Charcoal Face Soap

[LizzardBlizzard]

There were some surprises when I whipped this batch up yesterday. I've always used Ivory soap on my face, and when I started soaping I really wanted to make a dupe at home. Granted, it's still very much in the mad scientist stage as this is batch #1 and I didn't even add a chelator, it was just testing oil composition mostly. It's comprised mainly of tallow, palm, and coconut oil, with just 5% castor (which is not in the ivory soap recipe, but I love what it does to soap!) Based on my experience with soaping with saturated fats and the mild fragrance I was using, I knew it would trace really quick. So I was prepping as much as I could before mixing. I noticed the castor oil bottle I emptied still had about a teaspoon in it and in true mad scientist fashion (or cheapskate fashion) I decided to mix my charcoal with that teaspoon of castor as the carrier oil. Y'all. I was not prepared for the results. The charcoal colored portion of the batch slowed trace significantly. It was a dream to pour and swirl, very fluid and workable. And meanwhile the uncolored batter became mashed potatoes as I was trying to slap it in the mold! It was kind of wild to work with two very different consistencies in the pour and swirl stage but I guess if I'm going to keep tweaking this recipe it's really nice to know I can slow down trace enough for a nice design with this trick. The soap was ready to cut after 8 hours and was not sticky at all. And once it's cured I guess I can play tic tac toe on one of the bars!

 

[AliOop]

Pretty bars!

Both charcoal and castor have always made my soap batter thicken faster, and dramatically so. Saturated fats, not so much.

Lard in particular is very slow-moving; tallow is a bit faster but not much. Coconut and palm are the oils in your recipe that would move fast for me, esp if combined with castor and charcoal.

Things that make you go, hmmm.

 

[LizzardBlizzard]

Pretty bars!

Both charcoal and castor have always made my soap batter thicken faster, and dramatically so. Saturated fats, not so much.

Lard in particular is very slow-moving; tallow is a bit faster but not much. Coconut and palm are the oils in your recipe that would move fast for me, esp if combined with castor and charcoal.

Things that make you go, hmmm.

Who knows, maybe it was just a one time fluke! Thinking on it, my tallow is home rendered with salt, and while most of the salt is scraped off, I'm sure small amounts might make it into the batter, causing it to accelerate slightly. So it's entirely possible my experience with saturated fats accelerating is my own fault haha

I'll have to try this again and see if I get a deceleration fluke a second time!

 

[Zing]

Very nice looking there.

 

[Servant4Christ]

What brand of charcoal is that and how much did you use? That's way blacker than I can ever get. Looks great!