Experimental coffee

[Kittish]

I've got some canola oil that's had coffee grounds steeping in it for a couple of weeks now. It smells pretty good, but I think a day or so before I use it I'm going to give it hot water bath to pull out even more of the fragrance.

Hot process soap
5% SF
Avocado oil 15%
Canola oil 5% (reserved, coffee infused oil. add as SF after cook)
Castor oil 5%
Cocoa butter 15%
Coconut oil 25%
Palm kernel oil 5%
Rice bran oil 30%

Strong brewed coffee for water.

Coffee grounds in 1/3 of the soap batter, spread as bottom layer in mold. Add yogurt to remaining batter and spread as top layer.

Pretty sure this soap will be drying for people with sensitive skin (though it should be nicely scrubby on one side). What I'm more interested in is seeing if the scent of the coffee will come through and hold. I'm also hoping the high cocoa butter content will help bolster the scent (mine isn't deodorized). Going to make a one pound batch as soon as I get my molds built.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Sounds good. Use a light touch with the grounds - a little goes a long way

 

[Kittish]

The soap is in the mold. I was surprised by how malleable the gelled soap was, I was expecting it to be much stiffer. I added 1/2 teaspoon of well-drained coffee grounds from my infusion jar to 1/3 of the soap, and left the rest plain.

A bonus is that my 1 pound tall molds are the right size. The batch fit perfectly. I'll take some pics of the soap when it comes out of the mold.

 

[shunt2011]

It's got a lot of soft oils in it and doing HP also adds more water. It's probably going to be soft for some time. Using lard,palm or Tallow would give you a harder bar.

 

[Kittish]

It's got a lot of soft oils in it and doing HP also adds more water. It's probably going to be soft for some time. Using lard,palm or Tallow would give you a harder bar.

I used a 2:1 water to lye ratio, so it doesn't have a lot of extra water in it. I had it tightly covered while it cooked, so it didn't start losing water til I was ready to get it in the mold. It firmed up as soon as it cooled. I can dent the surface with a finger, but have to push pretty hard. I've got it out of the mold now, but am going to let it sit for another day or so before I cut it.

So far my first impression of the soap is...meh. I don't think the scent from the coffee infused oil is going to come through. The main thing I can smell right now is the cocoa butter. I'll let it cure and see where it goes, but I'm thinking this is going to wind up being confetti. And I'll drain off the rest of the oil from the coffee grounds and use it as just regular oil in a batch or two, and freeze the grounds in small blocks.

 

[penelopejane]

You might find that coffee in soap is great as a CP soap. The grounds stay separate from the batter and you can relieve the brown colour with various different grades of coffee additives in the batter to use as lighter swirls.
The scent of coffee won't come through but there are FOs that can help with that.

 

[Kittish]

Alas, I can't use FOs in my soaps, or in anything really. I'm allergic to them, and I'm rather oddly attached to being able to do things like breathe. So far I haven't had an allergic reaction to any of the natural EOs I've been using, though. (Bit of an aside- you wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to find laundry detergent, household cleaners, trash bags, commercial shower gels, lotions, and lots of other products that are unscented. Hell, manufacturers are even putting fragrance in nail polish these days. I've run across plastic storage bins that are scented. Ugh. And when you do find unscented options, it's probably a LOT more expensive for the unscented. How does that work anyway? Charging more for leaving out an unnecessary ingredient. This is part of why I got interested in making soap.)

I was kind of hoping to find a more reasonably priced alternative to buying coffee EO or oleoresin or absolute, which is quite expensive. Oh well, I'll just have to bite the bullet and get the good stuff.

With this batch, I was way more interested in how it smells than how it looks. It isn't a pretty soap, the coffee I used for the lye water wasn't nearly strong enough to give a very deep color. The part that doesn't have grounds is almost grey, and of course the part with the grounds in is much darker. (I'm thinking shredded grey soap packed fairly thick in a light blue base- storm clouds!)

I don't know why the pics are turned sideways, photobucket is being weird.

 

[Saponomancer]

I was kind of hoping to find a more reasonably priced alternative to buying coffee EO or oleoresin or absolute, which is quite expensive. Oh well, I'll just have to bite the bullet and get the good stuff.

Don't shell out for the coffee EO it disappears too

 

[Kittish]

Don't shell out for the coffee EO it disappears too

Good to know. Dammit, I want a coffee scented soap!! That I can use!

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Tsk tsk. We can't have you all discombobulated over coffee soap that doesn't smell like coffee. Try instant espresso/coffee powder in both your lye solution and added to your warm oils before adding the lye solution. (Personally, I find the grounds too scratchy.) One tablespoon PPO should be enough, but I don't know any reason why you couldn't add as much as you feel is necessary to get the strength you want. ... Maybe try dissolving the powder in vodka and spritzing the bars after cutting? There's gotta be a way to do this...

HTH :bunny:
​

 

[Kittish]

That's a thought. I have instant espresso powder that I use in baking. I probably wouldn't dissolve any in the lye water, just the bit of brewed coffee that I used for this batch smelled rank. The grounds were added for scrubbiness, not scent. Hmm... coffee powder dissolved in grain alcohol... I wonder how well that would work in a glycerin soap..

 

[Nao]

Oh! Zany's comment reminded me of something I read about adding bar chocolate to soap, if it is melted and stirred in after the cook the scent will remain after cure. So chances are coffee stirred in after cook will remain too. Or maybe use coffee oil/ infused oil as the superfat after cook?

And "coffee vodka" in glycerine soap sounds like an awesome idea!

 

[Kittish]

The coffee infused oil was added after the soap cooked to gel stage and zapless. It smelled lovely right after I added the oil. Now it smells faintly of cocoa butter, with an even fainter undertone of wet cardboard. I got the cardboard smell from my first soap, too, but it faded after a week or so.

I think coffee vodka in glycerine soap sounds like a very interesting idea.