Soap Making Ideas/Notes

I've read where one lady made CP soap and put it in the oven. She cooked it on WARM (200 degrees) for about 2 hours. She used a wooden mold lined with freezer paper. There were no ill effects to the freezer paper or the soap. It worked out great! This will speed up the curing process.

According to this website, http://facweb.northseattle.edu/jpatterson/pdf/chem252p/252Preparation%20of%20%20Soap10.pdf
in soap made using HP process, the saponification process has pretty much been complete by the time you pour into mold. If this is true, than my reasoning is that anything added right before pouring into mold would retain it's value. ie EO's (This site also has good info about amounts of lye for various oils) This would be a plus for making soap using HP vs CP.

Good info on various acids and which oils have them. http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1020026/fattyacidsandotherthings.pdf

Good samples of natural colorants:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/f11/natural-colorant-photo-gallary-32185/#post338073

6-3-13 Tried using confectioner's sugar and salt in lye water. Also added beeswax to oils. Run into problems. I think what happened was I was trying to get the beeswax to melt, and it just would NOT melt! While I'm trying to do this, my lye solution turned into a gel. I finally ended up picking out as much of the beeswax as I could and went ahead with recipe. I think during my blending, the rest of the beeswax was blended in, so maybe this is the route to take next time? (NO! Melt beeswax in microwave instead.) At any rate, as an end result, when I poured my soap into mold, I ended up with a sea of melted oil on top! Had to pour everything back into crock pot and cook for another 20 minutes. I think it's ok now. Seems to be staying mixed. Geez! lol!
Ok, I know undercooking was NOT the issue, so maybe it's because I didn't get it to full trace? It looked like pudding when I stopped blending though.

Adding color to soap: Here is an excellent break down of various herbs/spices and what color they produce in soaps:  http://www.mullerslanefarm.com/soapcolors.html

Link to SoapForum:  http://www.soapmakingforum.com/f19/can-you-freeze-lotion-later-use-35834/#post341242

Link to Soap Calculator:  http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp