Thank you for stopping in. I appreciate that.

This is going to be a trick. Working as smoothly, carefully and quickly will help and not using a large amount in the funnel. When you add more hot wax and oils, it will melt what is remaining, but I have to admit, the cleanup on this funnel, as nice as it is, can be tedious.

Hello, thank you for your question. I personally would not use castor oil as a carrier oil for infusions. Castor oil is used in most soap making recipes for its stable lather and moisturizing qualities, but it is a sticky, thick oil directly out of the bottle and will not leave any room for turning your herbs, flowers or leaves. If you are using a heating box and the oils will be heated for weeks, the castor oil will warm up and become workable, nevertheless, is still quite thick. It can be done, but I would encourage anyone to research their recipe, using one of the other carrier oils that will be combined with castor and revert to using that one. Example: I love infusing pine needle for making body butter or soap with lavender essential oil. One of the issues is, when you begin to look further into non-comedogenic oils (acne prone oils that wont clog pores) I have to decide who I am making the infusion for and what I am making with the infusion. Write everything down in an infusion file to research your progress. Olive oil is still okay to use for acne prone skin, a wonderful heavy oil, but absorbs slowly. I am making a body butter with Tallow for normal to dry skin, so I used the olive to infuse pine. The reason I did this is because I want the person using the body butter to be able to warm the butter in their hands by messaging gently before applying to the skin and I need the olive oil to last a while before absorbing so quickly. If I want to make liquid shampoo that is meant for sensitive acne prone skin, light weight and can be used by any skin type, then I will infuse with safflower, or sweet almond or apricot kernal oil. These are all non-comedogenic. Castor oil ranks # 1 on the non-comedogenic scale which is fantastic since # 3 or higher is likely to cause breakouts so I would use castor in soap recipes and revert to jojoba or fractioned coconut oil in cosmetic recipes. If you would like to experiment with heating castor oil in a small amount and adding your herbs, leaves or flowers, please do so. You can decide if this carrier oil is workable. I hope this helped and please add researching non-comedogenic oils to your future infusions so you can make different types of products for each skin type. Have a happy day! I have a tutorial on heating boxes if you would like to check it out.

Thank you I hope that was helpful.

You can eat them if you like. The oranges and lemons limes grapefruit can be mulled into a cider or into tea. The apples eaten and strawberries for cereal or snack. I do not eat them. I use for decor.

You can eat them if you like. The oranges and lemons limes grapefruit can be mulled into a cider or into tea. The apples eaten and strawberries for cereal or snack. I do not eat them. I use for decor.

Hi there! I don't add any vitamin E or preservative to the infusion. If you would like to look at one of my tutorials on how to store infused oils you will see a nice way to add a bit of warmth to the oils using a heat box. Once the oils have macerated approx. 4 to 6 weeks, you can strain the oil and set aside for use on any recipe. Once your recipe is made, you can than add a preservative. For instance, I infused flax seed oil for liquid shampoo. Now I am making the shampoo. I added preservative to my final product. I will not be messing with the remaining oil until needed so no need for preservative or Vitamin E. I make sure my oils have a best used date on them from the supplier and if not, I make a call to the supplier with lot number so they can give me the date. I use that date to guide me on how long that oil will last. Even then I always check oils before using to make sure there are no odors or appearance that the oil has gone bad. Even if the oil only has 6 month remaining on best used date, I use it for something else. I want to have the longest shelf life on the oils I infuse, because I cannot always jump on a recipe. I hope this helped.

@@WhiteDormouseArtisanSoaps thank you very much i watched your video on the heat box, very interesting

Hi there! I have not watched the tutorial in a while, but do speak of water and lemon juice to keep the dried items colorful, but do not dot them with lemon juice before going into the dehydrator or oven. The acidity is just dreadful over time. I still dehydrate to this day at least twice a month. You can go to whitedormouse.etsy.com to view some pretty garland made with dried fruit. It’s a real pleasure. I hope you have some good luck dehydrating or making oven baked fruits.

Oh I see now that you do.

Grazie mille. torna presto

Thank you for stopping in, I’m so happy you did.

That is so kind of you! I’m so happy you stopped by.

Hi there! No I don’t have a video, but when I purchased the dehydrator, it comes with a booklet on how to dehydrate each food. I did strawberries for cereal and they were delicious.

Glad you stopped in. You’re welcome.

I’m so happy it was helpful for you. Thanks for stopping in.

I love this thank you so kindly.

So excited to have you! Wow! Thank you!

You’re welcome! I believe I got it at Cracker Barrel.

Thank you for stopping in!

I will definately be back to watch more from your channel😀

You’re welcome! Thank you for stopping in. Keep working on non-comedogenic recipes and products. They will help a lot of people with skin issues and advertise it as such. People are unaware. Research all of the non-comedogenic oils and butters and work them into soap calc for your recipe. It’s a really good learning lesson.

Understandable. This project and tutorial is meant for those who enjoy crafting, decorating with fruit and the art of what can be done with fresh fruit.

Crystal, I am so sorry for not responding. For some reason I am not getting some of these messages. I will have to look into it. I prop a towel inside the oven door when baking fruits in the regular oven because the oven heats to the lowest 170 and it still may be a bit too high. By allowing some of the heat to escape, we are able to heat the fruits at even a lower temp. I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Hi there! Make sure they are thoroughly dry because it can be deceiving. No stickiness. Add them to a clean plastic container and seal tight. They should keep for a little over a year. Lemons and limes will darken after 6 months and grapefruit may turn deeper in color after a year. Apples do very well. It is a trial and error method. Don’t get discouraged. If you see something went wrong, figure out what it was and try again. Do not put in plastic container for at least a week.

Glad it was helpful! I'm so sorry I missed this comment.

My pleasure

Sami, I am so sorry I missed this question. For some reason I am not receiving my messages. We can infuse only the dried herbs. The fresh ones will cause mold.

Hi Sami, A good dog shampoo might consist of infused flax seed. No fragrance. You can formulate a very low percentage of essential oils, but they must be acceptable for dogs and cats. Research is going to be needed and this is a lengthy, but very valuable study. Once you research essential oils for pets, you will need to find the usage rate for those essential oils. They cannot be the ratio of what an adult human can tolerate. As far as liquid shampoo, this is the same process. You can use the same oil recipe. You may find a healthy shampoo for pets is not going to be one that a person who enjoys fragrance is going to prefer. You have to find customers that understand that pets not only do a lot of squirming in the tub because they may not like the water, but they also don't like the burning feeling of fragrance and their noses are way more sensitive than ours.

Sami, I never mess with fresh herbs unless I am adding them to an Alembic Distiller to make hydrosols. I use all dry herbs for infusing unless its coffee or fresh orange peal. If you would like to try this method, just work with a little bit of fresh moist herbs and experiment. I think it will be a nice project. Document all of your findings.

The oven is good too. I keep it low 180 and I prop door open with a dish towel or hot pad just a slight. Place on cookie rack and turn every 30 min set timer. After 2 hrs. you should not have to turn. You don’t want cookie sheet lines. Bake until no juices are left. If you take out too soon and leave to dry and they are still too wet, they brown faster. Don’t let this discourage you. You can do this.

@@WhiteDormouseArtisanSoaps oven was too high the first time I did 100c instead of 100f. Lol won’t do that again 😊

Love 💕 it! Thank you for stopping in.

Ohh my goodness thank you so much!

Thank you! Appreciate you stopping in.

I'm so happy you chimed in. I hope the video helped.

Hi there! Yes you can. Lately I have been infusing with a mixture of non-comedogenic oils so I can use them for hair products, lip care, handmade perfume and more. If you aren’t familiar with that term, please look into it as non-comedogenic may be super helpful. I usually use infused oils when making hot process soap because you can add them “after the cook” They don’t get lost in the process of lye where special oils can be lost in such high heat. So, if you are making hair products, I suggest reserving infused oils for formulations such as whipped soap, lotion, perfume, hot process soap, shampoo etc. Good luck!

