I used to post quite actively in r/soapmaking since, well, I’m a soap maker.
My wife and I raised the pigs, rendered the lard, and mixed it with other oils and lye to make soap. You know, soap making.
r/soapmaking was filled with people who bought soap that other people made, melted it, mix in perfume and glitter, poured it into moulds, and sold it. I pointed out that they weren’t actually making soap but were doing arts and crafts with soap that other people make.
They set upon my like a bunch of extremist vegans at a BBQ. I said that there wasn’t anything wrong with doing soap arts and crafts but that it wasn’t really soap making since they didn’t actually make soap.
They called me arrogant for not accepting that not making soap was soap making and banned me. I can’t remember whether it was permanent or temporary but I never went back.
You may not be wrong but your sound like a gate keeping asshole. You definitely have a negative connotation to how you’re saying arts and crafts. I understand wanting credit for the skills you’ve honed but ffs it’s the internet not a professional society.
None of the other soap makers I know think I’m a gate keeping asshole. It only seems to be people who don’t make soap but call themselves soap makers that do.
Go cry to them about getting banned from Reddit then
Nah, I’m good.
Yet here you are having a temper tantrum over being banned for toxicity on Reddit
Is that a straw man or an ad hominem?
Either way is a fucking weak comment.
Do better.
This kind of toxicity is what got you banned from reddit. Can’t you just do your little hobby and let others do it as they want?
It must be really stressful to go through life so angry.
You have clearly misinterpreted the intent of this community and my position on these things. (I’ve edited the sidebar to make it more clear.) I think it’s fucking hysterical that the toxic soap decorating crowd banned me. I mistook r/soapmaking for a sub that would include, you know, people who make soap. I wanted to talk about recipes and processes, successes and failures, but got perfume and sparkles instead. I laughed when they got butt hurt because I didn’t accept the group think that they were making soap as opposed to buying soap that other people made and adding smells and sparkles to it.
I’m not “throwing a temper tantrum”, I’m laughing in their faces and sharing my amusement. I’m sorry you’re so fragile and defensive.
I was rooting for you, but now I don’t know, man.
I mean, “…temper tantrum…” could be either a straw man (I’m making fun of them, not raging about them so the comment could be a disingenuous attempt to bait me into addressing the straw man rather that a genuine comment on my satirical position) or it could be an ad hominem (attacking me instead of my comment.)
I think it’s fucking hysterical that they then accused me of projecting when it seems to be them that is throwing a temper tantrum because they don’t like the fact that I won’t accept that soap decorating and soap making are the same thing. They’re butt hurt. They called me toxic twice, suggested that I was throwing a temper tantrum, and said I was projecting. At this point I don’t give a shit what they say and I’m just winding them up for fun.
Sounds like a possible soap opera.
HA!
I think you’re absolutely right to the point where no reasonable person could disagree with you.
If I buy a bar of soap from someone, I have not made that soap, regardless of what I do with it after. Changing the shape, adding perfume, packaging it, whatever. The final product I’m selling is someone’s soap + my labor. Which is perfectly valid, however, I remain distinctly not a soap maker.
It’s like saying you produce paper when what you actually do is buy a notebook and draw in it. Just makes no sense to say, and there’s nothing wrong with being an artist anyway. So it makes more sense to just say you’re an artist
Yup.
You shouldn’t gate keep soap making.
I carve designs in them and I still consider myself a soap maker.
You’re doing soap arts and crafts and that’s fine. You’re carving soap that someone else made not making soap. It’s like buying a book that someone else wrote, putting a pretty cover on it, and calling yourself an author.
That’s called book binding. A perfectly respectable craft.
So is soap arts and crafts.
I make soap. I turn an animal into something you can wash yourself with. If you buy the soap that I made you’re not making the soap, I did.
I’m considering authoring a book about soap binding.
If you bound it in linen it would make a really good exfoliant scrub.
This guy soaps.
I melt the shavings down and turn them into new bars so I definitely make soap.
Reincarnation, then?
What is the saponification number of the oils that you’re using? Are you using NaOH or KOH?
What is the saponification number of the oils that you’re using
The animal fat I use sometimes is 195-200.
Are you using NaOH or KOH
That depends on the soap that I make but I prefer a soft soap using caustic potash.
But these days I’m content with carving the soap, it’s not that easy to get chemicals where I’m living.
That’s soap making.
I have six 40 kg bags of KOH in my storage building that I was given by a lab that was shutting down in a small city near where I live. I have the advantage of having studied chemistry in university so I speak the language and they trusted me. I found when I got home that they had slipped a number of bottles of chemicals that I didn’t ask about into my truck.
Yeah that’s how I got arrested for methamphetamine production the first time so I hear you.
Were you making methylamine?
Look at Proctor Gamble do chemicals!
Lye is a natural product. It’s the runoff from water passing through wood ash. When you calculate the saponification properly the lye is completely consumed converting the triglyceride into fatty acid and glycerol. Of course, if you’re old school you can leave some of the lye in and get the real wash your sins away experience.
Do you have these icons in cornflower blue?
Absolutely! Efficiency is priority number 1.
It sounds like you don’t make soap either. You just melt some soap precursors and mix in some oils. Arts and crafts, bro. 😎
True dat.
