Hello from Barbados. Great video. Thank you! I'm definitely interested in the drum video. I need to scale my coconut and olive oils up to drums, but am also trying to work out getting them off the vehicle and into the studio. Barbados being a small island, I haven't really seen trucks here with the tailgate lift. Also, many of the pumps on Amazon have average to bad reviews. So if there is one you recommend, I'd love to know that also. Thanks in advance.
Thank you for this video. As a hobby soap maker who has made salt bars twice, I learned a lot and appreciate your style of teaching. A question about your book: do your recipes give percentages for the ingredients so amounts can easily be scaled up or down? Thanks again.
Hi there! I'm glad you found the video helpful! In the book, percentages are included for all of the oils, yes. Percentages are also included for the essential oils for all the recipes in the essential oils section. I hope this helps! :)
I'm not sure why I couldn't wrap my head around how to use a 50/50 lye solution. Thanks to both of you, I get it! It actually makes complete sense the way you explained it. Clearly, I was overthinking it. Thank you!!!!
Hi Simi. I bought several of your soap recipes. I’ve tried this wild lavender recipe 2 times. It just won’t set up. I’ve tried with the 50/50 lye solution and that batch never got hard. I threw the batch out after 5 days. Then I tried just the normal lye to water today and it is not getting hard. I’ve carefully measured the ingredients and it just isn’t getting hard. I’ve wasted so much money on ingredients. I’ve been soaping for a while and never have I had this problem. Do you have any advice?
Oh no! I’m so sorry! We will definitely get to the bottom of this. Please email me and we’ll figure it out, as this shouldn’t be happening. If you’ve already emailed, I’ll be in touch soon. I was away for the weekend, but will be replying to all messages over the next day or two. My first thought is that the lye amount might be off? We can go through it together and find the issue, as many people have made this recipe with success, so something must be off.
Hi there! Thanks for watching! We heat up our lye-water so that it's a similar temperature to our oils when making soap. Our oils are usually around 90-100 degrees, and we found that if our lye-water was too cool, we sometimes ended up with butter pockets in our soap, since we use a lot of butters in our recipes. I hope this helps!
What an amazing book. Just letting Australian viewers and potential buyers know, it is available for preorder at a 25% discount on Amazon Australia as of July 12th 2024. The book will not be available in Australia until Oct 2024. Also with a 30 day Prime trial (which can be cancelled) it will be freight free. So it is very reasonably priced and looks amazing. I have pre-ordered mine and cannot wait for it to arrive. Just wondering if the salt recipe offer for pre orders in other countries with a later release date, might still apply to those customers?
Ooo!! Thank you for this awesome information!! I hope you love the book! Unfortunately, the sea salt recipe was only for preorders by May 27th (it has been available for pre-orders internationally for quite a while). The reason is that it was an incentive to get pre-order numbers up, as this helps bring more excitement for the book on release day. We do have the recipe available online though, if you're interested, and the book does contain a version of the sea salt recipe on page 144. Thanks!
Omg thank you so much for this straight to the point information I’ve been hoping someone would break this down for us beginners that want to try this thanks
Hi there! We are currently only doing two soap releases a year, as we've mostly shut down our soapmaking to make more time for education, as well as time for family and friends. We did a soap release on July 3rd and our next one will be on November 15th. Make sure to set a calendar reminder, as the soap sells out extremely fast. Last time it was all gone within 10 minutes. Our releases are typically at 9am mountain time. Thanks!
I love the idea that you're scaling down to spend more time with family. I have an odd situation. My wife and I only have one child(he's 8) and we had him late in life. I'm 47, shes 49. The job market isn't great, and my full time job is on the weekend so that affords me a good bit of time during the week. I'm wanting to do the opposite which is build up a business, something maybe I can pass on to my son in the future. Thanks for all your videos and for sharing all the knowledge you guys have built up over the years.
Love it! Hopefully your son is interested in your business, because mine certainly isn't! Haha! Good luck with everything. So happy our videos are helping in a small way. :)
I'm very curious about the ins and outs of running the business at that level. I have some questions, feel free to answer any (or not, lol). 1. Were your employees part time or full time? 2. I came across your channel late. How much did you charge for bars of soap? How many oz were the bars? 3. Were you using custom molds or where did you get them? 4. I"d be very interested to hear about profit margins and such, if you don't mind sharing that information 5. Did you keep lye water pre-prepped? I have a bazillion more questions :P Maybe there's a business book in your future? :)
I’m happy to answer questions, and yes! There is a business book in my future. 😂 1. Our employees were part time, except Troy and I who were/are full time. 2. We charge $10 for a 5 oz bar. 3. We made these molds ourselves to be equivalent to four 5-lb Nurture Soap molds. We couldn’t find the size we needed at the time. 4. I’ll be going over bar costs and profit margins in another video, so I’ll save this question for later. :) 5. Yes, we had a lye tank for all our lye water, which we show in this video and we cover how we filled our lye tank in another video.
