Fresh Soap!

 Freshly cut soap on my counter...it smells SO good!

I swirled this soap, but it was fairly thick so the swirl is not very fine. It makes for some interesting looking soap, though!

I also snuck down to the sewing dungeon...started another Amanda Baby Quilt for a quilt shop sample...pictures tomorrow!

Soap!

I not only quilt, I make soap. I hadn't made any soap since last fall and I've been itching to try out a new recipe - trying to find a harder bar that the Boybarian won't reduce to sticky slime quite so fast. I'm not sure what he does with the soap, but it doesn't stay nice for long...and it used to! I think he might be testing his strength on the bars, squeezing them when they are wet...

Any way...today I printed off my recipe, measured out all of the ingredients...and proceeded to make soap!

The first step is to measure the ingredients. I have a handy-dandy USB electronic scale that The Army Guy bought for me when our local Radio Shack closed. I can measure to my heart's content...or until the ingredients are all measured!

I love soaping in the warm weather. I can mix my lye up outside and not have to deal with the fumes. Here is the lye and aloe vera juice concoction airing out in the sun on my back deck.

While in the throes of soaping, I forget to use my camera *sigh* so here is a picture of the oils and the caustic solution when they have almost reached trace. It is opaque and starting to emulsify. I will then move some of the soap to the smaller container shown on the left, using the cup in the middle. That container already has some green color in it, waiting to color half of my soap batch.

Thankfully The Peanut was home and helped me pour the soap into the mold. I prepped the mold by putting it into a cardboard box because I was concerned that we might just spill some out of the mold...I usually spill...and soap chemistry and kitchen floors are a slippery mix! We each poured our soap into opposite sides of the mold and then I swirled the two together. I can hardly wait until unmolding so I can see how much of a swirl I really got!

This green will morph until it looks mostly blue and the scent is some that I just had a little bit of and have had for too many years. I'm not sure if it will morph just because it is old, but considered it worthwhile to use it in a trial batch, hoping it keeps it's scent through the saponification process.

Tomorrow I'll unmold and cut the soap...and give you a peek!

The soap is cut

I cut the soap and have it set aside to "cure"

Soap needs to spend some time sitting as the saponification finishes up and extra moisture evaporates out. The soap CAN be used right away, but as it cures, it becomes milder.

I wish I could provide smell-a-vision for you, this soap smells so lovely and clean:

The Cedar and Sage soap is lovely, the Three Kings special soap is rather lumpy and will NOT win any awards for beauty:

The soap smells lovely and is hardening up nicely. It will also darken a bit as there is some vanilla in the scent blend which always turns soap brown.

I will have to postpone making more soap for a few more days as I am recovering from gall bladder surgery...probably won't be sewing/quilting much either for the next bit of time...

Making Soap

today I made a bit of soap...this is Cedar and Sage sitting nicely in the mold. I will unmold and cut it tomorrow. The recipe behaved beautifully. The specks are parsley...I thought they would give a good look to the soap. Parsley is one of the very few things that retains it's color in the saponification  process. Most other botanical items turn brown.

I also made a small test batch for a customer.  He wants a more moisturizing soap, so I cut WAY back on my coconut  oil, used both cocoa butter AND shea butter (in higher percentages) and superfatted a bit. This second batch overheated and grew out of the tube.

You can see that it even cracked on the top. I stuck that baby in the refrigerator to cool it down and it stopped  growing at 1" above the disposable mold. I have to admit that I unmolded this one  WAY early as it was already pretty hard at 6 hours and I wanted to see what was going on inside. The plastic lining on my disposable soap mold (AKA Pringles can) bubbled with the heat and left me with moon crater soap  that smells lovely and I'm hoping will be delightful on the skin - so who cares how it looks?

I miscalculated on my  test batch and so I will have two weird shaped soaps...should have put some rope in them so The Army Guy could have soap-on-a-rope. These are 3oz bathroom cups that I had handy when I realized that I had too much soap :)