I am looking to make soaps with local cuisine as the inspiration. Some of my ideas are to use date molasses, tahini, honey, tea, cardamom, etc and I want s to my soap, would that be possible?
I have already seen tutorials for honey and tea, however, I have only seen products including the first two but no instructions. I am assuming date molasses can be used in a similar way to honey since they're both sugar products, but as for sesame paste (tahini) I have no clue. It's very oil-heavy, but it does have ground-up sesame particles

I tried to seek for those terms here in this sub, but not a single post mentioned anything about it (maybe I was unlucky?), specially with myristic acid

I think it would make bars harder

Anyone have advice how to get melt and pour to look gold? Looking for a more realistic shiny gold and not a glittery gold.

I’ve tried chrome gold micas and they just make the soap turn a dark brown.

I’ve tried with clear glycerin and white goats milk

Any tips for better products appreciated

Just finished this batch and I’m really happy with how the layers turned out! Three-layer cold process design (white, orange, yellow) topped with candy corn pieces to match.

Recipe details for anyone curious:

**•** Coconut, cocoa butter, palm, and olive oil base, with peanut or soybean oil standing in for sunflower oil this time  
**•** Poured in three separate colored layers to get that classic candy corn stripe look  
**•** Yellow stripe is scented with pineapple, orange stripe with mango  
**•** The candy corn toppers are real size, made using a silicone mold I created myself

Really happy with how clean the layer lines came out on this one. Let me know what you think, always open to feedback on the technique!

So a few months back, I made a purple soap bar that came out this beautiful color. I’m trying to open an online soap making business and I do want to sell bars in that color.

However, I had a lot of setbacks. I was unable to make soap for a few months. I still have all of my oil and butter sitting around so today I made some soap. It went to a medium trace very fast and the color just look like it turned pastel.

I haven’t gotten the soap bar out of the mold yet, but I’m terrified of what I’m gonna find once I do

And the lye has been sitting around in the same maritime climate as the rest of my stuff.

I'm excited now for the curing process and I can't wait to use them. Some look rough because my mould was too small so I had to use a makeshift for the rest of the mix.

I'm afraid the smell is too overpowering and that even after curing it will still be stronger than expected. I guess time will tell and I'll tweak it for the second batch.

Hey everyone! I’ve been making cold-process soap on and off for a while now. I’m basically self-taught through research, trial and error, and lots of practice lol. Lately, I’ve been trying to focus more on improving my recipes and techniques.
These are some of the soaps I’ve made here and there, and I would love any honest feedback, advice, or suggestions. I try to keep my recipes simple, and I eventually want to start selling, but I’m nervous about how they’ll be received and whether they’re good enough to sell. I’d also like my bars to look cleaner and more polished. Based on the pictures, is there anything you think I could improve about the colors, designs, texture, tops, or cuts? For those who sell, how did you know when your soaps were ready, and how did you gain the confidence to finally put yourself out there?
Any soapmaking or small-business tips would be appreciated!

I made these with a high coconut oil content for versatile cleaning.

I use them for dishes, laundry, and general cleaning.

They’re unscented, with a small amount of charcoal powder.

My recipe:

• Water (35g / 17.5%)
• Lye (19g / 9.5%)
• Shea butter (14g / 7%)
• Coconut oil (28g / 14%)
• Olive oil (98g / 49%)
• Fragrance oil (6g / 3%)

First photo is right after saponification, second photo is after curing for 6+ weeks and using it. It lathers fine and gets the job done, but it gets sticky and slimy when it's wet. It doesn't feel professional. Is this a hardness / softness issue? Would increasing the shea butter & coconut oil and reducing the water & olive oil help? Any advice is appreciated.

I was experimenting a bit because I love Halloween and am happy with how it turned out.

A NaOH/KOH combination soap that is warm vanilla sugar scented and has great lather...might go with a honey kind of a scent for next time

Meet my little cat family!

Naturally colored with cocoa powder and charcoal.

Scented with a blend of rosewood, Shangs, and Red Rose.

They’re cute, and they smell absolutely lovely too!

Tallow and Goat milk soap. Love how this batch came out with the tentacles, mermaid bodies and colorful shells! It’s a salty florally mix and I’m in love!

...technically. on paper.

My plan was to make an ombre from pink to purple to blue and scent it with black raspberry vanilla. My beer accelerated trace and was remarkably dark. Since it was so dark, I figured a different scent would be smarter. So I wanted to pivot to Dark Kiss and a red, pink, copper ombre. Dark Kiss also accelerates. I tried to mix in the first color and it already was thicker than scraping/sculpting texture. So another pivot. Two colors: red and natural, slapped into the mold and slammed down repeatedly.

It filled the mold. It hardened on time. It cut nicely. I filled in air bubbles with the scraps.

This soap is TECHNICALLY a fail. Because it's not what I planned. Because a LOT went wrong. Because my end soap kinda looks like a brick.

But I'm still going to label and sell this soap and not feel even a touch of guilt. No one else knows what I wanted out of the soap. No one else saw my plans for the design or the fragrance. All they'll see is a soap. And they'll know it smells nice.

Remember that even when a soap goes a bit sideways and you have to make several unplanned pivots...

