Rebatched bastile

Ok, so I think it was wishful thinking about the lye liquid maybe reabsorbing.  I finally gave in tonight and rebatched it in the slow cooker.  It's in some square shaped silicone molds cooling.  I think I added too much water to the rebatch though.  It's a little too mushy.  That means it will take longer to come out of the mold because it has to dry out more.   I did put a small amount of the original batch into star shaped ice cube molds that did not gel.  I popped them out of their molds today and there doesn't seem to be any weird lye sweat.  I'm hoping they will stay that way.

Here's how cute the little stars are.  I'm not sure what I'll use them for, maybe an embed of some sort in another soap.

Bastile is sweating lye!

So last thursday 4/22/10 I made a 2 lb batch of bastile (90% pomace
oo/10%castor). I wanted to see the difference between gel and non gel so half
of the batch I put into the oven to make sure it gelled and the other half I
put into the freezer for 12 hours then refridgerator for 12 hours then out on the counter. Both batches turned out soft I unmolded both on saturday at 48
hours.  The non-gelled I had to be really careful with since it was super soft.
Anyway, I went to cut the gelled one today (which turned out just fine) and when
I looked at the non-gelled loaf it was sweating like crazy. Touched it and
licked my finger and got zapped. The liquid is beaded up on all sides and top
and dribbling down the side. This must have happened with in the last 24
hours. I have little experience with non-gelling soaps, why would the lye start
to sweat out of the soap at 3-4 days (the gelled soap looks fine)? I don't know. 
I took a photo today and the liquid is like a little stream coming off of the loaf.  I think I'll just leave it alone for a few more days and see what happens.

 

Mango Butter

A couple of days ago I made soap with Mango Butter.  It's supposed to be really nice for the skin.  I colored it a nice orange-yellow color and fragranced it with Mango Papaya FO and a little bit of Litsea cubeba EO (nice lemony scent).  I put them into heart shaped silicone muffin molds with a little extra going into star shaped ice cube molds.  The mixture got a little too thick so I had to glop them into the molds.  I unmolded them yesterday.  They popped out of the molds easily – yay for silicone and flexible rubber.  There are some little air pockets because I couldn't bang out all of the air as the batter glopped into the molds.  They were still a little soft, I probably should have waited longer….  Anyhoo, they smell great! Look nice.

Recipe testing

So, I have started testing my various recipes!  My first one is my original recipe.  My plan is to use each one for 3 showers then move on to the next one.  I'll see if there is any major difference in feel, lather, conditioning between the recipes.  Let the games begin!

Rebatch confetti soap – unsure of fragrance

Posted on April 12, 2010

So, I've checked my rebatched confetti soap…  Not sure if I like the fragrance.  The peppermint that I got from it seems to be fading.  Which leaves… I don't know what.  After all it was a mix of a bunch of different fragranced soap trimmings.  I definitely get 'soap' smell, but I don't know if I really like it.  So not only is it not that great looking but doesn't smell that great either.  Well, I'll let it do it's curing and see if the fragrance changes any more.  I'd hate to have to rebatch a rebatch.  But during a rebatch I can add some more fragrance.  I think also the slow cooker maybe getting the soap too hot, even on low, and the soap is overheating which is giving it an overcooked soap smell.  I might have to dump this soap in the end.  Sigh…

It's going to take me some time before I collect more soap shavings.  Maybe I'll just have to make a batch of unfragranced soap that I divide up into different colors and then make the confetti shreddings on purpose.  I'll have to remember next time that I do confetti soap to not put as much in as I did last time.  It was way too overloaded with trimmings. 

Packaging

I experimented with packaging today on some of the older soaps from the beginning of the year.  I included the name of the soap which is usually the fragrance name and some sort of packaging.  The newer soaps still need to cure more before packaging.
* Cigar bands of corrugated paper and another thinner band around that with the fragrance and ingredients. As the soap continues to shrink the bands will loosen, so may need to readjust later
* Sheer ivory organza bag that included a paper with info
* Clear cellophane wrapped package style with info paper.  The cello won't let the soap breath and doesn't let the fragrance out too much so it may be more difficult to really smell the soap
* Shrink wrapped with both ends open, may need to re-heat gun if soap shrinks more
* “Blanket wrapped” soap with paper
* The round soaps I used coffee filters that I pulled up around the soap and secured the ends with a round info sticker
I tried to use the filters with the oval soaps, but I'm not sure if I like the look as much as with the circular soaps. 
The odd shaped soaps like the stars or the eye shaped soaps I put them into organza bags.  That seemed to work with those, but I've heard that as the soaps move around in the bag the soap particulates gum up the inside of the bag and make it mucky looking. 
I'll have to decide what packaging I like best.

Testing my various soap recipes!

I counted them up, I have 28 different soap recipes!  They range from just 4 days old to over 12weeks old.  I think I am ready to start using them in the shower.  I'll use the oldest first.  I want to wait until each of the soaps are at least 4 weeks old before I use them.  I plan on using each bar of soap for 3 showers to evaluate the qualities.  I'm going to have a whole line up of soaps in my shower.  I cannot have 28 different recipes in my repertoire.  I'll have to narrow down.  If I don't notice any discernible difference between recipes then I need to evaluate which ones are worth repeating.  I want to try all the soaps before I give any away just in case something is wrong with any of them.  I don't plan on making any more soap for right now, unless I have an overwhelming urge to make some, which likely will happen anyway.  However, I think I've pretty much made the different major categories of soaps that I wanted to make.
Castile
Milk
Honey
100% coconut oil
Salt Bar
Lard Bar
Whipped Soap
Coffee
Beer
Oh, the coffee soap with coffee grounds soap I made I put in WAY too much coffee grounds.  It's exfoliating to be sure, but painfully so.  I'm not sure what to do with them.  Should I leave them as is, or cut them up and rebatch them with new soap to mellow out the coffee ground ratio, or just toss them.  I'm leaning towards shredding them up and mixing them in with new soap.   But what new soap to mix them in with?  Hmmm…  I'm hoping my soap testing will narrow the choices down.