Thank you for watching! Have a question that you'd like Anne-Marie to ask in a future video? Leave it in a comment below! If you have any questions, feel free to contact our customer service team at info@brambleberry.com or 877-627-7883 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. PST, Monday-Friday. You can also live chat with customer service on BrambleBerry.com from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. PST, Monday-Friday. For more tutorials, tips and tricks and business advice, visit our blog www.soapqueen.com/. For soapmaking supplies, visit our website www.brambleberry.com/
Hi, thanks for all your videos and answering questions! My question is what (if anything) do you recommend as a preservative in your soap and what shelf life does that preservative give the soap?
I just started making soap this year and your videos have been so informative and inspirational. I'm a stay home mom with 2 toddlers and soapmaking has helped me so much mentally and emotionally. Coming across your videos have truly made my life better.
Yes, please make more like this on a monthly basis. 99% of us miss seeing you do videos. There are to far and in between. Maybe drop 3 videos a week, and question and answer session monthly. I would rather watch you here than on the hallmark channel.
Love your videos Anne Marie. I'm a new soaper of just several months. I use your book all the time and am constantly watching you on RU-vid. Thanks for all you do to help newbies like me. I know my friends and family will be very happy with the gifts I've made for them this year. I couldn't have done it with out your help.
Thanks Anne-Marie, your sharing of information is so so invaluable to those of us new to soap making and inspirational to people mulling over the idea of trying it out. I think you are such a joy to listen to and my goodness I think so many would feel kind of lost without your input.
OMG i'm new to soap making and I didn't know you had your own book AnnMarie! I just went and bought it cant wait for it to get here. More and more i find you are one of the best sources of solid information on the wild world of soap! Thanks for all your work!
Thank you Anne-Marie for sharing your knowledge and secrets for successful soapmaking! I learned to make cold process in 2008-2009 by watching your videos exclusively way back when they were on Vimeo. I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you! You are our soaping angel 😇
Thank you Anne-Marie. This was insightful. I've been sticking with just melt and pour. I may just break out the stick blender and try the cold processed soap.
I’m reading your book now! It is so thorough and easy to understand for beginners. Thank you so so much for writing it, I can’t wait to make my first batch ❤️❤️
I really enjoyed this. I would love more videos like this. I’m not gonna lie, I started out thinking “wow, this is like a sales pitch for the book” and by the end...I added the book to my amazon cart. I can’t wait to get it!
Thank you so much taking time out of your busy day to answer questions! I'm not a new soapmaker but I think the info you shared was valuable to soapmakers at any stage! Would love to see more of these Q & A's! For future ones to come (hopefully!), I have a question... Luxury oils & butters: When it comes to CP soapmaking, are they worth it? I feel like unless one can specifically control which oil or butter is going to be their superfat, it's impossible to know which oil (or fat) those lye molecules will bond to (ie: What the "lye monster" is going to eat up!). With the more expensive, luxury oils, do they truly make a difference in one's recipes? Oftentimes I see these more "luxurious" oils & butters used in lower percentages (possibly due to their cost), and wonder if there's any considerable benefits? I've been curious to try some of these more "exotic" oils in my own recipes, but wonder if it's really worth it to do so? I'd love to hear your wisdom on the subject! Thank you for your time, and thank you again for this insightful Q&A!
Thank you so much Anne-Marie, all the information in this video was very helpful. It answered many of my questions. I look forward to more of your videos.
Thank you for the very useful tutorial. Please tell me what do I do when a soap I made is taking ages to harden. I had used olive oil and castor oil only. Please answer
Thank you so much for all your sage advice. I have and LOVE your Pure Soapmaking Book as a wonderful reference tool! Also, Bramble Berry's lye calculator... invaluable!
Anne thank you very much for sharing lots of your very precious knowledge .I learn a lot. My question is if I make a soap good to treat fungus skin acne like that,that seem itchy in skin. If I boil medicinal herbs.,let it cool and use to dissolve lye will I get a result to make a good soap ?thank you .
Hi Ann Marie . I made my first batch of Lavender cold process soap yesterday. Didnt cut it yet but I checked on it and it looks perfect. Can I add oats to it next time ? .And do I just add to the same recipe or do I need to calculate?And thank you so much .
In creating my soap recipe, I am using your calculator, I’m getting a sufficient suffusing ratio, but I’m finding all of my recipes are in a really low cleansing range. I want my recipe to be primarily tallow (47%) herbal infused sunflower oil (37%) and some castor oil (16%). With a 2% or less super fat. What oils should I be adding to make it more cleansing? Or what ratios should I change?
