Oh yeah… milk soaps…

I forgot or ignored the fact that milk soaps, when allowed to gel, turn the soaps medium brown/tan color.  Duh!  The milk sugars carmelize in the heat and darken the soaps.  So it doesn't really matter what colorants I put into the soaps.  Oh well, next time I try to prevent gel by putting them into the freezer after I pour. 
The sodium lactate is WONDERFUL!  I unmolded and cut the soaps at about 11 hours.  That's really quick (I couldn't wait until tomorrow)!  They all came out of their molds lickety split and the fondant texture mat made clean, beautiful impressions on the soaps.  All the fragrances came out really nice.  Champagne, cherry blossom, coffee bean, and white tea and ginger. 

Masterbatching

So I did a little masterbatching today.  I mixed enough of the oils to four 1 lb batches of soap; and enough lye water for those 4 lbs of oil.  That way I can weight out enough of both to make my 1lb batches with different fragrances and/or color.  I chose a basic coconut oil/olive oil/tallow recipe.  I also added sodium lactate and used goat's milk for each of the batches.  The sodium lactate is supposed to make harder bars of soap.  I put each of the batches into different molds and used different fragrances.  I did use some of the Wilton's fondant texture sheet, so we'll see how those turn out.  The masterbatching went quite well.  I think next time I'll do batches with powdered buttermilk ad added silk powder or oatmeal and honey (this time not in a castile soap) or kaolin clay…

Oh yeah, the bastile soap I made a couple of weeks ago with colloidal oatmeal and honey smells WONDERFUL.  A real natural yummy scent.  Every time I stop by them I have to sniff them.  I can't wait to use them, months from now.  That's why I want to make the oatmeal honey soap in a recipe that doesn't require as much cure time as castile/bastile.  I also wonder what the difference will be between the half and half that I have used in past bars compared to the powdered goat's milk that I used today. 

The next soap

So, planning my next soaps.  Even though my mass testing of various recipes has ended, I really like 1lb batches.  I get 4-5 bars out of each pound.  I'll pick just of few of the many recipes I have made and continue to play.   I'm still playing around with fragrances, molds, coloring.  I've also purchased some sodium lactate, which is a humectant as well as being know to harden up soaps.  I do like harder bars of soap, so maybe using sodium lactate will harden up some of the softer recipes.  I continue to purchase fragrance oils and essential oils.  I have more than I know what to do with.  It's too bad I can't smell them before purchasing.  I also purchased a fondant imprint mat.  Usually it's used to impress a pattern onto cake fondant, but wouldn't it produce a nice imprint onto soap.  Wilton Graceful Vines fondant imprint mat  Hopefully.  I've made my Half and Half soap.  I purchased some powdered goat's milk and buttermilk.  I haven't tried the powdered versions so that'll be new.  I also have some Micro Fine Silk Powder to add silkiness and slip, and Kaolin clay which also adds slip and is supposed to be good for oily skin.

I've purchased more MP soap.  I want to make more glow-in-the-dark soaps among other designs.

I think I will try to make those room fresheners, the ones with the sticks in a bottle with fragrance oil in the bottle.  I just need a place to put the bottles where the cats can't knock them over.  I am also waiting on an order of some absorbent beads that I can impregnate with fragrance and put into sachets.

I just got some Potassium Hydroxide so maybe this weekend I'll try making some liquid soap.

Oatmeal Milk Honey

Yesterday I made 2 lbs of bastile soap.  I used light flavor olive oil.  I used this type of olive oil initially with my very first castile/bastile soap which I found hardened right away. I was able to cut them up at less than 24 hours old.  Since that initial batch I purchased some pomace olive oil.  When I made bastile soap with pomace I had problems with very soft soap.   The non-gelled soap that was sweating lye water was made from this pomace oil.  Other soap recipes that included this pomace oil seemed to be OK, but when the pomace oil was at higher percentages then the soap was really soft.  I hear that's pretty common with castile/bastile soaps.  Anyway I was curious so I went back to that light olive oil that I used way back when.  Maybe light olive oil  makes for a harder bar much quicker than pomace. 

No fragrance or colorant was added.  I used frozen half and half instead of water and I added honey and colloidal oatmeal to the mix.  I did CPOP and forced gel because I like the toasted smell (not burnt smell) and I don't mind the darker colored soap.  I used some bubble wrap to simulate honey comb.  I unmolded and cut in less than 24 hours.  No problems with soft squishy soap like when I used pomace.  The color is a dark caramel color with flecks which I'm assuming is from the colloidal oatmeal.  The fragrance is wonderful.  A natural sweetness and creamy buttery smell from the honey and half and half.  I hope some of the smell stays around after the long cure that is desireable for high olive oil content soap.  The oatmeal is colloidal so it's been super fine ground and should not be scratchy.  This soap should be super mild to the skin. 

I think I need to make more Oatmeal Milk Honey soap using another recipe that doesn't require such a long cure time.   I may stick to using this light olive oil rather than going back to the pomace, at least with any recipe that requires higher percentages of olive oil. 

Second try at confetti soap

So, I didn't like the look of the soaps I had made in the Nutter Butter trays.  They were just too shallow and the soap didn't pick up the ridge detail in the tray.  So I tried making confetti soap again.  So I shredded some of the blue Nutter Butter tray soap and also cubed up some of it.  I made up some more soap which I colored with Titanium Dioxide to make it white in color.  Then I tossed in all the shreds and cubes and poured into a mold.  I sprinkled some cosmetic glitter over the top.  The glitter will wash off.  I cut the soap up today and it came out pretty good. 

I used a wire cheese slicer, but it doesn't cut very smoothly.  I switched back to a knife which produces a very smooth surface.