Hi Everyone. I hope you are all keeping safe and well. I hope you found the video useful, if you have any questions or comments please leave them below and I'll get back to you. Happy soaping :-)
Thank you for all you do, I'm finally learning about soap making! I love the way you patiently explain everything so I can understand the how's, what's, and why's. I'm wondering, if you do get soda ash on top of your soap, can it be scraped off and still be used, or did I just make my first batch of pretty laundry soap?
Lisa, I have to call you soaping fairy godmother. All the questions swimming in my head just got answered. I will need to re-watch and take down notes. Thank you so much. Happy Mother's Day! Tomorrow is Mother's Day here in Malaysia.
Thank you so much Carol, I'm so pleased, it makes my day when people find my videos useful, it really does. Thank you for your lovely comment. Stay safe and well :-)
I have been "soaping" for over 10 years and have never come across such a wonderful and useful explanation of all this factors of soaping. BRAVO!!! Thank you so much!!!
Wow,finally someone explained it to me in a way I can understand. So much spoken about water discounts vs concentration etc but you have made it so simple. Been making soap for years and now I understand WHY it does what it does. Thank you so much.
AW Amber, you have made my day. I know exactly what you mean. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding and you often see people using the term water discount when they mean something else. I often see things like 'I use a 33% water discount' and I think, hmm I wonder if that's the case or is that meant to be a 33% lye concentration (ooh look at me going on :-) ) I'm so pleased I have been able to explain it for you, thank you for your lovely comment, stay safe and well :-)
Lisa, what an amazing resource for soapers! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I am fascinated with the science of soap making and I really appreciated your step by step approach to explaining all of the different aspects. Be well!
After not soaping for a few months, I found myself with my wife at a Christmas fair. Had to stop at the only soap maker at the fair. I use your vids to motivate me to get back to work. I think I'm going to change my base recipe and expand my knowledge. Thank you Lisa.
I started watching your videos when I started making soap. Not all made perfect sense, but in short space of time I kept on going back to your videos and I am having so many more Aha moments. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and time. You most probably, in my opinion, are the best teacher!
Just let me say you're a natural teacher, you go over your subject matter in various ways so that you're neither repetitive, nor boring. Just enough that even the most stubborn person is going to find a snippet of *something* to snag their attention and feel them in for understanding the entire 🙃process. Which is quite a talent in and of itself. thank you for sharing that with us!😘👏👏
As a North American, the way you say H keeps catching me off guard. we just say aaych. You say hatch the h is always pronounced whether it's functional in the word or not. For us, it generally silent unless its necessary for the word's sake of meaning and pronunciation to work.
You identify, analyse and explain the technical aspects of CP soap making, many of us are facing, like no other before. Your scientific approach is the one I needed to understand why my trace was often so fast and didn't allow me enough time for elaborated techniques. I can now open new doors and try the next level. Thank you!!
Thank you Lisa 😊 I was also wondering if using heat transfer method to melt down your hard oils has any disadvantage? I tend to think everyone would be using it if it only had benefits... I'd like to know your opinion on that. Thank you
@@bertrandfrederic6152 Hi Bertrand. I think it's OK, but the problem is temperature. If you want to do basic designs or simple swirls then it should be great, but for anything complicated or where you want to keep your batter fluid for a long time not so great. Also, I actually think it's harder work / takes longer. I'd much rather make my oils and lye up and allow them to come to a good temperature and then mix them, that way you can just leave them alone without spending ages stiring them until everything is mixed. If you plan in advance then the 'normal' way is so much easier (well I think so)
Finally found time to watch this video without interruptions LOL. Thank you for taking your time to go through these. Perfect !! I've learnt some new things!! 😊😊
Hi Lisa. I’m a newbie and so have just found this video a year after you made it. I have watched many of your videos already but this one in particular is outstanding. I have learned a lot from this one and want to thank you for your generosity in the way you share your knowledge. Thanks!
I watched so many of your videos before I made my first batch, 2 months ago. I felt so confident when I started because you’d given me so much information and tips. I’ve lost count on how many batches I’ve made now :). Thank you for teaching so well!
Hey Shelley, aw you've made me feel like a proud mum and I've gone all tingly. I'm so pleased you're soaping is going well and thrilled I could help :-)
I saw your channel yesterday for the first time. Your videos are very helpful to me as someone new to making soaps. I appreciate your support by sharing your knowledge and experiences. Love your voice and accent and presentations. God bless you. Stay safe.
