Cucumber and Aloe soap

I made a new batch of soap using MMS' cucumber and aloe fo. I love the smell of this stuff... very soothing I find. I also intended on doing a bit of a swirl in the mold (attempt to that is).

Recipe is as follows:

Castor oil 10%
Coconut 15%
Olive 60%
PKO 15%

I did a 7% superfat



Scented with MMS cucumber and aloe... about 1.5 cups reserved (unscented) was tinted green with green ultramarine and then poured on top.. I need to either pour from greater distance... or remember to use handy dandy tool to help the swirl.

What I did different today-

1. Put distilled water into freezer so I started with a slush as opposed to room temp water. This made the lye cool down faster and I didnt have to wait so long or use a cold water bath.

2. I used coconut which wasnt in the last batch

3. Something I have not ever done... my coconut and pko = 30% of my base oils... I have in the past kept them under 25%.

4. Placed saran wrap on top of the soap and covered that baby up. Usually I ITMHP so this was a big change for me.

Soap came to a complete gel... still gel in center but firm on edges as I call it a night.

Rebatching... Arghh!

I hate rebatching... seriously hate it. Just want to say that first!

After the larder soap had cooled, I took it out of the mold and used my handy dandy soap cutter to... well cut the soap. Oh it was rather pretty for the odd way it went together... a nice creamy base and then about an inch of purple on top.. and because we had to smush it all together the part on top wasnt a straight line... but dipped and rose. A look I rather liked... but...

BUT there were pockets of liquid here and there... oh it was so sad... so I took a bit of the liquid and touched my tongue to it and ...

BLECH...

lye!

*sigh* so I cut it all up into little bits... about an inch square... threw it into my nice clean soaping pot... drizzled a bit of olive oil on top and popped it into the oven. I dont believe I needed to add the olive oil... I checked that recipe on three different sap calculators... but with lye swimming around in my soap... i wanted to be safe so in a tid bit of OO went. After it all melted and gelled again into a thick applesaucy looking mess... I pushed and squished it into my mold and slapped the top on and called it good.

When it was all cool... cut the soap again with the handy dandy soap cutter and now i have kind of grayish blue bars with some chunks of purple in it.

Rather cool looking but not what I wanted definitely. Still has a gorgeous lavender smell though so thats ok.

Will take a pic or two in a bit and post those babies. Wish i had taken a pic before the rebatch though... now those were pretty bars.



And yes I am aware that the picture is tilted to one side. I could tell you that I meant to do that... or I could blame it on the children who were crowded around me... or that the hubby goosed me on his way past. But the truth is ...

ummm...

what was I saying? :P

~Regi

Larder soap... the next day.

Well I made my soap last night. I actually went to do it on Wednesday night but could only find my smaller scale. I have one that weighs out items to 1000 grams and one that can weight to 0.1 gram. Couldnt find the larger one so we ended up putting everything away so that I could look for it on Thursday, and soap that evening. I also discovered that some of my EOs were kind of icky in the bottom of the jars. They smelled nice but when I held one of the bottles up to the light there was stuff on the bottom of the jar. Thank goodness the bulgarian lavender was ok... but the rosemary and teatree oils both had some funky growths. Perhaps they were fine... but Im not going to take a chance on putting something "bad" into my soaps. So I need to do some research on eos... shelflife and how to dispose of them if they have gone over.

So Thursday night I soaped. Scented with the Bul. Lavender (damn I missed that stuff... it smells so good) and a bit of tea tree eo i had in the medicine cabinet. Meant to give it a purple swirl... but the stuff took off and was ready to be molded before I could swirl. So we mushed the purple soap on top of the uncolored part and popped it into a preheated oven. I often soap ITMHP which means I make my soap the cold process way... but use a oven safe mold and "cook" the soap... errr bring it to gel using the heat in the oven. Then leave it in the oven over night. Often its ready to cut the next morning. But alas... I think the soap gremlins were at my house.

That would explain the gucky eos, the missing scale, the incredibly fast trace... it didnt seize persay... but that sucker went fast. This morning when I checked the soap there were small clear bubbles of liquid on top of the soap. When i moved the mold some of the larger "bubbles" jiggled. Inside the wooden mold the liner is still warm so I am hoping its excess oils that will be reabsorbed as the soap cools. We can hope anyways.

It smells nice! Not sure what else to say about it until i can get it out of the mold and cut. That will tell the story then.

I think the next thing in the soap pot will be a plain soap... perhaps scented with a FO that doesnt accelerate trace... and just olive with a touch of pko and castor... or perhaps just olive oil... and I will be ultra careful... soap a lot cooler then I used to etc.

I guess it was a bit much to jump back into soaping after so much time away and expect to be able to scent, swirl err... layer, and use a brand new to me oil... and expect it to turn out perfectly. Thats asking a lot.

~regi

Larder Soap

I am off to make a larder soap... lol

What's a larder soap you ask? Well its a soap made with what ever I can find in my larder that is soapable.. minus the canola and omega8 oils. So this soap will be starring (in no particular order) castor oil, olive oil, lard (an impulse buy because the Lady knows the teen wont use this) and Palm Kernel oil ... I have no clue how fast or slow lard will soap so I will need to be ultra careful with my temps. I will scent it with a favorite blend of eos... teatree, Bulgarian Lavender and a tid bit of rosemary. I might throw in some lavender buds if i can find them... or some ultramarines...

