You may have been wondering if I was ever going to make goat’s milk soap again after the last fiasco with the Red Rock Canyon soap. I received so many great tips on how to avoid the undissolved lye issue – it was great!! Knowing that my new soap cutter was going to be delivered yesterday, I decided to give the Red Rock Canyon another try so that I would have some soap to cut!

Several people suggested that my lye solution was too cold, therefore the lye wasn’t dissolving properly before I added it to the oils. I also had a couple people recommend pouring the lye solution through a fine mesh sieve to catch any undissolved particles. So I combined these tips, and waited until the lye solution was 85 degrees before I poured it through the sieve. Only problem was, I had so many saponified milk solids in the solution, it wouldn’t go through the sieve! I wish I had a picture, but of course I was only thinking about what I was going to do next! I ended up scraping everything out of the sieve and into the pot of oils, and pouring the rest of the solution straight into the pot as well.

As you can see, (so far anyway) the soap is free from lye particles – yippee!!!

In case you were wondering, Red Rock Canyon is a nice earthy-sweet cologne fragrance with lime essential oil. It’s a great men’s soap, colored with natural clays and cocoa powder. If all goes well, it should be available around August 24th. The pre-cure weight on this soap is a hefty 5.35 – 5.5 ounces because of my new soap cutter! Ok, so I may have overshot the size a bit. (I was hoping for at least 4 ounces!)

Here’s what the new cutter looks like:

There are a couple differences between this cutter and the “tank”. The first thing I noticed when I put my log of soap in the new cutter was that I had to cut my log in half before trying to cut the soap into slices. The bars on either side don’t allow for a longer soap log.

The other thing I noticed is that the wires are quite a bit heavier on the new cutter. It may help the wires last longer, but only time will tell! Oh, and in case you were wondering, I already have a buyer lined up for the tank. The new cutter cost a bit more, but it also shipped a lot faster. I’d say either one is a great product! Update: you can now get a cutter from SoapEquipment.com with a rounded frame called the Long Loaf cutter.