Guides

A jar is sold by volume and wax is bought by weight, so the two numbers never match. Here is the conversion for every common container.

How much oil each wax will actually hold, why the same percentage can mean two different amounts, and what happens when you go over.

Two multiplications and one thing to watch for. Here is the method, worked at every load from six to ten per cent.

Less a matter of taste than of what each wax can physically do. Here is where they genuinely differ, and where they barely do.

It depends entirely on the jar. Here is the yield for every common container, and what the usual bag sizes work out to.

What every field means, where the number comes from, and how to tell when a result is wrong before you have mixed anything.

The oil left deliberately unsaponified in a bar — what it is for, what each setting changes, and why the number matters more as a safety margin than as a skin treatment.

Same oils, same lye, two very different afternoons — and one difference that decides it for most people.

Lye concentration, water-to-lye ratio and per cent of oils are three names for one decision — and the decision has nothing to do with how much lye you need.

One part acid to two parts bicarbonate, packed damp and left alone overnight. Everything else is detail — but the detail is where batches fail.

Same fizz as a bath bomb, several times the aroma, and absolutely no oils — because a steamer sits on a floor someone is standing on.

Cream of tartar is the usual answer and it fizzes far less. Here is exactly how much less, and the recipe that gets the most out of it anyway.

Seven things people put in bath bombs, what each one is actually for, and the percentage past which it starts working against you.

Nearly every bath bomb failure is moisture or pressure. Here is how to tell which one you have, and what to change next batch.

Blend the compound, dilute it into alcohol, then leave it alone for a month. Everything else is detail — and this page has the detail.

Maceration is the word for leaving it alone. It is also the difference between a blend and a perfume, and it is the step nearly everyone skips.

Notes are not ingredient categories. They describe how fast something leaves your skin — and that one fact explains everything else about the pyramid.

The only thing separating them is how much aromatic material is in the bottle. The bands are conventions, and houses disagree about them constantly.

Three ingredients, ten minutes and no alcohol at all. The only real decision is how much wax goes in — everything else follows from it.

Four ingredients and one rule you cannot break: anything containing water has to be preserved.

Buy the right resin for the depth you are pouring, weigh both parts rather than eyeballing them, and leave it alone once it is poured. Almost every first-batch failure is one of those three.

One part, no hardener, no measuring, and set in about a minute. It is a genuinely different product from two-part epoxy, and its limits are not the ones you would guess.

Four products share the word, and the one thing that separates them is how deep you can pour them. Pick by that, and everything else follows.

Two clear liquids that look identical in the bottle, with maximum pour depths about ten times apart. Going past the wrong one is a heat problem, not a patience problem.

Two different questions get asked in the same words: is the finished piece safe to eat off, and is the liquid safe to work with. They have different answers and different equipment.

The project deep pour resin was invented for. The volume is smaller than the arithmetic most people do, and the depth is well past what a coating epoxy can take.

A surface, not a casting. Everything about the job follows from the fact that a coating epoxy goes on an eighth of an inch at a time.

The first project most people finish, and the family where the method is the same every time — only the mold changes.

The half of the mold question a marketplace cannot answer. If you can cut your own, you are no longer limited to shapes somebody else decided to sell.

The one project where the fast one-part resin is usually the better answer — thin layers, no ratio to get wrong, and a finished pendant in an evening.

Eight failures, eight causes, and an honest answer about which pieces are recoverable. Most of them were decided before anything was poured.

The arithmetic is the same in all five crafts. What differs is the single line in each one that has to go back through its own calculator.

The formula is short. Getting the cost right before you apply it is the part that decides whether the price is a business or a subsidy.

Five models, one item, and the arithmetic written out — including the two that quietly disagree about what "double it" means.

Three ingredients and one decision that matters more than the other two put together — what the fragrance is dissolved into.

Every soy wax claims a clean pour and a strong throw. Here is what genuinely differs between them, and how to test it before committing.

Every oil is described as strong. Here is what to check on the spec sheet instead, and how far a bottle really goes.

A kit is a convenience purchase, not a saving. Here is what one has to include to be worth it, and the item almost all of them omit.

Lye is a commodity chemical, so the brand matters far less than the grade, the packaging and how you store it. Here is what to actually look for.

A mould is a commitment to a batch size. Here is what each type holds, what it yields, and which one to buy first.

A good bar needs a hard fat, a soft fat and a lather booster. Everything past that is refinement — here is what each oil does and where to stop.

Lye is a restricted product in a lot of places, which is why finding it is harder than it should be. Here is where to look and what to check.

Everyone sells it and almost nobody sells it in the size or the grade you want. Here is where to look and what to check before you order.

The mold decides your batch size, and a flexing one decides whether the bombs hold together at all. Here is what each type is for.

It is cheap, it is not restricted, and it is still the hardest thing in this craft to get hold of. Here is why, and what to ask for.

Two different products, two different crafts, and almost everyone starts by buying the wrong one for what they want to make.

One purchase changes the craft more than all the others put together, and it is not the oils.

Sorted by what you are making rather than by brand, and every one with the number listings never print: how much resin a cavity actually holds.

Five kinds of colour that behave completely differently in epoxy, and five different ceilings. The one thing they share is that none of them takes part in the reaction.

Easy to buy and easy to buy the wrong one. The cheapest listing is almost always a coating epoxy, bought by somebody who needed a casting one.

Sorted by when you need it rather than by what it costs. Most of the craft runs on about the price of one gallon of resin.