Hi Lisa! Words can not express how greatful I am to have found you on RU-vid. I have learned so much from your videos and continue to learn thanks to you. Can't wait to see what comes next. Take Care 💚
Hi Lisa. Once again I have learned a lot. I love your videos, your ideas and your way of teaching. You have often helped me to understand something better. Thank you very much!
You’re an amazing teacher! You prepare your class so splendidly! I am a brand newbie in soaping, just started last week and I am in LOVE with it! Your videos have helped me so much and I appreciate your time, experience and knowledge.
amazing teacher! its incredible how much effort you put into this experiments to thoroughly guide us through it whie you show every detail you cover. thank you so much for this beautiful lesson! i really appreciate it!
Thanks for your fantastic videos! I’m a new soaper and have been scavenging for this information for months. The most detailed and informative video I’ve seen!
Thank you for going to all these lengths to explain and show what happens and how you can influence what happens in making soap. I found this incredibly helpful!
Thanks for bringing a scientific approach to this, Lisa! Many soapers (especially in the beginning) find glycerine rivers and water discounting quite puzzling. Even those of us who are experienced soapers can find this hard to explain - now we can just refer them to this video. And I, who sometimes have had issues with yellows coming out looking faded, realize that the fact that I tend to gel everything, probably accounts for that. At least with some micas. So GOOD JOB! ❤️
Very interesting & so confusing for me 😂 who doesn’t make soap. I love how knowledgeable you are & it’s so important to know the different ratios, measurements, etc when working with lye.
Thank you! I had some questions after making my first soap, you answered most of them. Now I am off to find the rest of my questions in my chemistry book. 🤫🤔
Thanks so much. This has really helped. I'm a scientist, so I certainly appreciate your scientific approach. You didn't mention whether you use a water discount and if so, how much, and why. I am following lots of soap makers on RU-vid and some provide their recipes. One thing I'm trying to wrap my head around is the advantages and disadvantages of different recipes (e.g., lather, cleaning power, gentleness). Can you do something on that? I really appreciate how hard you work to help novices understand soap making!
HI Sylvia, thanks for your comment. Yes I do use a water discount. I typically soap at a lye concentration of 35.6% which comes to 25% water to oils in my recipe. The difficulty with a video on recipes is that it's very difficult to add any visuals to it. I would hate to just sit there and talk through the properties of oils as there are lots of resources where people can just go and read about them. To make little sample batches would be very difficult as I'd have to make so many using so many different recipes and then still just have to do a lather test or something at the end which would be unsatisfactory as I wouldn't be able to convey conditioning and other qualities. I'm just not sure how I could really do it as a video to add more value that the articles already around. Stay safe and well :-)
@@IDreamInSoap Thanks so much for your reply! Maybe not a whole video, but I would find it so helpful to hear more about why soapers choose certain oils over others. Almost all the soap videos I watch emphasize esthetics and fragrance and rarely do you hear info about the specific qualities of the soap and even rarer is an actual hand washing demonstration. I know some of that info is in soap books, but it would be so much more memorable if this were addressed in videos. The reason I'm mentioning this to you is because of all the soapers out there, you provide so much more information, which I love! THANKS!
Perhaps creating a tutorial about how the information provided on soapcalc helps when formulating a recipe with specific qualities would be sufficient??? I understand that the information is contained within the soapcalc.net site but for those of us who are more visual in their learning styles, and knowing how effective you are as an educator, perhaps this is a good compromise over you having to acquire all the ingredients to demonstrate the outcomes. ❤, k
Thank you for explaining everything so clearly! It is confusing when you first start out making soap when it comes to lye calculations. Great resource as always.
I'm a newbie soap maker for about a year now. How have I missed your videos until now? I have much to learn, but I understand a lot about issues that I previously had confused me. I'm referring to the dreaded soda ash! You are awesome! Thank you!!!
This video has articulated so many pointers I've picked up during my years of soap making, then put them in a format that makes absolute sense! Well done and incredibly helpful! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this, Lisa!
Well, this was the last of your videos on my slate for tonight. I should have watched this one first; it’s late and my eyes were beginning to cross. The more techy the subject, the sooner I get lost. I’ll be revisiting this one again. Regardless, as always, you’ve laid out a great deal of outstanding information. Thank you.
