I'm usually posting and lurking in the soaping forums but using all that coconut oil and wanting to go gluten free I've researched the benefits of coconut oil, has anyone here benefitted from consuming raw coconut oil?

Okay first... awww thats cute! You should post a pic of the hedghog
 
Now I'm no genius on this but I can say the castor oil is one of the ingredients you want to keep since it acts as a "humectant by attracting and retaining moisturity to the skin."
 
You can go with cocoa butter but it is different from shea. "Cocoa butter lays down a protective layer that holds moisturity to the skin, making it a good skin softner." Cocoa is also much harder and less stickier than shea butter, plus it smells delicious!

Instead of the petroleum I would probably go with olive oil as the base since..."olive oil attracts external moisture, holds the moisture close to the skin, and forms a breathable film to prevent loss of internal moisture." It also does not interfere with your skins natural functions. Just so you know shea butter also does not inhibit skins natural functions.

And I got my quotes from The Soapmakers Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch just so you know.

So I would look into recipes for body butters/scrubs on the tutorial link and maybe use olive oil, castor oil, cocoa butter and sugar. Someone more experienced will have to answer your other questions, because I have no idea what the gigantic scientific words are!

Good Luck!

Thanks Aisy! I have to admit I love the smell of both of them. Also I can't wait so I used the ugly bar of cotton candy to see how the lather is and it is wonderful. Also not nearly as drying in the first week as my basic bar soap and my green clay shaving soaps I made in the last month were.

Ok here are two new soaps: the green speckled is Almond Facial Bar out of Anne Watsons Smart Soapmaking and is scented with cotton candy. I'd prefer to find a pink clay to use for coloring but all I had was green. It was fantastic I made these last night and woke up to a cotton candy smelling hotel room.

The orange is Honey Bee Good soap from thesage.com and this time I scented it with frankinsence and myrrh FO. According to one of my hardy welding coworkers it has a very manly smell and the cotton candy is definitely a girly soap .

The yellow cup looking thing is a solid lotion bar that I'd love to test out beyond rubbing on my arm but the smell is atrocious (I'm definitely gonna have to do something about molds.) I used non deoderized cocoa butter and it interacted with the lavendar lilac FO I added in. I also am not a flowery smell lover my sister and niece are so maybe I will try it out on them if they can stand it. But the little bit I rubbed on soaked in quite well and the cocoa smell seemed to go away much sooner than the lavender but I just hate the smell.

Ooh those are too cool! I love the faces within.

Hehe I would also buy a copy MareMare. I wanted to report when I cut the recipe for the lotion in half? I forgot to cut the water.  So when I stirred it up after it had time to settle the extra was sitting in the bowl all I had to do was sort of sift and pour it out. But after i got the extra out and stick blended a few more minutes it is perfect. Goes on great and is almost like a body butter but less greasy.

I also wanted to report I was able to get to the Walmart at Cody and picked up coconut oil, olive, and canola as well as some crisco. I made my first batch of cold process soap tonight. And boy oh boy do I want to watch it set up and gel. I cant wait to check it tomorrow. But I will I promise to be good! I used the basic bar recipe from thesage.com.

Oh and I picked up a bottle of rosemary infused olive oil. Without essential oils or fragrances I'm sticking with some basic nonscented bars but the oil has a really really nice subtle rosemary smell. I looked for ground rosemary at wally world but didn't find any. The rosemary in the oil is full stem unfortunately. But after I cut the basic bar I will probably make a olive oil rosemary bar and hope the smell stays in.

Thats true Smitten, if it hadn't been for Lush and thinking if I could just make some of my own stuff I could save money and everyone I know could have the same luxory soapy stuff.

Before Lush and craftster all I knew about making soap was melt n pour. I did that one year for xmas for all my family and friends and they just don't have the same love for bath stuff that I do, my friend still has her sandalwood smelling body powder and bath salts sitting in her living room actually. But after my sister and neice recently had a he**ish episode with a luxurious smelling honey,almond, milk handsoap she thought could be used as a body wash? lol They are more than willing to use my soaps.

On a side note I couldn't take any more I scoured the local stores looking for lye. And joy of joys I found some! So unfortunately the local grocery store doesn't carry palm, coconut or even babbasu oil. Hmm go figure. But I've got the main ingredient for soap. I did however make a batch of "lotion." Turned out really well I think for my first attempt. I did cut the recipe in half but it came out quiet nice. Went on a little greasy but soaked right in and now my hands feel super soft.

I got this from here can't remember which thread but here's the original site she posted.

http://anaustinhomestead.blogspot.com/2011/01/tutorial-how-to-make-natural-lotion-at.html

Instead of 2oz of sweet almond oil I used one plus a stick of my body butter which added a slight smell of honey so it isn't completely unscented. But I do love this recipe so far and plan on using it again.

Anyways... Soap On! 

And I freaked out. I found a recipe duplicating their bars here:

http://www.pvsoap.com/recipe_solid_shampoo_bars_sls.htm

3.75 ozs of SLS needles in each bar! The sales lady said the amount of sls was minimal! That is NOT minimal that is excessive! No wonder my hair felt dry and straw like everytime I used it. Geez. I could slap myself. Ok I just wanted to report that.

I'm so glad I started making soap and researching everything that goes with it. I made the Bee Good honey bar off of thesage.com and subbed avocado oil since I didn't have sweet almond. It does a great job on my skin and I used it for hair last night and it did a fantastic job on that. So much better than sls.

Ok they sound really interesting, but what are they precisely? Can you put a pic up?

What sucks is I'm working out of state and all my soaping stuff is at home! But would rosemary infused olive oil work? It was a random idea I had and I thought "ooooh that sounds yummy smelling!" Even suckier is I recieved a care package with my first sweet almond oil and I'm dying to use it in a new batch of soap!