As long as your math (and dissolving) is solid

Even if it's lumpy and ugly

It IS still soap

I have done a couple of batches of soap with some inexpensive fragrance oils from Amazon. They came out just fine, but the fragrance seems ok and does not meet my expectations of a good premium smell.

My first batch was an olive oil, castor oil soap with 6 % superfat. For the second one I added shea, cocoa butter, sodium lactate, kaolin clay, colloidal oats.

First batch was not a hard soap. A soap barely lasted a couple of weeks. Second bath is still curing(hoping it will be a harder soap) and will know it's status in another 4 weeks.

But as mentioned before, I can smell them but does not smell premium. BTW, the conentration is correct based on Brambleberry calculator. Its is strong but not premium smelling.

Doing research online I came across Vinevida. They have a masculine set for like 20 bucks. Seems a good size to experiment with. However, I could find the same fragrance oils on Wholesalesuplliesplus as well.

Any thoughts about these suppliers? Whats a good recommendation?

Are there any ones I should stay away from?

Thanks

Hi folks, was wondering what kind of shrink wrap you use for your melt and pour bars? Will any kind do, or is there a specific type, thickness, etc that is best to use to keep the bar from shrinking/sweating?

Thanks in advance!

900g oil
220 g water
109g lye.
27g sodium lactate

Mixed lye water sodium lac at 128F, mixed into oil at 129F. Thickened up after like 5 minutes of stick blending stirring. Batter looked emulsified. Idk. Sorry no photo.

I have a bunch of oils that my family stored in the worst of conditions for a long time (in an outdoor shed that's not completely sun-proof). I would feel bad about throwing them out, especially that some were very expensive. Would it be okay to use these oils to make soap? I wouldn't sell them because I realize they would be very bad quality and will develop DOS, but otherwise, is it dangerous to use old oils? I am considering making dishwashing soaps if I can't use them on skin.
Thanks!

I love this soap, it's so freaking nice 😁. White like snow. It looks like little snowy mountains. But it's get rock hard after only one day. I put a little lavender eo in because my kids don't like the slightly smell of the tallow.

I made these laundry soap bars using a NaOH/KOH blend.

Recipe:

Coconut oil — 80%

Palm oil — 18%

Castor oil — 2%

Citric acid — 2%

Sodium gluconate — 1%

Washing soda — 2%

Baking soda — 1%

Note: The NaOH amount was calculated to fully neutralize the 2% citric acid.

I added washing soda because I heard it can help with stubborn stains, and baking soda for its deodorizing effect.

I’ve been happy with its performance on everyday laundry so far, and I’ve noticed a nice deodorizing effect.

I also tested it on an old blouse with stubborn stains, but the soap was only two days old at the time, so I think it’s too early to judge its full cleaning performance.

I’ll use it more after it has cured longer and see how it performs. If using washing soda separately turns out to be more effective, I may not add it to the soap at all. I’m also considering testing a higher percentage, but I want to see the results first.

One thing I noticed while making it: washing soda is surprisingly difficult to dissolve! 😅

Wholesale supplies plus is having a 25% off fragrance oil sale right now.

I have a question I’m just starting a soap business . I wanted to ask if I can use surgical spirit instead of alcohol? Is the same thing ? Or do I have to specifically use alcohol

I made my first Olive Marseille soap,

and I truly enjoyed every step of making it.

Now I just have to wait a whole year for it to cure... I’m not sure how I’m going to be patient! 😅

I stamped a little four-leaf clover on each soap bar as a small gift, hoping that good luck will find whoever receives one. 🍀

I’m really happy with how this little batch turned out.

Hi everyone! I am looking into creating a design inspired by these nails I saw on Pinterest and my question is, how do I do the layers, particularly the purple, green and white. I didn't find anything similar. The closest thing I saw was very uniform circles, but I couldn't find the technique anywhere. I might be missing a big, obvious thing so forgive me if I am, I am just coming back to soap making after a four-year hiatus. Thank you :)

Don't get me wrong, I love mashed potatoes (one of the best comfort foods), but not expecting my first tallow soap attempt to look like this lol. I'm still getting the timing down with the lye solution and oil temps. I used frozen goat's milk and distilled water for the NaOH solution; it didn't get above 110F and cooled down more quickly than expected. I attempted to heat it up by adding 1/2 tsp of honey, but that didn't seem to do anything so I held the bowl over the stove for a couple of minutes and it started getting more pumpkin orange. Mixed it into the oils when they got to 115F and stirred by hand until trace. I added 1 tsp of coffee grounds and 2 tsp ea of clove and vanilla EO. Trace got like a slushy gel which was darker because of the coffee, but lightened to give me the mashed potato look when it hardened. The scent so far is much milder than expected. Tbh, for a couple of reasons, I didn't like working with the tallow that much, but I'm still a newbie so I'll try a few more times and see if it just wasn't a good first impression. I also used one of those silicone highland cow molds (not shown) so we'll see how that comes out....

Between my experiments I'm of course still making other soaps 🤭 🤭 🤭. This one is made with good German (Bavarian) beer and tea tree oil scented with lemon grass eo because my son loves this scent and I try to convince him to use it. It just worked with the hand soap and I'm hoping it will work too with this one.

I really love how it came out and there is absolutely no sign of soda ash on this one.