Here is a great blog article on lye in soaps from the Sirona Springs Blog.  It's a really good read!

“Is there lye in your soap?”

So, I tried melt and pour soap into a travel tube.  It really looks like a little deoderant.  I think it's a little tricky as a soap because it's so small.  I can rub it onto my palm, but I can't get it to lather very well.  Too small of a surface area I think; it would probably work better in a larger tube, more surface area to work with.  But if I need some emergency hand soap I'll have it!

I made some lip balm using extra virgin coconut oil.  Extra virgin coconut oil is good/tasty to cook with, so I hear.  It still smells like coconut.  In soaping I use coconut oil that has been processed so it doesn't smell like coconut anymore. The lip balm has a coconutty beeswaxy smell.  Kinda interesting.  I also got some oval shaped lip balm tubes to try out.  Interesting.  I'm used to the round one so the oval feels a little weird in the hand, but it's an interesting change. 

I've made some solid lotion in larger twist up tubes that I got.  I've been playing around with the percentage of oils and beeswax.  Oh, I also just got some candellila and carnauba waxes.  That way if I wanted to make vegan lip balm or solid lotion/massage bars I can use them instead of the beeswax.  I was also thinking that they may have less of a smell that will interfere with the extra virgin coconut oil in lip balms and other fragrances.

I also got some rendered tallow.  So last weekend I made some soap using it.  Batches at 70%, 50%, and 25% just like with my lard soap batches.  The lard soaps are in the queue to be tested.  I'm getting to the end of my tester batches, well, I've just added the tallow soaps to that list haven't I.  I am using my shower door railing as my soap rack.  It's quite an impressive railing of soap.  I'll have to post a photo when I get around to taking one. 

Now that summer is coming I'm going to have to think about how to store my oils and butters.  They are in plastic bags in cardboard boxes in the garage.  They will melt in the heat.  Not that it gets all that hot around here, but the coconut oil will melt at 76 degrees.  Some of the other solid oils will probably get runny as well.  Wouldn't want that mess even in the garage.  I'd store them in the fridge, but I don't have that much room in there.  The very lest I'll probably need to move them out of the cardboard box to plastic box, in case there is a melt down!  The oils and butters will be perfectly find and still be usable for soaping, but I don't want a mess.  Once I put them into plastic bins I might put them in the basement, it might be cooler there, and hopefully the plastic would keep away any bugs and critters.  It's all dirt in the basement so that's why I haven't put anything there. 

I have read about people using MP soap and putting them into tubes like large lip balm tubes or deoderant type tube.  You don't need a soap dish.  Just use and put the cap back on when you're done, no mess of a liquid soap and you can fly with it no problem.  Good for camping and situations when you need soap and there isn't any, or you just want your own soap.  I think it would work better not as a bathing soap, but as an emergency hand soap.  Only yesterday I was at a restaurant and their bathroom was out of soap.  Hmmmm… what a great time for a small travel soap in a tube.  I just received an order of solid lotion tubes and small deoderant tubes.  I think I might try this. 

So, I've been testing out my different soaps.  Hmmm…  you know I don't feel too much difference in any of them.  So far they all seem to lather pretty well and I don't feel too much difference in their conditioning properties.  But then I don't have particularly dry skin.  I don't know what I was really expecting, I mean soap is a wash off product.  But I was hoping that I would feel more of a difference between the soap recipes.  I'm still in the very beginning of the soap testing so I have many more to test out.  If I don't feel too much difference then I suppose that I can go with the most simple of recipes.  I'm kind of feeling bound right now.  I know I shouldn't make any more soap until I've determined the best recipes, but I have all these colorants and fragrances just waiting to be used.  It's kind of hard to ignore them.  I have been dabbling with some melt and pour to satisfy the soaper in me, but it's not the same.  Melt and pour is a different animal, I can still use colorants and fragrances and do things I can't do with cold process soapmaking, but the outcomes are totally different.  Not better or worse, just different.

Ok, so I think it was wishful thinking about the lye liquid maybe reabsorbing.  I finally gave in tonight and rebatched it in the slow cooker.  It's in some square shaped silicone molds cooling.  I think I added too much water to the rebatch though.  It's a little too mushy.  That means it will take longer to come out of the mold because it has to dry out more.   I did put a small amount of the original batch into star shaped ice cube molds that did not gel.  I popped them out of their molds today and there doesn't seem to be any weird lye sweat.  I'm hoping they will stay that way.

