Three soaps

Three batches of soap, each different.

The one with the swirly top is my 'celebration' soap, just for fun to celebrate completing a big editing job. This is probably about the most expensive soap I'll ever make. The blend of essential oils used to scent it cost nearly $100, so it's going to break down to over $10 per bar production cost. Good thing I'm not trying to sell. It smells absolutely fabulous and is quite sparkly, though the sparkle didn't make it into the photos.

The blue one is made with lard, colored with indigo and unscented. I mixed a teaspoon of indigo powder in more distilled water than I knew I'd need for the soap and let that sit for about 12 hours. Used that water for my lye, which also carried some of the indigo powder into the soap.

The brown one (wow! can you say rapid discoloration? that soap was uncolored) is scented with vanillin... sort of. The scent is very faint. I suspect it will bloom when the soap gets wet. I think I need to try dissolving the crystals in water instead of glycerin for the next batch I try with it. The drops of liquid that came out the top on the loaf and a couple of the overflow molds soaked back in. I'll watch for any reappearance tomorrow. There are darker spots on top of the loaf where the drops came out and sank back in. I haven't tested the spots again yet to see if they still have lye (ETA- tested a spot and it's still zappy. Looks like some of the drops dried on top, and some were reabsorbed. May have to rinse those off. Going to wait til I cut the soap and see what's inside.). Not zappy in the spots I did test, from side and bottom faces. Best tasting soap I ever zap tested.

I had to put them in the freezer to get my mold liners off. You can see in one of the pics where one end of the celebration soap got messed up, because the bottom half to third was still very squishy when I tried to peel it back at first. That loaf is also pretty badly misshapen because the liner buckled and leaked soap into the mold when I poured it. I plan to wait another full day before cutting any of them.

About 12 hours out of the liner. :shock:



I'm trying to figure out why some of the little ones from my overflow molds aren't darkening as fast. There are like three of them that are still the uniform much lighter brown they were when I unmolded them, where others you can see the discoloration on the sides.

They will all discolor to about the same color. Just give them time. My "overflow" bars from the individual molds discolored faster in the middle ones (more heat?) than on the outer ones. But they all got to the same color by 8 weeks.

I'm kind of surprised by the speed of the discoloration. That soap is not quite four days old, and started off uncolored. It was about a light to medium ivory color when I poured it. I'm almost expecting to be able to watch it darken on the cut faces when I cut it.

Update edit!!!



Here's the cut on the celebration soap!!! I'm so happy with how it looks!

The rest of the cuts:

I know it won't stay looking like this, but whatever else it does, I think from here on out I'm calling this soap poundcake.





The indigo worked out really well, and I hope it stays pretty close to that color. I like the flecks from the indigo powder. The soap doesn't have any smell beyond 'soap' that I can detect.

Kittish said:

I'm kind of surprised by the speed of the discoloration. That soap is not quite four days old, and started off uncolored. It was about a light to medium ivory color when I poured it. I'm almost expecting to be able to watch it darken on the cut faces when I cut it.

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I have had soaps start to discolor before I ever even took them out of the mold.

I love the looks of your soaps.

Pretty. What EOs did you use?

osso said:

Pretty. What EOs did you use?

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Champaca CO2, amyris, patchouli (already blended, the first nag champa attempt, which was rejected by MIL), rose geranium and ylang ylang in the celebration soap. Vanillin crystals mixed with glycerin in the poundcake soap, and no scent in the indigo.

The celebration colors are nice. Very attractive. But I prefer the subtle colors produced by the indigo powder in lye water. Well done!!

Those bars look great!

I hope it stays that color for you too. It's a beautiful shade of blue!

Kittish, I love the color of the indigo soap! All of your soaps look great, but I'm intrigued by the indigo, I've used it in two batches and it just goes gray for me How did you get it blue?

mommycarlson said:

Kittish, I love the color of the indigo soap! All of your soaps look great, but I'm intrigued by the indigo, I've used it in two batches and it just goes gray for me How did you get it blue?

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I boiled about twice as much distilled water as I knew I'd need for the soap, and mixed in 1 teaspoon of indigo powder (adjust as needed for your batch size, mine are 500g). Let that sit 12 hours or so, or overnight. When you go to make the soap, give the indigo water a good stir/shake and measure out for your batch. I used a few grams more than the recipe called for to account for the indigo powder in the water. It started off a darkish blue-grey that was more grey than blue, and then changed to what's in the pics. I've also got indigo infused olive oil, it's a GORGEOUS purple shade. It goes all opaque dark navy when you shake the powder back up into it. Didn't use any in this soap because I forgot, and had all the oils for the soap weighed out before I remembered I had it. I'll try it in another batch before too horribly long.

Wow! So much to learn with use of natural colors in cp soap making. Kittish thanks for sharing your tips and tricks. Appreciate

LOVE the indigo one!