February Soap

Batch #2

A funny thing happened this past Christmas.  I ran out of gift-worthy homemade soap, and was surprised to find out that family members were notably disappointed by this.   I have been giving homemade soap for roughly 4 years now but hadn't realized it was appreciated as much as it was.  To prevent this calamity from reoccurring in Christmas 2015, I will strive to make a double batch of cold-processed soap every month in 2015 (or 12x).   There should then be enough soap to gift, trade, and of course, use ourselves.

Unfortunately, January was a write-off due to illness, so this past Saturday marked the first batches of 2015 soap.  It also marked the first time I made soap in my own kitchen.  As expected, the experience was chaotic, exciting, and super fun!  My soap maven JayKay came along and made her own beautiful 2 batches, and ensured I took a deep breath once in a while.

Details:

Ingredients:  Olive oil, Coconut oil, Cocoa butter, Cocoa & Turmeric for colours

Mistake of the day, forgot to take the oils off the stove so the oils were too hot when it was time to combine them with the lye.  Had to cool the oils in the freezer.  Combined them when lye - 106F and oils around 120F.  

Batch #2 again... because it's so awesome!

Batch #1 Essential Oil:  Lime

Poured in oval bars-silicon mould with the cocoa as the main colour, and turmeric in top centre.   Soap became too liquid after incorporating the EO.  As a result, the colours blended together.  I tried to remove the bars from the moulds the following day but they were very brittle so at JayKay's recommendation they spent quality time in the freezer for a few hours.  Bars have now hardened.  Some have circular discolouration in the centre which may be evidence of gelling in the centre.  Perhaps I should have kept them out of the freezer so they could gel throughout.

Batch #2  Essential Oils:  Grapefruit, Litsea, Lime

Used a 5" x 8" form & made bars.  Remaining Batch #1 colours were dumped in one end to make streaks.  The plain soap will be grated and used in a liquid laundry detergent recipe.  Can't wait to use the bars with colours because the results were suprisingly beautiful.  I wish there were more than just a few bars with colours. 

Thoughts for future soapy projects:

- baby soap

- spirulina

- oatmeal, poppy seeds, rice

- thick textured top

- one solid colour cut in chunks to add to other soaps