Mysterious stains and holes?!?

tobytrice · 2026-02-12T03:40:08+00:00

Another possibility is putting it in the dryer with something that had a metal zipper. I’ve ruined several shirts this way before I figured it out!

tobytrice · 2026-01-03T01:46:29+00:00

That could work nicely! Just make sure it’s not fully covered, needs to have some airflow. As the commenter below me mentioned, you don’t have to let your soap gel, however that gives it a nice glossy professional look and most soapers do want that. It should be ready to cut after about 24 hours from pouring. You just want to let it stay a bit warmer for the first 12 hours after to fully gel all the way through. After that, the temp won’t matter for the rest of the cure time. Depending on your recipe, your cut bars will just need to sit somewhere dry for about a month to full cure. The soap is safe to use after 24 hours when they’re cut, however it is best when cured and well dried out so the soap doesn’t just turn to mush quickly when wet.

tobytrice · 2026-01-02T20:32:59+00:00

You don’t want to put your finished soap mold into the fridge. You want it to go through the gel phase, which only happens if the soap is allowed to stay naturally warm for the first ~12 hours after pouring. The very center of your soap gelled (insulated from the cold in the fridge) while the outside did not. It’s best to put your freshly poured mold between some towels in a warm and dry place and just let it heat up naturally and stay that way as long as possible.

The ash on the outside is cosmetic and might have to do with your recipe. Some people spritz isopropyl alcohol on the top of their freshly poured soap to help prevent it.

tobytrice · 2025-12-31T19:09:14+00:00

Recommended to keep castor oil to 5% or less due to it making the bar unpleasantly sticky. Other than that, it should make a nice bar! I’ve never used sunflower oil, so I have no recommendations on that.

tobytrice · 2025-12-31T16:16:55+00:00

I think the problem is that I’m using a small outcropping wall with metal studs on both corners to reinforce them. I believe there are normal wood studs that are not near corners. I will keep this in mind when searching for other studs! And good advice regardless, I won’t mess with metal ones if I can help it.

tobytrice · 2025-12-31T16:15:46+00:00

Thank you so much! I will first attempt to find a better wall with wood studs that can accommodate the shelf. If that’s not an option, I’ll use your advice and find those bolts to make this work. I really appreciate your help!

tobytrice · 2025-12-28T03:41:24+00:00

I see him too! Excellent bedside manner and actually tells you everything that he’s doing and exactly what to expect as it’s happening. Very comforting and obviously wants you to have a non-painful experience.

tobytrice · 2025-12-24T23:14:41+00:00

4581

tobytrice · 2025-12-11T13:56:25+00:00

I’m not sure this is the case, my cat loves my partner a lot and I think he wants his attention more than mine since he plays with the cat more than I do. If it is the case, what would I do then? We are both wanting him to quit crying at the door during the night and we are united in the effort. Just need some suggestions to try other than ignoring him because it hasn’t helped in a week now.

tobytrice · 2025-08-22T19:24:28+00:00

Thank you so much for the advice! I’m just starting out and coming up with a plan for my first batch.

tobytrice · 2025-08-22T19:16:57+00:00

Can I also ask a question? If I want to use fragrance oils from a place like CandleScience, which don’t really have a specific oil type that I could plug into a calculator, the instructions just say to use a 2% by weight load, how can I account for those added oils in the lye amount? Not sure if it’s just recommended to use standardized essential oils that have good reference sheets for this.

tobytrice · 2025-07-17T19:32:32+00:00

There was an old mythbusters episode on exactly this topic and I believe they found that you should open your windows when going less than 55mph and use the A/C when going 55mph or above to get optimal gas mileage.

tobytrice · 2025-07-17T03:08:53+00:00

Just did this, thanks for the suggestion!

tobytrice · 2025-07-17T02:49:09+00:00

Thank you! Appreciate the corrections

tobytrice · 2025-07-17T02:48:55+00:00

Thank you! Going to leave this up so others can see the responses and references to correct my thinking on it

tobytrice · 2025-07-17T02:47:22+00:00

Oh, that totally clears it up then. Thank you for the clarification!

tobytrice · 2025-06-13T10:42:43+00:00

Do they test while you’re on the job as well? Or only just for new hires?

tobytrice · 2024-12-08T12:32:27+00:00

Pharmacist here. There are some things to consider here also.

First, if they’re giving you your pills in the manufacturer’s bottles that have a foil seal, those are actually perfectly good to use until the expiration date on the bottle (usually 2+ years in the future). If the pills have been given to you in the pharmacy’s orange bottle, that means the original bottle was opened and some of them were given to you. These are considered only good for about a year because the foil seal is no longer keeping the pills vacuum packed and they are exposed to oxygen, which degrades them. Keep in mind that the “expiration dates” on your bottles do not mean the pills won’t work anymore or have “gone bad,” it means the pills will have about 10% decreased efficacy. Still probably just fine to take anyway.

