Thoughts and ideas from the world of Majestic Mountain Sage.

Cold Process Soap

What does lye heavy soap look like? I want to show a photo from a well known book.This is Norma Coney’s book, The Complete Soapmaker. You may have a copy. The photo on page 32, as shown here, is the perfect example of what NOT to make. This soap is […]

Lye Heavy Soap

March 16, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Botanicals are often added to soaps. While I don’t have problems with most botanicals there are ways to add these items and few problems. No sweets: if your fruit item is sugary sweet it will probably cause problems in your soap. If you must add a peach puree to your […]

Botanicals in Soap

March 13, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Monday was a great snow day. It was 12 to 28 inches of white stuff, depending on where each MMS employee lives. This slow moving, heavy storm brought up our failed soap ideas. What do you think of doing when the weather dumps lots of snow? A cup of hot […]

Reviving A Failed Batch

March 12, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Let’s talk a moment about curing soap. If the soap was made properly, cure time is used for giving up excess water to the air. This is great if you live in a desert, but what if you live in a humid location? We highly recommend all soap get cut […]

Curing Soap

March 10, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Today’s blog is about how to approach color. When coloring a soap, we often think, “I want half my soap blue and half white in a lovely swirl.” In reality, the color is nowhere near half the mixture. True mixtures which are half white and half color have too much […]

Cold Process Soap, Day Five

February 27, 2009 in Cold Process Soap / Color In Products by Andee

Today’s Recipe: 6 ounces weight Hydrogenated Soybean Oil 5 ounces weight Coconut Oil 4 ounces weight Olive Oil 1 ounce weight Grapeseed Oil 2 TBSP dried Peppermint Leaves 7 mL Peppermint Essential Oil 2.2 ounces weight Sodium Hydroxide 6 fl oz water This mixture is much the same as those […]

Cold Process Soap, Day Four

February 26, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

As you know now, we are working on a basic formulation that has slight changes to determine WHAT effect an ingredient has. Today’s recipe is this: 6 oz wt Hydrogenated Soybean Oil 5 oz wt Coconut Oil 4 oz wt Olive Oil 1 oz wt Lanolin 6 fl oz Black […]

Cold Process Soap, Day Three

February 25, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

People can spend a lot of money on soap molds for cold process soap. We try to use what is easy to find for our test batches. Certainly we aren’t looking for equal-sized bars or perfectly shaped edges. We make soap in disposable cookie trays like the elf cookies from […]

Cold Process Soap, Day Two

February 24, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Today I won’t go into depth on the hows and whys of our soap recipe, but I will give you one. I want to cover the basics of how to get ready as our primary focus. HAIR If you have long hair please pull it up in a clip or […]

Cold Process Soap, Day One

February 23, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Lately, we have had many phone calls and e-mails to our Technical Support staff about cold-process soap. I thought that I might be able to help those who want to try their hand at soap making but need some more encouragement. Today I’m going to start with a list of […]

Cold Process Soap Week Coming Up

February 6, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee

Have you ever wondered how we choose the fragrances that go into our catalog? There are several tests each prospective fragrance goes through to be possibly added to the catalog. The cold process soap test is the hardest test and one that most fragrances fail for one reason or another. […]

Fragrance Testing at MMS

January 20, 2009 in Cold Process Soap / Fragrances by Andee

I was helping a customer today and I was asked what the Mokalata looked like used in a cold process soap. I was baffled how to describe what it looked like on the outside and inside. Then I realized that photos give the description I never could. Before cutting. After […]

Mokalata Pictures

January 7, 2009 in Cold Process Soap by Andee