making soap

[Green Aura]

No, Jon, I always use sodium hydroxide so weigh everything exactly, but that was for selling!

Here's a tutorial that's pretty much how I do it.
http://www.greatcakessoapworks.com/hand ... microwave/

And as a quick aside have you thought of using the spent wood ash to make toothpaste? I've not tried it, although I'd like to. The trouble is we can't get pure wood ash from anywhere - we burn coal as well as wood.
http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/too ... /index.htm

[demi]

it also needs to be hard wood ash you use to make the lye, mixed with rain water or distilled water.

that's interesting about the toothpaste! Iv never even considered it possible to make you own toothpaste!

although this website is FULL of grammatical mistakes which makes me doubt the intelligence of the author who evidently doesn't know how to use the spelling and grammar check on the computer!

i dont even understand this first sentence: 'You're teeth look good for you're on ' ?????


i think i'll stick to 'Colgate Whitening'

[Green Aura]

although this website is FULL of grammatical mistakes which makes me doubt the intelligence of the author who evidently doesn't know how to uses the spelling and grammar check on the computer!

[the.fee.fairy]

I've seen toothpaste soap online. Looks like it's made like normal hard soap with added EOs.

[demi]

whats EO's ?

makes me think essential oils, but would you put that in toothpaste??

i know you can just use bicarbonate of soda to brush your teeth. it whitens them, but i suspect it could wear away your enamel over time as its abrasive. it also tastes all salty which isnt pleasant. i brush my teeth with bicarb mixed with a little toothpaste to whiten my teeth occasionally. mixing it with the toothpaste disguises the saltiness a little which makes it less yucky

[The Riff-Raff Element]

whats EO's ?

makes me think essential oils, but would you put that in toothpaste??

i know you can just use bicarbonate of soda to brush your teeth. it whitens them, but i suspect it could wear away your enamel over time as its abrasive. it also tastes all salty which isnt pleasant. i brush my teeth with bicarb mixed with a little toothpaste to whiten my teeth occasionally. mixing it with the toothpaste disguises the saltiness a little which makes it less yucky

I really wouldn't worry unduly about the abrassive nature of bicarb - it's nothing compared to the silca found in toothpaste... Bicarb's real benefit is that it nuetralises the acids in the mouth attacking the teeth and raises the pH making the mouth a great deal less attractive for the bacteria that make the acid in the first place. Useful stuff.

[the.fee.fairy]

EOs are Essential Oils.

I think they use mint and some other oils. I can't remember. I know there's a seller on Etsy. I'm going to see if i can order some when I get back to the UK. I don't trust the postal service to get stuff here safely...

[Poochy Pie]

Hey

I am really interested in makng soap and have come across a soap recipe book with some great different styles of soap. However, where is the best place to buy the variety of ingredients such as coconut oil, beeswax, cocoa butter, grapefruit seed extract and some weird essential oils! I am hoping to make the soap cheaply but some of the recipes seem to have alot of ingredients that soun expensive.......

Thanks

Poochie

[Green Aura]

There are loads of suppliers, pp, all pretty much of a muchness. Googling soap making supplies (UK) brought up and I've bought from most on the first page with no problems.

For soap-making you only really need fairly cheap essential oils, not therapeutic grade, so the ones sold by these sites should be fine. I'm not sure what weird oils you're talking about

On the soap making course I did a few years ago we just used vegetable oils - sunflower, olive pomace, corn oil etc from the supermarket. If you've never made soap before I'd start with something cheap and cheerful, like a castile soap with lavender. You can get Olive pomace from A$da for about £6-7. There's no point in forking out a fortune for specialist oils until you know what you're doing.

And make sure you use a proper lye calculator - I personally wouldn't just use measures out of a book without checking them out. Mountain sage do a very good calculator.

[frozenthunderbolt]

There are loads of suppliers, pp, all pretty much of a muchness. Googling soap making supplies (UK) brought up and I've bought from most on the first page with no problems.

For soap-making you only really need fairly cheap essential oils, not therapeutic grade, so the ones sold by these sites should be fine. I'm not sure what weird oils you're talking about

On the soap making course I did a few years ago we just used vegetable oils - sunflower, olive pomace, corn oil etc from the supermarket. If you've never made soap before I'd start with something cheap and cheerful, like a castile soap with lavender. You can get Olive pomace from A$da for about £6-7. There's no point in forking out a fortune for specialist oils until you know what you're doing.

And make sure you use a proper lye calculator - I personally wouldn't just use measures out of a book without checking them out. Mountain sage do a very good calculator.

1+ on the mountain sage calculator
A note on the oils, though you may not need the most expensive EO's make sure they are marked "Essential oils" NOT scented oils - these may be synthetics with dubious properties in relation to skin.

[Poochy Pie]

Thanks for the replies - yes as mentioned i will start with something simple and if works then will progress to ones that sound good enough to eat!!!!!

[the.fee.fairy]

personally, I like fresholi.co.uk for soap ingredients. Helen, who runs the site is a natural beauty person (can't remember the proper term). She's really helpful and lovely as well