Ben here and i love making soap. Cold process Handmade Artisan Soaps. I use soap as a medium for art - and this channel is there for anyone that wants to learn the basics of soap making - from swirls to sculpted layers.
But i'll also show you how i push the boundaries with soap and hopefully create designs you've never seen before.
And as the name suggests this is a queer space. There is no judgement, there is no hate and there are no assumptions. the one rule is "be kind". My pronouns are he/him or they/them if you prefer
Wow! Thank you! I don't know how I missed this one! I started searching again for anything on 3D printing sudsy things and found this video! Excellent explanation and demonstration. I've watched a lot of videos and yours has the best info! I really appreciate your time and effort! Great job ❤
So this was perfect! I literally this week was wondering how to find a good solution to making it since I have not experienced with it yet. I did try one time this week and I think I did it wrong. I think I probably should’ve left some extra soap batter out in the open for it to thicken up, but I put it in a Ziploc bag and it did not get thick
This one myself fine to watch. And the lather was so amazing. I think you can use one tablespoon per a pound of soap. What’s probably a good measurement to use in between not too much not too little?
Hi, I'm new into the soap making world and recently discovered the extended soap drying process. I was curious if you had any experience with using dehydration cabinets that are used in restaurants etc...? If the goal is to extract water from the soap I would think this would be an ideal way to reduce the time of curing. I understand the cost but if you are looking at it from a business perspective then "time is money" completly applies here but having never done this I wasn't sure the pro's/con's. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
I haven’t tried this but I believe that forcing water out of soaps can cause softer, misshapen and unattractive soap. My understanding is during the beginning of the “cure” phase your soap is still going through post saponification reactions - some say this is an alignment of crystalline structure in the soap leading to a harder bar so I don’t think this is a process you can force or rush. I personally have used soaps after two weeks - but you can achieve quicker cures by using less water but this will create a faster trace and prevent you being able to do certain techniques that need a fluid batter.
@@erykaolsen7614 soap gelling happens as the soap heats up. A partial gel means the soap didn’t quite stay hot enough for long enough. You need to insulate the soap to help gel. There are a few things you can do from least to most aggressive : 1. You can pop a piece of cardboard over the soap - or pop it in a cardboard box and close the box up. 2. Same as above and wrap in a towel. 3. Pop on a heating mat and cover with a box 4. Same as above and lay a towel over the box 5. Cold Process Oven Process (CPOP) - whilst making your soap set your oven on the lowest temp available - once at temp - turn the oven off and pop your soap mould in the oven - close the door and leave over night this should force the soap to gel. The method depends on your gelled portion. The bigger the ring in the centre. The more gently you need to insulate - too much and you can cause your soap to over heat and crack.
@@QueerBullSoap thank you for the clear concise instructions on this. OK I guess I was afraid to try to force the gel phase because while I’m new to soap making, the first time I did this, I got ash and cracks ! How long would you wrap it for or cover it? I haven’t been able to find the exact answer, but why would you want to force gel ? What are the benefits of it? Does it help with the salt being harder? Softer? Or is this just for colored soaps? I’ve been told that for colored Soaps .? Is the extreme softness probably because the gel wasn’t finished ? One last question, I have a buttermilk question. I can’t find this question anywhere, but I recently made a batch that had I believe both buttermilk and castor oil and it was too conditioning. It was too soft. I just replace the buttermilk for a castor oil? Also, what properties does buttermilk give soap? I know it’s conditioning, but you know how each oil has its own property for like a hardness, a lather or clean or sometimes both .
@@erykaolsen7614 so I tend to wrap until it’s saponified so 24-48 hrs Soft soap has many causes - but gelling a soap fully should give you a harder bar. As a rule of thumb the more liquid oils used the softer the soap. As for castor oil you want o use not more than 5% - castor soap is there to support the bubble/lather the other oils provide. Coconut oil give hardness and bubble as does palm oil. Butter milk either sits as part of either water content or additive. When you use soap calc the water content is set to 38% of oil weight which is for hot process - this should be lowered to 28-32% - I’d I was adding butter milk or milk or another liquid I’d make my lye with 1:1 ratio distilled water to NaOH (this is the minimum you should ever make lye up) - then I would make up the water weight with milk/other liquid added to the oils. Too much water can make a soft soap too. Milks have sugars that help bubble and they have great label appeal - the jury’s out really to whether they add or not to the soap - if you find the soap better with the additive go for it.
@@erykaolsen7614 also salt hardens and quickens trace. If you want to aid a soap to make it easier to unmould try Sodium Lactate added to your lye solution once cooled. It shouldn’t affect trace but should help harden the soap to unmould.
@@QueerBullSoap ahhh thank you ! I always come across your short videos and love them super informative content sbd great personality . Thank you for being so supportive because there’s lots of sores out there who aren’t. Ok, so I’m so glad you said that about the soap calculator because I didn’t even know that that 38% was set for hot process. It does not explain that. And I was using the soap calc I had no idea !!! So I’ve been adding the buttermilk with the lye solution, Replacing it as the water but I think I will do 50% water and 50% buttermilk. Next time you get that I try and see how that reacts. Ok, so I don’t know what a 1:1 ratio would look like, could you give me an example? Are you explaining a water discount or something different because he said to make up the water weight with another liquid? So for example, making up the other liquid or milk to the oils, would you do that for example, adding a bit of purée fruit to the light trace or milk ?