Just gotta double check my numbers at another soap calc... and then wait for the family to stop running through the kitchen and I will be good to go!

~Regi

Palm oil... the question

Palm oil has been in the news as of late... at least it has been over at the Dish. From what I have read, the need for palm oil has risen especially in regards to biodiesel fuels ... so some countries are cutting down rainforests to put in more palm plantations while other countries are carefully protecting the rainforests and keeping the new palm plantations on lands that were already being used for other crops (coconut, rubber are what I can recall from the list). Several species are being threatened by this deforestation (orangutans, Sumatran tigers, rhinoceros)... and the loss of these forests and its impact on the environment while of great concern, also means we have organizations like Greenpeace throwing in their two cents... and frankly I read and view anything by that organization with skeptism. So its terribly hard to know what to believe...

So basically what I am saying here is that I just don’t know where the future of palm oil and palm kernel oil is in MY soaps. I have made a new formula using cocoa butter in place of both the palm and palm kernel and upping the olive... and while the numbers look good I won’t know for sure until I have made batches with the recipe and tested them. The other option is to use tallow or lard... but my eldest daughter tells me she wont use it or buy it... and none of her friends would either if it had those items in it... what a pita she is ... but at the same time soap has been made using those products since the beginning of time. They produce lovely bars of soap and I could use something that would otherwise go to waste instead of an item that is causing such ecological problems if you will. I just dont know what the answer is. (((Spell check on blogger sucks by the way... it tells me words are spelled wrong but where is the correct spelling .. sheesh)))

I went through my base oils last night... many of them had been sitting in the basement for 8 + months... and a lot of them have gone rancid. I had a feeling that would be the case but sheesh I was disappointed to see it. The coconut was a hard blow... it was a relatively new container and the lid had warped or something so it wasn’t closed all the way. It was orange on top and as we dug through it the color of the oil got lighter and lighter... but then it had this odd smell to it and parts were wet with droplets of liquid... I just can’t trust that it’s ok...I want to make a batch of soap so bad lol... I have olive, palm kernel flakes, castor and lard. So tonight as soon as the kids clear out of the kitchen area I will make soap... need to make soap... need to saponify. lmao I will scent it with tea tree, Bul. lavender and rosemary. I would love to add some color to it... not sure i will though... depends on how i am feeling when i start getting everything ready. Hopefully i will have some pics for tomorrow. We will see.

~Regi

In the beginning...

In 2000 or so I was browsing through a craft magazine and saw a picture of some interesting looking soaps. Now everyone knows what soap is... and where you get it- the grocery store right? But this soap in the magazine was kind of different looking from what I was used to, you know...that big old bar of Dial that made my skin feel kind of tight. The directions in the magazine were rather simple... take a mild bar of soap... grate it up ... add stuff to it and then put it in a mold. When it was solid, you had a bar of soap that was homemade. I thought that was kinda cool... but then I started wondering how hard it would be to make it from scratch. So off I went to the library... checked out a few old fashioned books ... the process sounded kind of scary to be honest, but the more I thought about it... the more I read ... I knew that making soap using oils and fats along with lye was what I really wanted to do.

The first batch of soap I made was a mess *smile* I made a castile type soap with a bit of coconut... and scented it with sweet grass FO. Tons of stuff went wrong while making that soap... but I learned a lot of stuff too. I was so afraid I had ruined the soap... but I poured it into my mold anyways... put the lid on it and wrapped it up and hoped for the best. Of course I peaked a few too many times... I took it out of the mold too soon... cut it too soon, and was disappointed with my kind of mushy soap. Not wanting to throw it away and having no idea what rebatching entailed... I put it on a high shelf and kind of forgot about it. I found it about 6 months later... and it was as hard as a brick and still smelled rather nice. If you look in the picture below you will see it on the left hand side... the second soap back.





It took a while but I finally got the hang of the soap thing... Over time I used several different mold types... cut my soaps into different sizes... made soap balls and just had a blast. I came out with combos I absolutely loved... and combos I tried to give away quickly because I couldn't stand the way they smelled. One of my least favorite combos had goats milk and comfrey and was scented with patchouli, geranium and rosewood and a few other things. Blech... but the funny thing is that the person I gave that entire batch too still asks for it today. She loves the stuff. Now I just have to find the dang recipe o.O

I was sure having fun... people got to the point that if they saw me coming with a bag in my hands they would run LOL... just kidding. Friends and family started suggesting that I sell my soaps and after a lot of thought I decided to go into business... I had a few favorite recipes... some favorite scent combos... and was starting to go for a more artistic look in my soap pictures. The soap above was scented with a rose FO and was an in the pot swirl soap using madder root. More like a marble really... but it was supposed to be a swirl *smiles*

Above is a huge batch of Patchouli/lavender soap... I incorporated both ground up and whole lavender flowers. A bit exfoliating... with an awesome scent.

One of my family's favorite soaps is a Teatree/lavender/rosemary eo scented soap... and for this one I was playing with ultramarines. I think it turned out rather pretty. I definitely need more practice with the whole layering thing... and because the soap was moving so fast in the end I couldnt incorporate the color as well as I wanted too... but I still am pleased with the way it turned out. It was just a small 2 pound batch... just an itty bitty batch for someone who was often making 4-6 pound batches at a time. It was also the last batch of soap I made before my "soaping break" if you will.

The soaping bug has hit me again... and I am very excited to get back at it.

~Regi