After too many months of no soap making, we finally made pine tar today. The hot process seems to work best for us making pine tar, but it’s amazing how many details we’ve forgotten over time, even though we make notes every time we make soap.

Pine tar is one of my favorite soaps, with a blend of Tea Tree, Peppermint and Lavender essential oils that completely mask the unpleasant odor of pine tar.

Since it comes only in shades of brown, it’s not a pretty soap, but it’s delightful to use. I’ve used it head to toe, although it doesn’t seem to work for dandruff control as well as coal-tar commercial soaps.

One of the problems in making HP soap is waiting for the temperature to come down past the flash points of the EOs, which I figured was about 150F. Although upon checking afterward, I found where someone listed the flash point of tea tree as 135-142F.

Waiting that longs mean the soap is starting to set up/dry out and is difficult to pack into the molds. We’ll see when we unmold it tomorrow.

(Added Jan 16, 2017) Just recently learned that the theory of adding EOs/FOs below flashpoint is bogus. Flashpoint is when a vaporized liquid could burst into flame. It has nothing to do with adding EOs/FOs to soap. The rule seems to be to add them after the soap has cooled to 150F or below.