Can I use regular sea salt instead of sodium lactate? What about stearic acid does it have same features as sodium lactate? Someone told me that he has sodium lactate as powder and it’s used as food preservative! Can I dissolve in distilled water is it the same
Hi, I was wondering how to stop additives from separating in liquid soap? I used sodium coco Sulfate noodle & cocamidopropyl betaine as my surfactant. My additives are Kaolin Clay, Allantoin & Colloidal oats. I mixed it with Vegetable Glycerin & honey but it still separated.
Hi..I have read in some ingredients of lush soaps and scrubs the ingredient "propylene glycol "can we add it at the end of soaping..or adding glycerin is better?? If OK how much can we add
Thank you, I always enjoy the videos. You mentioned bees wax. What does Bees wax do for soap? And what can I use for my soap to have a glossy look? Thanks
Hi, I watched some of your vids/read some of brambleberry articles/recipes about using fruit purees. Had a bad soaping result so I thought of trying out fruit extracts for a change. I couldnt find any recipe online as a guide though. How should I treat the fruit extract? Like oil? Hope you can point me in the right direction
Hi Anne-Marie, I'm loving discovering your videos, they're so helpful, thank you. I'm wondering how you can formulate a lower pH level soap, say 7 to 7.4. I have horses and want to create my own soap that is the kind to their skin, cleanses and nourishes and is the same pH level as their natural skin/coat. Do I decrease the lye and increase the superfat? Or does the ingredients have more influence over the end pH level? Thanks, Erin :)
I would like to know if anyone has experienced health issues from using essential oils when mass producing soap? For 2 craft shows that I did this year, I made approx 180 bars for each show. When I was at the shows after exposure to all these bars I get very fatigue, feel off in the head and upper chest feels irritated Also when they are curing in my house the smell is intense. I do open windows so I am venting. Wondering Anne Marie if you have any tips for working safely with large amounts of essential oils. Or perhaps I am just one of the sensitive ones. Thank you all your informative and helpful videos!
It definitely sounds like you are more sensitive to essential oils, I would recommend running a heavy duty fan around the window when you have it in your drying room and keeping the door closed as long as you can. The soap doesn't really need to be moved or anything within the first few days, after which the intense smells should fade away a bit.
Madam Marie, i have a question that i see after four week Soap bar discharge Oil like Sweat , it's not properly dry, It is India climate are Humidity so high. Regards Pankaj Chakravarty.
I like Brambleberry lye calculator but I can't find where it allows me to choose my water discount ratio. Could you direct me to that , and if it's not there, can you adjust your calculator to include it. When I formulate some of my recipes, I need that option. Thank you.
Calculating a water discount is definitely a necessity! I am always adjusting the water discount to fit my soaping needs. There's an article about it on the Soap Queen blog: www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/water-discounting-cold-process-soap-how-why/ Also, Kenna from Modern Soapmaking has a great breakdown of how to calculate it along with a cheat sheet to quickly calculate what you need: www.modernsoapmaking.com/lye-solution-in-soapmaking/ I agree, it would be a nice addition to the Brambleberry fragrance calculator. :)
Hey Ann Marie, I have a question , my soaps have been in there moulds for nearly 2 weeks and I still can’t u mould , they are sooo soft , how do I prevent this? To make a harder bar of soap I had in mould quicker x
When formulating your soap recipe, you can include additives after you've combines your oils and lye. Whenever you're experimenting with them, we always recommend making small test batches so you can see if the recipe you make works as intended.
What do you say about adding fresh fruit juice to melt and pour soap? I'm very confused because some people say it's not gonna work but some people still do that and said it works. I've read an article about this and the author said adding fresh liquid like milk or juice to a melt and pour is the same with adding fresh egg to a baked cake so that means it's impossible. What's the worst thing gonna happen if I do that? Like adding coconut milk or cucumber juice to my melt and pour soap base? Thank you so much!
Since melt and pour is already saponified it is very similar to adding eggs to a baked cake. They won't mix in well and they won't turn into soap. What ends up happening is the fresh ingredients start to spoil and grow mold and bacteria. We don't recommend it at this time. www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/purees-fresh-ingredients-melt-pour-soap/
Can you talk about recommend percentages for certain oils like if I want to add a few different oils how would I know what percentage of each I should use
We have a great article on this already! You can find it on our blog at this link here: www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/free-beginners-guide-to-soapmaking-common-soapmaking-oils/
How can I lower the pH in cold processed soap? Would like to make dog organic soaps in controlled 6-7 pH but am not sure how to go about it. I am in a dog grooming business and I would like to make my own grooming soaps.
is there any posible way to speed up the curing time in cp soap. any creative thing? time is money, waiting 4-6 weeks for me does not do it, with all respect, my opinion.