Oh goodness me Sharon, yes I can imagine this one could be a bit tough going late at night. So pleased you found it useful. The video should have chapters, so if you look in your scroll bar (not sure if it works on all devices) you can easily jump to the bits you want. Thank you for taking such an interest in my videos, I really appreciate it :-)
This is probably the best video about soap making problem that I've found on the internet. My sister taught me how to soap and am using her recipe until now. But her recipe always produces glycerin river and she couldn't find a way to fix the recipe therefore chose not to use titanium oxide at all. But thank God I've found your video. It answered almost all my questions. I am now on quest finding my own recipe. Thank you
Thank You So Much for for teaching this. I am a new soap maker out of necessity. I developeda allergic reaction to chemicals after being a Hair Dresser 20 Plus years. I can not use even shampoo without blisters where it touches my skin. So I appreciate your teaching. It will help me alot.
AW, such a lovely comment, thank you so much that's really kind of you to say, I really hope you manage to create some beautiful soap to help with your allergies. Stay safe and well :-)
I didn’t quite understand gel phase. I usually do hot process so I didn’t understand why and how to manipulate it in cold process. Like why they would stick them in the oven overnight. This is an excellent video. I will be referring people to it if I see confusion around the RU-vid. Being respectful of the original content creators video of course. 😬😉
Lisa, you are a very gifted teacher! Thanks for making another video that helps soapers comprehend some things that can seem incomprehensible. I recently got a question about water and lye - I will refer that person to this excellent video! 😊
Thank you so much Denise for your lovely comment, that's so kind of you and it makes my day when people benefit from something I've done. Stay safe and well :-)
Wow Lisa, that was such an interesting and informative video. I now know to use more water if I’m using an accelerating FO and not to gel my yellows!! thank you for explaining the science behind the soap...for me understanding the science helps so much. Thanks again for sharing 💕💕
Hey Hilary, I'm so pleased you found it useful. Yes water will help with acceleration. You can still gel your yellows, especially if you are doing a design where yellow is only part of the colour, just add in a little neon yellow if you want bright, or yellow oxide if you want a stronger yellow, or add in more yellow mica as you know it will fade, so know you know they will fade, you can make them stronger to start with, so they fade back to the colour you want. Best wishes. Lisa xx
WOW! Lisa, thank you. What a generous, giving heart you have! I learned so, so, so much from your video. Thank you for taking the time to explain all this. Theses were ALL issues I have had a hard time understanding. You, my dear, are the best! Stay safe and well! :)
You are so welcome and thank you for your lovely comment. It really makes the hard work put into this videos worthwhile when people get some benefit out of them :-)
This was a really interesting vidéo ! Really clear and complete, what a work it must have been... I wish i was so structured 😅 Would you consider to make a video about trace, more specificaly light trace for designs, in the future ? However, great job, i learned a lot !! Thanks for sharing your passion Lisa :-)
Thank you so much Kima, I'm so pleased you found it useful. I have already made a video about trace, how to spot emulsion and the various stages of trace. Here it is if you'd like to watch it ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-o_VCYiDmOJs.html best wishes -
@@IDreamInSoap Haha, i thought i Saw all your vidéos After discovering your youtube, but seems that i missed that one ! Great, thanks once again :-) i shared this one on our soapgroup allready, so usefull! Take Care :-)
Thank you for sharing your experience with us! You are amazing! I switch off some tutorials as from the get go they don't hold my interest. But you are something else! Again thank you! You are a born teacher ☺️
Thank you so much for uploading this type of videos. I am currently learning how to make decent soaps, to be able to sell them eventually... I have so much to learn still... I do hope you will be able to teach me (us!) so much more, as you are SO good at teaching!!!
Great video!! So informative. I have been looking for this sort of info but I have run across anything as accurate and beautifully explained. Thank you!!
I have been reading, studying and researching for months now on soaping. Your video is the first time I understood what everybody else was talking about. Lol thank you so much !! Light bulb came on and I'm amazed that it was so simple but nobody else explained it like you !! Thank you thank you thank you
Thank you so much Rebecca, I'm so pleased you found the video helpful, it makes it worthwhile making videos when people benefit from them. Thank you for leaving me such a lovely comment :-)
I know this is an older video but thank you so much! I watched until the end. I t was all massively interesting and explained in a well thought out manner. I'm a bit of a science geek an so appreciated all the explanations. I've been bingeing your videos and now I appreciate even more how you make such beautiful ... Because you understand the science behind all of the processes. Thank you so much for... Well... Everything!❤
Another great video Lisa, thank you. I especially enjoyed the section on gel phase and colour. You've inspired me to do some of my own experiments. My little colour samples i have made up i suspect are all ungelled, as they were made in small individual moulds...