Hi Ben, I am loving your soap videos! My question for this recipe is can I sub bentonite clay for the kaolin? I'm waiting for an order of supplies to ship but in the meantime I do have bentonite clay. Thank you so much for sharing your recipes/videos with us 💕
AWESOME Video! Thank you! No offense to the women soap makers, but THIS is a dude's arena, and you've explained why one would use a specific ingredient which is incredibly helpful! Thank you!
Most can be found cheaply on Amazon or eBay - for example amzn.eu/d/jeerItL There are more bespoke options available but I haven’t bought a cutter in a few years so I wouldn’t know where to point you for those
The skin benefits are looking pretty nice. I was curious myself and found your experiment. Even if a good blue isn't had, at least there's the benefits. Thank you for this!
Hey, this is a lot of good information. I really dislike having the music in between you talking. It’s very annoying. Please don’t do this in future videos. Thank you.
@@shirleyedwards1490 because it’s a hot process recipe the finished soap is essentially usable out of the pot but I always cure for about 4 weeks as I think this helps with the final lather and longevity of the product
Soapers with real information dont stand much of a chance against the "know-it-alls" in this arena. keep up your good work..quiet aciever, can only try, cant do more than that...😊 cut and paste soap making, not a lot of credibility..wash and repeat until it becomes reality...
Thank you for sharing this, very helpful information for our collective learning. Really appreciate seeing this. What UK fragrance was it? And also a question for you: Would it help if the batch is stick blended through emulsification to light trace, and then the fragrance added right at the end, and only hand stirred in. Mixed in evenly but for say no more than 20 seconds. Then poured into the mould? I wonder…. 🤷🏾♀️
Thanks a ton.. Well explained..I had this cutter from last 3 years but didn't know how to use it.. No instructions came with it.. Now I will be able to use it Can't thank you enough.. God bless you 🙏
The trouble they have is soap recipes vary so wildly that they may test it in their recipe and have mild to no acceleration and yet another person may have moderate to heavy acceleration. I usually test an oil in a small batch first regardless of what kill info a supplier may have on my recipe. Perhaps you should offer fragrance suppliers my services to test oils and give soaping notes?
I will always maintain you need to do what works for you and, what makes you feel safest when soaping. I’d never say you had to use one thing versus another. I’d also not outrightly shame someone for their choice - but offer suitable alternatives and suggestions I have tested and tried myself - or an honest opinion on things I haven’t tried (and then test them out so I can be sure for myself if my opinion on that idea was correct or not)
In the recipe... all the oils are marked in percentages but clay n charcoal in grams... Its difficult to guess . Some light over it would be really great.
5g is equivalent to a teaspoon and 15g equivalent to a tablespoon. The thing with clay and charcoal - they are very easy to add or subtract from a recipe (just be aware clay can accelerate trace) So you can add a teaspoon of each and see how that feels or add a tablespoon of each and adjust as necessary
The 1:1 Coconut bar is an ideal Laundry soap. Either for handwashing items or shedding into your homemade laundry soap mix. // Olive Oil soaps, I’ve always understood, require 12 months cure time 9-12. And as a result they are more expensive, and the slime factor diminishes 😊. // Rapeseed’s other name is Canola Oil. It’s a man made ‘creation, and statistics prove it to be Very deleterious to health. An interesting exercise Bravo 👏
I’m not sure how you normally accept questions for your videos. I hope this is OK…. I wanted to ask if when preforming a zap test does soda ash have a taste that might be confused the taste of a lye heavy soap?
Not at all. Zap test is a sensation not a taste. Although i would always suggest you get some ph test strips and ensure you’re is between 8-9 as this is a more accurate indication if your soap is lye heavy.
I like this color combo, but who is Larry (21:30)? I like your ink, too. It's weird to watch a soap-making video and think, "I just like this dude," but this is RU-vid, so the personalities are as important as the content. Thanks for both educating us and entertaining us.
I have found an alternative to citric in sodium gluconate which does not consume lye. I am really keen for you to try that and get your thoughts. I love your videos. There’s no bumf!
The purple portion of the soap ended up being such a lovely rich color! and the discoloration on the other portion was such a surprisingly bright yellow color- super interesting.
Do you ever use specialty salt? Like pink Himalayan salt, black or red Hawaiian salt, etc. Not just from an interesting visual perspective, but I was wondering if different kinds of salts (with different mineral contents) affect the batter and recipe.
Salt is salt - so as far as adding salt to a bar - fine salt will almost dissolve where coarse salt will show as crystals in the final soap. Keep specialty salts for decoration and for label appeal.
Hello. I was wondering when you add in the citric acid and you mentioned that you will need to add more lye, how do you calculate that into your recipe? I’d like to try this method. Thank you in advance and thank you for your video.
Each 1 gram of citric acid consumes 0.624g of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) So for every gram of citric acid yuu need to add 0.624g of lye. Weight of citric acid in grams x 0.624 = the amount of additional sodium hydroxide required.