Aussie Soapers

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A meeting place for soap making addicts in Australia and New Zealand.


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Missnatty
Lynnz
Ally
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    my first complete failure...

    Ally
    Ally
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    Post by Ally Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:25 am

    i've already hit the soap-addict phase of wandering the supermarket aisles wondering what i can turn into soap... so when I was getting rice milk for my dairy-free DS, and spotted honey oat milk on the shelf.... yep, my brain kicked into gear.

    Anyway, had a bash at it today. the milk/lye mixture turned poo brown so i ditched that and turned to plan b which i'm SURE i read over on SMF about mixing the lye with a minimum amount of water then adding the milk closer to trace. well the oils started to set immediately, then when i dumped the milk in to try to get the extra liquid to balance it out the whole thing siezed and ended up looking like curdled pumpkin soup. when i was scraping it out of the pot there was some gorgeous white soap-looking stuff in the bottom, but the slop that made up most of the pot was just GROSS! *sigh*

    so... any advice for getting milk soaps to work?
    Lynnz
    Lynnz


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    Post by Lynnz Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:50 pm

    Ally sorry to hear of the loss of your soaping ingredients I hate losing ingredients but guess it is all part of the journey. Now I have never used Honey oat milk so cannot comment on that particular product. I do know honey can have a tendancy to heat up.
    I use and love goatsmilk and have tried loads of different methods and found one that works well for me.
    I freeze my milk in icecube trays solid and then when my oils are ready I get it out and slowly add my lye to the frozen milk making sure I stir well, once the lye is incorporated and by this time my milk is no longer frozen but coming up to room temp I add to my oils. I just replace the water value with a full value of milk to make a lovely bar of soap and find this what works best for me. Others may have methods that they may also like to share and I think it is a matter of experimenting and finding out (sometimes the hard way :0) ) what works best for you.
    Good luck and I am sure you will find a way to tackle that Honey oat milk
    Ally
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    Post by Ally Tue Sep 14, 2010 1:22 pm

    yeah, it's definitely the loss of ingredients that bites! mostly easy to find oils, but i don't know where to find palm oil other than online, and I haven't found castor oil in my supermarket yet... i think i'm looking in the wrong place.

    thanks for the tip with freezing the milk. I might give that one a try next. otherwise i will try the split method again and add the milk to the oils before the lye mixture. i'm determined to make it work now!
    Missnatty
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    Post by Missnatty Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:25 am

    ..


    Last edited by Missnatty on Tue May 29, 2012 4:19 am; edited 1 time in total
    Ally
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    Post by Ally Wed Sep 15, 2010 2:40 am

    I'm off to the supermarket this morning to buy more caustic and oils... I'm getting right back on that horse! I'll try Lyn's ice cube milk method (have the milk freezing as we speak), and if i'm not happy with the colour of it I'll try the split method again. It wasn't an even 50/50 split that I tried, so i'll use a little more water and see how it goes. The good news is, I'll get three attempts out of this carton of oat milk, and it's way less expensive than goats milk!
    Lynnz
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    Post by Lynnz Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:10 am

    Way to go Ally :0) cheers your da bom Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy
    Ally
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    Post by Ally Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:43 am

    Sad somehow i forgot to buy caustic at the supermarket. a whinging toddler and busy 3yo will do that to you i guess! lol. have to pick it up tomorrow, and maybe try tomorrow night after work.
    shonamm
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    Post by shonamm Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:44 pm

    awww, Ally. Hope your next attempt works or worked out ok Smile
    Ally
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    Post by Ally Fri Sep 17, 2010 2:45 pm

    thanks Shonny. didn't get there yet, so fingers crossed for tomorrow!
    Ally
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    Post by Ally Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:57 am

    been too busy to get anything done around here... but as soon as I find my kitchen Rolling Eyes i'll be having another go at this one today. it better bloody work!
    topcat
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    Post by topcat Tue Sep 21, 2010 4:41 am

    Ally - so sorry you had a fail! The best part about it is the learning curve though...you now know what doesn't work at least.

    When I use liquids other than water in my soap I do the split method and add my other liquid to my oils and blend in well before adding the lye water. I don't do a complete 50/50 split as I like to have a titch more water by weight with my lye than the exact same. So if I am making my gm soap I use about 55% of my liquid as water with my NaOH and the other 45% is fresh gm from the supermarket. I have also used oatmilk in soap (not the honey oat one) and I love it! I add it exactly the same way. Other things to note are that I use a 33% lye solution and mostly soap at 38 degrees.

    Best wishes for a fantastic outcome with your frozen gm...I know lots of soapers who swear by that Smile

    Tanya
    Lilli
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    Post by Lilli Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:31 am

    Hi guys, I bought honey oat milk myself yesterday before seeing this thread (or the forum, even!) - great minds think alike? Smile

    Anyway when I got it home and was re-reading the ingredients, I noticed the brand I got has sunflower oil as an ingredient. It might explain why this type of soap would thicken up during the lye/water phase if there's already some oil in it. Just a thought.

    I've frozen it to give it a go anyway, just in case the honey is the culprit for dodgy outcomes. What's a few dollars worth of tallow and copha and some sunflower oil if I might just get a lovely soap at the end? Maybe I can re-batch if it fails...

    Yes, addicted.
    queenofdiy
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    Post by queenofdiy Tue Aug 23, 2011 11:40 pm

    Hi Ally,

    You said you have trouble finding Palm Oil? When I first started researching soapmaking 10 years ago, an experienced soaper said that the Frymasta (in a yellow wrapper, near the copha in the supermarket) is Palm Oil - just less refined hence the colour difference. As I initially made soap just for my family, it's all I've ever used and works a treat!!

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