Hey Leanne, I love an experiment, you can learn so much. Yes little samples are tricky, when I do mine I do them in the little lidded sauce pots, then stack them all together and wrap them in a towel and CPOP them to get them to gel, as I gel all my soaps I want my samples to be consistent. stay safe and well :-)
Thank you so much for this informative video ! I solved 3 issues I had in my soaps because of your great explanation! Can't wait for more informative videos
I recently made 2 batches of LOVELY whipped soaps for my daughter's step children. Only to end up with nothing but hollow shells of soap surrounding lovely bubbles of glycerin! Didn't find that out until I tried to unmold them...😵🙃what a let down both for me and my adult daughter! So, at least now I know.
I really appreciated your time stamps and all the details. I wish I could buy you a cup of tea/coffee or your fav beverage. I’m sure others feel the same. Maybe you should have a “buy me a coffee” page?
That's so kind of you to say Naty , thank you so much, one day I'll get some sort of page or something sorted, just not enough hours in the day though 😊
Lisa!! Omg I love you this is my second video of yours I’ve watched and I live in America , but I would in a heartbeat move into your house to help you with soap and be roommates or an understudy you are so cool!! I love your kitchen so much lol it has a gorgeous design!
Wow! Another fascinating and educational video! Thank you so much for educating me. I’ve been using what I’ve learned from your videos, and have been getting much more consistent results with my soap. It makes soaping even more fun! How did you learn so much about the science of soaping? Experience or research or both?
Wonderful! That is such excellent news, I am so pleased, things like this make my day. I am one of those people who has to know how and why things work, so I always do a huge amount of research and then with that I do my own testing etc to try the research out so that I understand it thoroughly, so I'm always doing things like the little tests in this video. Stay safe and well :-)
What a nice way to teach about the basics of soaping. Again I thought I don't need to know this- again I was wrong. I learned. So much! Keep up the great work. I love your videos.
This video is incredibly helpful and the different terms & variations were easy to understand. There were a couple of things I got confused about, you mentioned "C-pop, what is this? And I noticed on the soap calc sheet the coconut 76 and I recall seeing on the calc I use there is also a coconut 92. What is the difference and how can you tell (there's nothing on the container I have. Thanks you so much for this video!
HI, thanks so much for your lovely comment. CPOP is cold process oven process. It when you make a cold process soap but then put it in the oven to force gel. So that will be heating the oven to about 70-75 F then turning it off as soon as you put the soap it, this help to force the soap to go through gel phase. Soaps with water discount sometimes don't go through gel, so CPOP helps ensure they do. The 76 and 92 on coconut oil refers to their melting temperature. The vast majority of coconut oil is 76, so if yours doesn't say you can pretty well guarantee it will be coconut oil 76. Hope this helps. Best wishes
I learned so much from you.. Thank you so much. I love soaping... A lot of opportunities, I know what's in the product AND a lot to learn.. Thank you so much
AW, such a lovely comment, thank you so much that's really kind of you to say Tomeline Bombadil and thank you for taking the time to leave a comment for me :-)
Wow Lisa! What an incredibly useful video! Thank you for making this. I'm kind of fascinated by the different colors that indigo powder makes when added at different phases.
You are very welcome, I'm so pleased you found it useful. I've never used indigo powder, but it does seem to work well from what I've seen others do. Stay safe and well :-)
AMAZING!!!! I learned so much. I watched it four times in a row. The light bulbs were popping over my head. Thank you so much for making and posting this video.
He, he, he goodness me 4 times!! that's amazing. I'm so pleased you enjoyed it and found it useful. It took ages to make, but with people like you finding it useful that makes it worthwhile 😊
Thank you so much Merdam9, I'm so pleased you found my videos helpful, it makes it worthwhile making videos when people benefit from them. Stay safe and well :-)
I Dream In Soap It is my pleasure! I will keep you updated when I get around to making the actually soap. I am so excited and I’ve just orderer infrared termometer!! 🙆🏻♂️
@@IDreamInSoap Thank you for the reply! I was wondering what rations of oils would you recommend? Are there any sources on what does each oil do to soap? For example, I've stumbled upon video which claims that castor oil in blend helps with more foaming.
Thank you so much! I'm very new, just 4 soaps under my belt. I understood lye calculation, but I didn't know anything about water discount except the general idea that you'd get thicker batter and the bar would harden sooner. I'm a science person, so I enjoyed the explanations; I'm a biology person, so I *really* appreciated how clearly you explained the chemistry. You're a smart, well-spoken lady and a great teacher. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you teach science professionally!