Here's how cute the little stars are.  I'm not sure what I'll use them for, maybe an embed of some sort in another soap.

So last thursday 4/22/10 I made a 2 lb batch of bastile (90% pomace
oo/10%castor). I wanted to see the difference between gel and non gel so half
of the batch I put into the oven to make sure it gelled and the other half I
put into the freezer for 12 hours then refridgerator for 12 hours then out on the counter. Both batches turned out soft I unmolded both on saturday at 48
hours.  The non-gelled I had to be really careful with since it was super soft.
Anyway, I went to cut the gelled one today (which turned out just fine) and when
I looked at the non-gelled loaf it was sweating like crazy. Touched it and
licked my finger and got zapped. The liquid is beaded up on all sides and top
and dribbling down the side. This must have happened with in the last 24
hours. I have little experience with non-gelling soaps, why would the lye start
to sweat out of the soap at 3-4 days (the gelled soap looks fine)? I don't know. 

I took a photo today and the liquid is like a little stream coming off of the loaf.  I think I'll just leave it alone for a few more days and see what happens.

A couple of days ago I made soap with Mango Butter.  It's supposed to be really nice for the skin.  I colored it a nice orange-yellow color and fragranced it with Mango Papaya FO and a little bit of Litsea cubeba EO (nice lemony scent).  I put them into heart shaped silicone muffin molds with a little extra going into star shaped ice cube molds.  The mixture got a little too thick so I had to glop them into the molds.  I unmolded them yesterday.  They popped out of the molds easily – yay for silicone and flexible rubber.  There are some little air pockets because I couldn't bang out all of the air as the batter glopped into the molds.  They were still a little soft, I probably should have waited longer….  Anyhoo, they smell great! Look nice.

So, I have started testing my various recipes!  My first one is my original recipe.  My plan is to use each one for 3 showers then move on to the next one.  I'll see if there is any major difference in feel, lather, conditioning between the recipes.  Let the games begin!

So, I've checked my rebatched confetti soap…  Not sure if I like the fragrance.  The peppermint that I got from it seems to be fading.  Which leaves… I don't know what.  After all it was a mix of a bunch of different fragranced soap trimmings.  I definitely get 'soap' smell, but I don't know if I really like it.  So not only is it not that great looking but doesn't smell that great either.  Well, I'll let it do it's curing and see if the fragrance changes any more.  I'd hate to have to rebatch a rebatch.  But during a rebatch I can add some more fragrance.  I think also the slow cooker maybe getting the soap too hot, even on low, and the soap is overheating which is giving it an overcooked soap smell.  I might have to dump this soap in the end.  Sigh… 

It's going to take me some time before I collect more soap shavings.  Maybe I'll just have to make a batch of unfragranced soap that I divide up into different colors and then make the confetti shreddings on purpose.  I'll have to remember next time that I do confetti soap to not put as much in as I did last time.  It was way too overloaded with trimmings. 

I experimented with packaging today on some of the older soaps from the beginning of the year.  I included the name of the soap which is usually the fragrance name and some sort of packaging.  The newer soaps still need to cure more before packaging.

* Cigar bands of corrugated paper and another thinner band around that with the fragrance and ingredients. As the soap continues to shrink the bands will loosen, so may need to readjust later
* Sheer ivory organza bag that included a paper with info
* Clear cellophane wrapped package style with info paper.  The cello won't let the soap breath and doesn't let the fragrance out too much so it may be more difficult to really smell the soap
* Shrink wrapped with both ends open, may need to re-heat gun if soap shrinks more
* “Blanket wrapped” soap with paper
* The round soaps I used coffee filters that I pulled up around the soap and secured the ends with a round info sticker

I tried to use the filters with the oval soaps, but I'm not sure if I like the look as much as with the circular soaps. 

The odd shaped soaps like the stars or the eye shaped soaps I put them into organza bags.  That seemed to work with those, but I've heard that as the soaps move around in the bag the soap particulates gum up the inside of the bag and make it mucky looking. 

I'll have to decide what packaging I like best.