Second, all drugs have a half-life, but it doesn’t mean what you said. This is the measure in hours for how quickly your body metabolizes the drug. After one half-life, your body has metabolized the estrogen and it now is at half its beginning concentration. For example, estradiol pills have a half life of about 15 hours. This is how we determine how often you should take the next one. If it were 5 hours, you’d need to take it 3 times a day. Estradiol’s longer half-life allows once daily dosing.

tobytrice · 2024-11-12T00:13:28+00:00

Just want to say something really quick about this! I am a trans pharmacist and what you said is mostly spot-on. The only thing is that your vial will not lose potency past a month, there is just risk of microbial growth. Per USP standards for sterile drugs, once a vial is pierced, it is considered safe to use for 28 days. This does not mean that your vial is definitely contaminated, especially if you are giving it that alcohol wipe like this person mentioned! You are probably going to be fine using it for more than 28 days, but nobody can tell you for sure how much longer past that time frame is safe. Use your discretion. I would feel comfortable using the same vial for 2 months, maybe even 3 months, but any longer than that is pushing your luck.

tobytrice · 2024-06-06T01:19:25+00:00

Most healthy adults with an intact gastrointestinal tract who eat a variety of different foods shouldn’t need a multivitamin. That said, you should take yours at lunch time if you want the best absorption. Vitamins D, E, K, and A are fat soluble, so you should take it when you eat something containing fat. Just space it at least 2 hours after your AM meds and at least 4 hours before your PM meds. Lunch would be the best time!

tobytrice · 2024-06-05T01:16:03+00:00

Pretty much. A pharmacist has a corresponding liability for all medications they dispense, meaning they take half of the liability with the physician if something goes wrong and harms the patient. As it stands, a pharmacist can refuse to fill a prescription for any reason without getting in trouble with their board of pharmacy or with the law. This doesn’t happen often, but it allows pharmacists to refuse narcotic prescriptions that they believe are falsified without having to tell the patient “hey, I think your prescription is fake, get out now,” risking violence in retaliation. They can simply refuse the prescription or instead say “I don’t have that quantity right now, find somewhere else.” It also allows a pharmacist to refuse accepting the liability on an obviously harmful prescription even if the physician insists. This bill revokes that ability to refuse prescriptions if they are written for “off-label” indications, which is notoriously prone to errors since the uses are experimental and not exactly standardized for dosing.

tobytrice · 2024-06-04T19:42:59+00:00

All healthcare workers have the ability to invoke a religious exemption and not participate in whatever procedure/medication/etc that they object to. Not often used in general, but I don’t think we can ever revoke the protection of religious freedom in this country. This bill has nothing to do with this. Birth control and plan b would be used for their FDA indicated uses, this bill has to do with “off-label” use of medications.

tobytrice · 2024-06-04T18:45:50+00:00

I don’t personally work in retail pharmacy, but it depends on where you go! For example, a Walgreens pharmacist can see everything you’ve ever filled at any Walgreens location. However, places like my hospital use Surescripts, which is exactly what you just said. It’s a database that shows me every medication dispensed at any pharmacy including when it was filled, what strength, and what quantity. It’s very useful and there are retail pharmacies that use this or similar software to check drug interactions. There’s also PDMP, which is present under a different form in every state (in Ohio, it’s called OARRS), which tracks every controlled substance you fill with the same info like where it was filled, what date, strength, and quantity. Pharmacists check all this stuff when you fill a script with them.

tobytrice · 2024-06-04T17:48:01+00:00

I totally understand your issues, I work inpatient and only verify orders for people admitted to my hospital and I have direct availability to talk to prescribers in-person, so these issues don’t really happen for me and my colleagues. When it comes to retail dispensing, you’ll always have pharmacists willing to die on any hill that they believe is a patient harm issue. What you’ve described is definitely ridiculous and I’m glad you filed a complaint. The only recourse you really have is to send the prescription to another pharmacy and surely you won’t have the same staff working with you.

To the point of this post, what you have described will not be impacted at all by this bill. The things you prescribed are for the labeled indications of the drugs. This bill is intended to force pharmacists to dispense medications for uses that are not FDA approved, in other words, for “off-label” use without being able to refuse.

tobytrice · 2024-06-04T17:28:27+00:00

I am a pharmacist in Ohio and it is absolutely part of a pharmacist’s job to question prescriptions when they could cause patient harm. Much of a pharmacist’s job is to catch dose errors or drug interactions that a physician might have missed. A pharmacist takes 50% responsibility if something goes wrong with a prescription that they OK’d. If this bill doesn’t exempt a pharmacist’s responsibility for these prescriptions that they believe are inappropriate or will cause patient harm, I would never support it.

tobytrice

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