My Soap Making Adventure

That recipe is similar to the ones I have seen on the internet except for the alcohol which is usually a neutral spirit. I'm glad you started experimenting, I am about to start making my own aftershave as well.

Today is another bath soap recipe, this time a veggie bath soap... lots of experimentation.

rockclimber said:

That recipe is similar to the ones I have seen on the internet except for the alcohol which is usually a neutral spirit. I'm glad you started experimenting, I am about to start making my own aftershave as well.

Today is another bath soap recipe, this time a veggie bath soap... lots of experimentation.
View attachment 662042

View attachment 662044

Click to expand...

Second version I made was a lot better just used pine, lavender, cedar wood, sage, and a ton of eucalyptus and peppermint.

How did your first Vegan batch go?

It's still cooking but it looks good, I will know in a week if it turned out good or not. The recipe is a well known one from the internet so I assume it will be similar to soaps my wife has purchased in the past. The tallow bath soap turned out amazing but could have used more bubbles, next time I will put sugar in the recipe and tweak the ingredients. Practice makes perfect. All the soaps are usable at least with the internet recipes being better and cheaper than the Wal-Mart soap I had been buying. I always loved artisan soaps but the price was prohibitive when I was younger, this is less than 50¢ an ounce!

What in the world are you going to do with all that soap? lol.

That's the problem with soap making as a hobby. Smallest recipes are generally at least a pound of oils. Makes 4-6 bars of soap. That's like a year's worth, and that's on the first trial batch!

kingfisher said:

What in the world are you going to do with all that soap? lol.

That's the problem with soap making as a hobby. Smallest recipes are generally at least a pound of oils. Makes 4-6 bars of soap. That's like a year's worth, and that's on the first trial batch!

Click to expand...

There's always bath soap duty.

dabrock said:

There's always bath soap duty.

Click to expand...

Exactly... I recently found out that shave soap was just really expensive bath soap that has very small bubbles and is super moisturizing. If you look at the bath soap the artisans here have and compare the ingredients to their shave soap you will find that (the high end artisan soaps at least) have very similar ingredients.

As far as what to do with it all... I am waiting for my next 4 batches of soap to be made, cured, packaged and boxed up before I PIF to a bunch of friends online and in my personal life. Then I can start the whole process again!

I remember reading that Williams used to be recommended by doctors for patients who had dry skin conditions.

rockclimber said:

As far as what to do with it all... I am waiting for my next 4 batches of soap to be made, cured, packaged and boxed up before I PIF to a bunch of friends online and in my personal life. Then I can start the whole process again!

Click to expand...

i was going to say, if you have wet shavers at your work you could probably do some pretty cool gift packages with all that soap you've finished. Very cool!

The Fresh Bamboo scent is out of this world amazing! The veggie bath soap recipe is perfect, I doubt I will be tweaking it any. I did add some sugar to help it bubble and WOW that really works. Clearly I need to keep finding recipes off the internet, this batch has been a homerun!

I wish these soap photos were scratch 'n' sniff.

My next recipe will be a copy of this one, it was specifically requested from the wife:


Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Water, Fragrance, Glycerin, Palm Acid, Sodium Thiosulfate, Peg/Ppg-20/6 Dimethicone, Sodium Chloride, Calcium Sodium Borosilicate, Palm Kernel Acid Tetrasodium Edta

rockclimber said:

The Fresh Bamboo scent is out of this world amazing! The veggie bath soap recipe is perfect, I doubt I will be tweaking it any. I did add some sugar to help it bubble and WOW that really works. Clearly I need to keep finding recipes off the internet, this batch has been a homerun!

Click to expand...

Excellent! Sounds like you have really made fast strides in this hobby!

dabrock said:

Excellent! Sounds like you have really made fast strides in this hobby!

Click to expand...

+1 You definitely sounds like you're having a great deal of fun making soap!

Well, all the bath soaps were resounding successes thanks to the internet and regulations requiring all soap makers to list their ingredients in numerical order. While not original, the final soap is quite good. I am going back to shave soap for a while and was thinking about a ceramic or wood brain bowl for my next batch. Something like these 4" bowls looks nice:

Williams Sonoma has some pretty awesome 4" bowls that would be perfect as brain bowls and then repurposed as puck bowls later in life. Ridges for grip as well.

rockclimber said:

Well, all the bath soaps were resounding successes thanks to the internet and regulations requiring all soap makers to list their ingredients in numerical order. While not original, the final soap is quite good. I am going back to shave soap for a while and was thinking about a ceramic or wood brain bowl for my next batch. Something like these 4" bowls looks nice:

Click to expand...

Actually, the F.D.A. does not govern regular soap. If you put a descriptive in front of it like "moisturizing soap" or "shaving soap" then it is governed by the F.D.A. and the soapmaker is required to list the ingredients in order from largest to smallest ending at the 1% mark and at that point the soapmaker can list ingredients in whatever order they wish from the 1% point down! Many soapmakers do follow the listing procedures even though it is not required for plain soap and whether is handmade or manufactured!

MilfordNJGuy said:

Actually, the F.D.A. does not govern regular soap. If you put a descriptive in front of it like "moisturizing soap" or "shaving soap" then it is governed by the F.D.A. and the soapmaker is required to list the ingredients in order from largest to smallest ending at the 1% mark and at that point the soapmaker can list ingredients in whatever order they wish from the 1% point down! Many soapmakers do follow the listing procedures even though it is not required for plain soap and whether is handmade or manufactured!

Click to expand...

Thanks David! That is actually very useful information. There have been many discussions about this very topic and I think you put it very simply and plainly.

Shave Soap Tallow v1.2
V1.1 didn't have enough cleaning and at 70% KOH was a little too soft, I am going back to 60/40. Also added coconut oil to help with lathering in hard water and to add cleaning properties. In reintroducing lanolin and adding clay.

NaOH 2.20 x .40 = 0.88oz
KOH 3.43 x .60 = 2.058oz

Let the butters melt while weighing the oils and mixing clay in for a better finished consistency (according to online articles)




Now I just need to whisk the clay and oil mixture like mad for a few minutes and add them to the melted butters.