collect fat again, lol. I doubt I can get this certified, but it should be fine for home use.

so...pics to follow - have good fun making all the goodies and may the soap gremlins stay away

Cheers
Sabine