@@muddymintsoap Thank you so much for answering all my questions :D A couple more for you: What would you say the hook is for your soaps, if you feel you have one? Why do you think people bought yours over some others? These are things I've been thinking about as I start my soap journey. I fully intend to make it a business (aside from using it, as that's first and foremost).
Hi there! Our "hook" is that our soaps are all-natural, palm-oil free, and super gentle on the skin. Many people told us that they aren't able to use any other soap on their sensitive skin. People also love the natural scents. :) I hope this helps!
Hi My daughter bought this book I enjoyed it , I read about 50/50 lye but I use citric acid so how do use it with 50/50 as we need to add extra lye . Would please explain on it .
Hi there! I don’t use citric acid, but from what I understand you typically add it to the lye water and it uses up some of the lye to convert to sodium citrate. I’m assuming that you are adding more lye to take this into account? If so, I’m thinking that as long as you know what total lye amount you need, you can still use a 50/50 lye water solution and pour out what’s needed. Then you can add your citric acid to the 50/50 lye water solution and any additional water that you need either to your oils or to the lye solution. Let me know if that makes sense or if I’m missing something. Again, I haven’t used citric acid, so this is all just theoretical knowledge! :)
Hi I watched your 50/50 lye solution video and bought this recipe. So just to make sure. When doing this recipe if I make the 50/50 lye solution I would add 482g of lye solution correct?
@@muddymintsoap thanks for that, a really great read. It definitely seemed like you guys were in a "ramp this up or down" situation. I'm planning on building a business as a way to get out of the rat race and hopefully something I can pass on, it gives me hope that maybe soap can be that route if I want it. I will continue to follow and watch your videos as you move into your next stage. I just found your channel today, I appreciate your time and plan on learning as much as I can from your videos. Thanks!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post and for following along! Yes, it was definitely a point in time where we needed to make a decision about whether we wanted to grow more or not. It was a really tough decision and 2023 was a hugely successful year for us, so it was bittersweet for sure. I certainly don’t regret having more of my time back and we’ve been having a lot of fun making these videos for you guys! Good luck with your journey! ❤️
Simi please excuse a non related ? But if you have time, the jugs for 50:50 lye solution you use have just arrived and I can’t get the tops off. Any tips on how you managed to get them off on first use. Looking at reviews many have same problem Thanks Simi
Thank you for going into scaling. I would love it if you could talk about getting my soap business out of my home. All of the pros and cons and processes and things to consider. Also, how to know that you're ready to do this. How to find a building to rent, what added expenses are involved in renting a place, etc. I think you could do a whole series on this topic. Thanks for considering it!
WOW.....I've watched 200 videos of soapmaking to find you. Finally, someone I can understand and who's like I am at simplifying things. I retired from the casino industry and make soap as a hobby. I don't want to make millions I just enjoy making soap and selling for craft shows. So many people are asking for my website, though. I was thinking on adding one to the business and just needed someone who's been there to talk about it. I was a bit afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with demand but, knowing I can buy drums puts me at ease. I didn't know they existed! I have a lot to learn. I'm subscribing because I can listen to you all day.
Wow! Thank you so much for this sweet comment. I really appreciate it! Having a website is a great idea, but you can also start an Etsy shop. When I first started, I used Etsy and had my muddymint.com URL pointing directly there. This just saved the monthly fees on having a Shopify shop and allowed me to get more sales, as Etsy has a huge customer base built in. Thanks so much for subscribing! :)
Please make more Soap Making Videos!!!! I have been watching Royalty Soap for the past 8 years and your personality and way for speaking and sharing knowledge is amazing. Please show us the making on all the soaps you guys sell in the future. I love watching soap making videos ❤❤❤
Aww, you're sweet. Thank you!! I absolutely love Katie at Royalty Soap. We are definitely going to keep making videos - it just takes forever to film and edit! Haha! We are releasing videos every two weeks on Tuesday for now. Hopefully we can get up to once a week in the future. Thanks!
Hi there! These are the Nurture Soap Basic 5 lb Mold. You can find the molds and all dimensions here: nurturehandmade.com/products/5-pound-basic-loaf-mold
Another soap maker said that she dusts the outside of her silicone mold with baby powder so that it slides out of the wood mold easier. I imagine another powder would also work.
Oh interesting! Was that for cold process soap or melt and pour? I would think that it probably wouldn't work with cold process, but I could be wrong. I have seen this strategy for working with resin and other materials though. We typically make our soaps in slabs with freezer paper, so we rarely run into this issue, but I appreciate the comment!
@@muddymintsoap it was cold process, and not inside the silicone mold, on the outside of it, where it makes contact with the wood mold. Not meant to help separate the soap from the mold but the molds from each other. I haven't tried it myself but from watching her videos she's explained how much it helps when that silicone liner just won't come out.