Thank you so much for visiting. Such a nice compliment.

Hi! No they don’t eat it. I tried so many times. I even put it around bird feeder and in many locations. It’s not their favorite, that’s for sure.

Lol I came from New York, you just can’t fix that. It’s a horrible curse.

Hello there and thank you for chiming in and visiting the channel. I am assuming you might be referring to the wheel of oils that can be considered for infusing and you would like to know why coconut oil was not in the mix especially since coconut oil is used so many times in soap making. There are two different textures of coconut oil. Hard and liquid which would be fractionated coconut oil. When infusing, we would use fractionated coconut oil and we could have added this to the wheel. The shelf life is about two years and up meaning it takes a long time before it goes bad so it would make a great oil. We use a good amount of hard coconut oils in soap making up to 30% in a recipe and too much can be drying to the skin. In the tutorial, my goal was to make dog shampoo so I did not need more coconut oil since I was going to use hard coconut oil already. Fractionated coconut oil is usually not used in making hard soap, but please add fractionated coconut oil to the list. If I were to use fractionated coconut oil as one of my oil infusion choices, I would also need to have a reason and a recipe ready to go. I would use fractionated coconut oil and possibly combine it with two other oils to create a perfume or message oil, makeup remover, lip gloss, use to dilute essential oils, create a recipe for hair, and after shave. Add fractionated coconut oil to salves, balms, sugar scrubs and more. BTW you can use fractionated coconut oil at 1-100% As you get the feel of infusing oils for whatever your project may be, you will begin to expand your knowledge on all the beautiful and valuable products that can be made over and above soap making. Eventually, you may consider making a soap specifically for use on the face only or a message oil. You may even start to dabble in studying about comedogenic and non-comedogenic oils and which ones have the potential to clog pores. This would be a lot of fun and so important in your soap making adventures as hard coconut oil has a rating of 4 which means it is fairly high that it would clog pores in a person prone to acne breakouts while fractionated coconut oil ranks zero so its wonderful for leave on products. There is a list of non-comedogenic oils if you would like to look into it. If you ever decide that hard coconut oil is not going to benefit your particular recipe especially for a facial soap, you can replace it with Babassu which is non comedogenic. You can see how we can play with these oils to balance our recipes and to provide the best possible solution for all skin types. It’s a choice that some customers might be looking for and you can offer those products by letting customers know in your labeling, ingredients and a good write-up. It sure would help those who don’t have the knowledge like you do. I hope this helped and best wishes in your adventures.

@@WhiteDormouseArtisanSoaps THANK YOU SO MUCH for your reply. It is very much appreciated. It will help me a lot in my new and future adventures. Blessings

Hello Mary, research a little on non-comedogenic oils. Type that in and start there since you are looking for message. The oils you choose will not only need value and reason, but if they are non-comedogenic that would help those with problem skin. You will find a list of carrier oils that can be used that will not cause issues with acne. Some may be fractioned coconut oil, hemp, sweet almond and much more. If this doesn't work for your recipe, that's alright too. Make sure to check the shelf life of the carrier oil so you can get at least 1 to 2 years out of the product. Next, look up oils that absorb quickly, slowly and at a medium rate. This will help you decide if you want them at the top of your skin for cuts and scars etc. or medium where they will provide a glow and sheen, or fast absorbing to penetrate deeply. Next, look up herbs and flowers to infuse with. For muscle you can try infusing with ginger, arnica, goldenrod and more. Once infused and ready to create the product you can add cinnamon, cayenne, clove, peppermint, menthol and camphor which do very well in the recipe for aches and pains and muscle. I know it’s a lot of research. Take your time and start from scratch. It may take you all day or 2 days to come up with a recipe. Once you fill your jar, keep in warm dark area. I have a heat box set to 100 degrees. If you don’t have that just close the lid, tuck away and turn each day or every other for 4 to 6 weeks. Time goes fast. Write everything down. Research the items and document their uses to keep in your files.

You are so welcome! Thanks for watching. Good luck in your adventures.