Home Made Soap - cast your vote!

From my research, you seem pretty much spot on. However, I do not know about you, but i put extra glycerine in my soaps, so I do not really know why I would want to remove it after? Maybe it's the removal of the glycerine that makes the soap harder?

I'm beginning to thin that maybe my process won't be that similar to the classic 'triple milling' that we all know about. But its all about experimenting, so we will see.

I'll be happy if the soap is cosmetically more appealing, with less of a flecked look to it and more of a smooth, single tone colour. I'd like to to also have no air bubbles too. I haven't used your hard soaps Sharon, but do you find you get lots of air bubbles in them when they set? (hope you don't mind me asking)

Hardness and extra longevity would be nice, but at what extent would it sacrifice ease of creating lather? lots more experiments are needed me thinks. Cant wait.
 
I might occasionally get a small air bubble or two. And longevity seems pretty good, from what I hear. It's a PIA to make, cooling as much as possible, then adding the scent, then mixing fast and pouring fast. A very short window.
I don't know why they extract the glycerine; it's said that it's a valuable by product; but it's pretty cheap to buy. So whether removing it improves lathering, I don't know. I would presume that leaving the glycerine in would help the soap to be less drying.
 
Just in case you hadn't tried it, your Bay Rum soap melts in the microwave successfully - that is it doesn't break down and lathers just as well afterwards.
 
soapalchemist said:
I might occasionally get a small air bubble or two. And longevity seems pretty good, from what I hear...
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Hey Sharon, I can confirm the longevity of your soaps. I have both hard and soft soaps of yours which are over two years old now and they look and perform just as well as the day I got them. :thumbs_up:
 
Sharon, that is interesting. I'm the same, from the moment it comes off the heat to getting it in the mould is extremely frantic!

I agree with you on the glycerine aspect too - from my research and experiments it makes the lather more suitable for shaving. Therefore, the only thing I can think of is that what with it being a natural by-product of the milling process, it is already sitting there, so why not sell it? Maybe that one of the reasons why a lot of commercial shaving soaps that had a good reputation are now not as favoured?
 
Frantic is certainly the word. Your equipment would certainly be handy for those times when you leave it just a moment too long and find it turning to solid clumps as you 'pour'. I haven't read the whole thread; does your equipment just compress? Or something else?
 
it certainly could do! depending on the tooling used, it can either be used to mash the soap down to a fairly small thickness (0.3mm right now, trials to go smaller will be coming soon), or compress it into the moulds to try and push out air bubbles and make the soap as dense as possible. The way i envisage it working is to do three passes of the mashing and then one pass to fully compress the soap into a final bar.

2nd trial happened today (not the one I said would happen before though, as I found out today that I have to buy/make some more parts before that takes place) I wanted to see if cured soap will go through it. Took a bar of my Bay rum soap I sent out to the gents on here, and it went through really easily! Chuffed is an understatement! I can control the thickness that i mash the soap to down to 26 microns (0.026 of a mm) so that will make an interesting trial (just need to see if the soap will actually go through the machine when set on that thickness). Even if it doesn't go through at that tiny size or if it does but doesn't make much of a difference, 0.3 mm still seems to produce a nice, even and smooth consistency of soap (before the process, the soap has streaks and holes, as mentioned). It also shrinks in weird ways a hell of a lot when solidifying, which leads to wastage and potentially inaccurate portion control. Seeing as I can process the soap after curing, I can remove all wastage due to this shrinkage.

Sorry to ramble on, but once I start, the ideas and opinions don't seem to want to stop!
 
Mine can shrink with a slight hollow in the middle of each round, I don't see it as a problem. I like to think it's kindof inviting.....
When you have done what you do, is the soap shiny? We all love the shiny. :)
 
fair enough, but there may be a difference in the way we manufacture our round soaps. do you pour each one individually? I make them as a large log and cut them. the shrinkage in the middle is quite large, enough to cause a fair amount of waste. ( I used to get in trouble from my bosses when i was in the manufacturing business if scrap was more than 0.5%, and old habits die hard).

I agree that a hollow in the middle of each soap is nice to have at with the brush, which is why I made my soap stamps (just for a laugh of course,) but are domed so that the effectively stamp a slight dish into the soap.

As to the soap being shiny, I haven't actually run the full process from start to finish yet, as it is taking a lot longer to complete this process - I'm just testing small parts of it as I go. I'm expecting it to not be fully working for a while - i have a MSc dissertation to write, as well as job interviews to attend all over the country, and of course the social life that comes with being a student! Will let you know when it happens!
 
James,

I'm sure I read that one of the things about milling was that you could add fragrance later in the process and (maybe) could get stronger fragrances that way. I'm just curious as tto whether you'll be doing that or adding the fragrance at the same point.

I'm wondering how you'd add fragrance to a harder soap. I guess it's at the point where it's been flaked & dried, then gets pressed.
 
Celtic67 said:
James,

I'm sure I read that one of the things about milling was that you could add fragrance later in the process and (maybe) could get stronger fragrances that way. I'm just curious as tto whether you'll be doing that or adding the fragrance at the same point.

I'm wondering how you'd add fragrance to a harder soap. I guess it's at the point where it's been flaked & dried, then gets pressed.
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Yes, that is right. This is something I could do, but I am not quite sure how it means you can get away with using less fragrance. If I could, it would be nice, as fragrances for me are by far and away the most expensive ingredient. If it is worth keeping the process, then I can look into this a little more.

picked up the materials for the final parts of the machine today, and am about to go into the uni workshop and make them. hopefully the big trial will happen tonight!

Can anyone interested PM me please? You will be getting two small samples, both unscented, one milled and one not, and if you could see if you notice any differences, that would be lovely. Usual bits apply - not vegan or organic, contains lanolin, etc.

Thanks all
 
soapalchemist said:
trench said:
Yes, that is right. This is something I could do, but I am not quite sure how it means you can get away with using less fragrance.
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I always presumed it was because there would be less of an evaporation problem.
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That is the most likely answer, but surely if you let the soap cool before the fragrance flash point then no evaporation should take place anyway? Mind you, if you are working in bigger batches (I assume you work in large batches Sharon, seeing as you sell your soap) maybe it is harder to get all the scent in there, ad mix it together in the small time frame?
 
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