Haha! We stopped making soap most of the time, yes, but we’re still making soap for RU-vid videos and education purposes. We’ve decided to do two soap releases a year, just for our online customers. We did close down and move out of our space and we no longer have any employees. We don’t do wholesale anymore, which was the bulk of our business. We used to make 50,000 bars per year and so far this year we’ve made 400, so it’s a big change! 😊
Hi and thank you! We use refined olive oil for our soaps, but you can use any kind! Extra virgin is more of a greenish oil, so it may affect the final color of your bars, but it’s not a huge difference.
I’m so glad I got my slab cutter from For Craft’s Sake, I have two tanks too and have had them for over 10 years. Thank you for sharing. I plan on making some soap this weekend, I’m going to try out some of the recipes I bought from you recently. :) Thank you for sharing! ❤
I love our For Craft’s Sake cutters! Glad you have some! I have recently used the cutter from Modern Soapmaking and it was fantastic - pretty much the same as the For Craft’s Sake cutter. I also used a bar cutter from Bud’s Woodshop on Etsy recently and it was also fantastic, so luckily there are a lot of good options out there! 😊 I hope the recipes go well! Thanks! ❤️
Great video, thank you! Can you do a video on how you tracked inventory and COGS? Soapmaker3, inventora, or something else? I love your down to earth teaching style!
I’m just starting out. The recipe I follow is from a RU-vid video. I have made 3 batches. 1 batch was thick and the other 2 were not as thick. 32 oz of tallow-render down 12.16 oz of water 4.2 oz of Lye The question I am very unclear about is this. Let say I rendered down 36 oz of tallow. How would I get the correct ratio of water and Lye? I’m looking for an easy solution just like your 50/50.
Hi there! It looks like the recipe you are making is using roughly a 3:1 water to lye ratio (the water amount is about three times the lye amount). If your batches are already thick or pretty good, I'd stick to that ratio if it's working for you. If you want to use a 50/50 lye water solution, you'd use 8.4 oz of the lye water solution (which is 4.2 oz lye + 4.2 oz water) and then you'd add the extra 7.96 oz (or 8 oz) to the oils. I got 7.96 oz by subtracting the 4.2 oz of water in the 50/50 solution from 12.16 oz. Important note: if you decide to render 36 oz of tallow, which is more than what the recipe calls for, you'll need to recalculate the lye amount using a lye calculator. I usually use soapcalc, which is available here: soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcWP.asp. Anytime you change oil types or amounts in a recipe, a new lye amount needs to be calculated. Assuming you're using beef tallow, it seems like your recipe has an 8% superfat (which seems kind of high, but maybe that's typical for tallow soaps?) and is using the default water amount (Water as % of Oils = 38), so make sure to enter that in the lye calculator. For 36 oz of tallow, I get 4.72 oz of lye and 13.68 oz of water. I hope this helps!
Hi! We do warm ours up a little before using it to get it to between 85-100 degrees F. We use a warm water bath to gently bring it up to temperature. If your additional liquid is water, you can just add it to your 50/50 solution and it will warm it up, so that’s a good strategy too! The lye water will react with anything you add to it and heat up, whether it is liquid or oils, etc. I hope this helps! 😊
Where do you get your butters? I have your book and I'm a little confused when it comes to mango, shea and cocoa butters. There are so many types lol. I went to Soaper's Choice but not sure which ones to buy. Thank you!
Hi! We get our butters from Bulk Apothecary or Soaper's Choice. We use refined shea and unrefined (prime pressed) cocoa butter. We often get organic cocoa butter, as the price difference isn't much. The reason we use refined shea is to get a whiter bar and to avoid the scent of unrefined, since we use shea in products other than soap. I hope this helps!
Oh, I know... a little misleading perhaps. I had such a hard time with this thumbnail for some reason! This is what I ended up going with. The soap in the photo is our Honey Lemon soap. :)
You are a calm and awesome teacher Simi! Coming from a 20 year teacher that's a big compliment! 😁❤️ Thanks for such a great explanation. Can't wait to be able to afford one of these eventually!
Thank you. Just happened. My husband was at Marshall a few months ago, and he bought two huge containers that were on sale. Exp in 2027. Anyhow, we use it for everything, but it will be great for my homemade soaps.
I believe that silk is usually dissolved in hot lye water, so you might want to do it when you first mix your lye into the water. However, I’ve only used silk once, so I’m not very familiar with this ingredient.
Thank you! Cathy, one of our employees, made us all aprons for Christmas a couple years ago. They were all so cute! I hardly ever wear it because I don’t want to ruin it, which is silly.
Great demonstration, Simi! Loaf splitters are a great intro to cutting slabs (we have a video on our Instagram using the flipped method you described), but slab cutters save so much labor! We actually did the math for our workshop and it'll save over $5k by the end of the year in labor cost because we're making one motion rather than four motions every time we cut a slab. 🤯
Oooo! I love that you made that calculation! I agree that loaf splitters are the way to go at first, but we got tired of it pretty fast. Haha! So happy you are making slab cutters. :)
Thank you so much for the detailed explanation for using 50/50 lye solution, especially using the drawing to illustrate what you can do with the remainder of the liquid in using your own recipe. I'm going to make my solution tomorrow!
