Hi blckoakbees--I'm glad you started this topic, too :)
Can you tell me more about the PVC pipe? I've also read of people heating the pipes and smooshing them down to form an oval mold. Do you grease yours? Line it? How do you get the hardened soap out?
Here's my favorite recipe so far, but keep in mind I'm new at this. I love it because it has beeswax, honey and other farm products, is beautiful and a great soap.
The original was called EIEIO, but I have revamped it a bit:
I poured mine at a thin-medium trace into a loaf pan lined with bubble wrap, bubbly side facing up, very well greased with olive oil. When I peeled the wrap off the next day, the soap had a very cool honeycomb appearance to it :)
EIEIO (revised from The Soapmaker's Companion, Susan Miller Cavitch)
13 oz coconut oil
13 oz olive oil (save aside 1 cup oil)
13 oz palm kernel oil
6 oz lard
5 oz corn oil
5 oz sunflower oil
2 oz beeswax
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Total oil: 57 oz
4 egg yolks, room temp
1/4 cup mixture of dried oatmeal (ground), wheat germ and cornmeal
12 grams grapefruit seed extract (optional preservative that I did not use)
7 tsp pure EO or FO (optional, and I did not use)
Total liquid: 19 oz (suggestion is 6.25 oz goat's milk/12.75 oz water)
Lye: 8.25 oz
Fats and oils: 100 F
Lye solution: 85 F
Add lye to water, mix well and let cool to 85 F. Mix egg yolks into set-aside 1 cup olive oil (oil at 85 F). Heat goat's milk gently to 80 F (I did not do this but instead chilled it as much as possible) and drizzle into the lye solution. Immediately add the milk/lye mixture to the oil (100 F), beating briskly. After 1-2 min of blending, drizzle in the well-blended egg/olive oil mixture, stirring briskly the entire time to present the egg yolks from curdling. At trace, add the oats/corn/wheat germ. Enjoy!