Thank you so much for your lovely comment Clare, that's so nice of you. I do teach, but I train accountants, so not science, but I'm one of those people who has to understand how and why things happen, rather than just going along with everything, so it leads me to do a lot of research. Stay safe and well :-)
@@IDreamInSoap Well you're a great teacher! I hope someday you do a video explaining the chemical changes that take place during curing - why the pH changes even after all the lye is bound up, why the lather improves, etc. Maybe it would help me be more patient while my soap cures! I'm allowing myself one simple HP recipe (7% SF, naked, bastile) that I can go ahead and use while I wait for everything else to cure. It's hard being new to this and not being able to test my results!
Wow! I can't say enough on how well your presentation and speech was and how thorough you are. I enjoyed very much. I have to comment an opinion and then I have a question. Awesome scale by the way. What kind is it? Any way, my opinion is on what causes soda ash and it draws from other forms of sciences and properties of water. I am like the Bruce Lee of soap! I incorporate other skills into soap. One of those skills is concrete. Like soap, concrete needs to be blended well. The more water the more it needs to be blended. Guess what would happen if is not blended well enough. Water rises to the top that I call loose water and because the various products mixed together creates a slow heat it will leave behind salt. A slow long lasting heat is more likely to leave behind residue in the form of salt. High water means a longer lasting heat then lower water. Lower water is a higher heat but it fizzles out quicker which results in less ash. There is a way around this which your test indirectly proves. Visually, it looked as if both were emulsified. But in actuality, one was not! The one with higher water had loose particles of water that had not absorbed anything. During the hardening phase the thicker water that did absorb oils and lye pushed the loose water up. Because of the long lasting heat the water left behind its salt content. A good way to look at this is: we do not absorb water. Water absorbs US. The alkaline probably has a hand in it too but knowing that doesn't help to stop it. What does help to stop it is longer periods of stick blending. So your test really did prove that excess water leads to salt BECAUSE of a lack of sticblending. Water only absorbs so much so there is a limit to excess water but the water that is used must be sticblended more then less water. Just my 2 cents worth. Could you make a video on how to calculate, on paper, hardness, conditioning and the other qualities like a soap calculator does. That is the one thing I don't know how to do. I'm subscribing just because of the excellent work you did.
glad I read this as I was leaning towards less water route, however this gives more flexibility for design if I have a longer pour time that I can control through if I want to use an excelerating fragrance...is that right? did I understand that correctly? im such newbie
@@chloehefford7416 In my opinion, if you have a slightly accelerating fragrance, do a simple design. If it accelerates faster do one color or no color. Excess water may not help depending on fragrance. I used to do a water lye ratio of 72/28 which is 2.5 x lye amount. It would still freeze up. I figured my fragrance couldn't be that accelerating. It had to be my oil combination. I changed it and several recipes later I have a decent one to work with. Olive oil resists saponification a lot and is easy to work with. Add Shea butter then all of a sudden, depending on the amount, it's a little more difficult. I eventually lowered my water all the way to 1.1 x lye amount. Even have done 50/50 but i wouldn't recommend that. Scale must be very accurate to within 3 decimal places And use grams. Accurate as you can get it. Bars can get crusty. Now I concentrate between 1.4 and 1.85 x lye to determine water amount and then concentrate on oil combinations. You can tell when your soap will harden fast when a lye calculator says the ' hardness' quality is 25 or above. I like to keep it lower then 20. That tells me I have time to work. Then again, add 4 or 5 drops of vegetable glycerine and you just might have time to work. Takes longer to unmold though. 1.85 x lye amount is a good place to start. At around 1.4 - 1.85, I never get soda ash. I do try to make sure I have a trace which tells me its blended enough otherwise it just might get ashy. Good luck in your designs. These guys make it look easy.
Hi iwannaapple. I'm sorry for the delay in my reply for some reason a notification of your post didn't come through until the comment below from Chloe was left. Thank you for your lovely comment. It was very interesting to read and does make some sense. I do believe both of my batters were correctly emulsified. It had been proven that a more fluid batter, because of the fluid nature does allow more movement of the sodium hydroxide to mix with the carbon dioxide in the air, producing sodium carbonate (soda ash). I think your theory discusses a similar thing with your low/high water, low water soap will gel but the gel phase will be a quick high peak, therefore gelling faster, a high water soap will gel over a longer period, therefore the fluid nature of the batter stays, allowing more movement and interaction of the two substances. I didn't go into too much detail on soda ash as the video was to try to help soapers with a range of issues that water can bring to their soap making, rather than trying to prove scientific tests, but it is a fascinating topic. I'll keep in mind the video on calculating hardness etc, I would need to find a way to make it more than just a lecture on calculations for it to add more value that you can get by just discussing the various properties of oils and their components, but I will have a think.
