Black Soap

[SudsyKat]

Awesome!

Donna - post your results. I can't wait to see

Deda - thanks for the advice about the amount of charcoal. Would it be too presumptous to ask what your secret is for getting that gorgeous black color, with a WHITE lather?! If it's your trade secret, that's cool. Thought I'd ask!

Thanks! Kat

 

[Deda]

No secret, just trail, error, good scale and lots of notes. It's a delicate balance between not enough and too much.

 

[SudsyKat]

Are you being coy or did I not express myself well!?!?!

Deda,

I'm laughing right now because I can't tell if you're just being incredibly coy or if I didn't express myself well. I guess I was looking for your method, specifically (amounts of colorant or other relevant ingredients), of getting that awesome black color, but still with a white lather.

I totally understand if it's your super cool, proprietary thing, but if you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd love to know!

Kat

 

[Deda]

LOL I'm not being coy! It really is trial and error, part of the equation is the type of charcoal. I find it helps to add the charcoal to the oils about 30 minutes before I add the lye, this let's the color fully incorporate.

 

[Eesil7we]

BJBJ / SudsyKat,

i use activated charcoal. crush it to powder form before adding into lye/oil mixture at light trace. The soaps give white foam.

i used 10 a.charcoal for the swirl and doubled it to blacken it whole.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/3472/dsc1491m.jpg

http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/6962/dsc1939.jpg

 

[Donna]

Deda,

Adding charcoal to oils before lye makes sense. If I want to make black soap with white swirls, would I separate it at light trace and add the charcoal
to the black portion then?

Would it still incorporate if I mixed thoroughly?

 

[Deda]

Donna, when I make a black and white swirl I usually split my batch in 2. 1 black, 1 white, swirl together. It's a bit of a dance to do both batches simultaneously, but the results are nice.

 

[Donna]

Deda,

How are you stirring the two batches? Are you using stick blenders or stirring by hand? It sounds like rubbing your head and patting your tummy at the same time!
I probably should stick to just doing black soap at first, since I'm pretty new to this and haven't had any experience with charcoal, but the swirls are so pretty and sooner or later, I know I'll want to try it.

Thanks so much for all your hints. They've saved me much trial and error!

 

[JudyH]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post about making black soap! (LOVE LOVE the search function on this message board!!!)

But since I ordered black oxide (didn't know about that charcoal), if I use black oxide, will this give me black bubbles? I don't really want black suds and bubbles.