First timer - any red-flags in this recipe?

[Edward]

Hi, I've never made soap before, and I'm trying for a simple soap with a serious peppermint kick. The basic recipe I'm looking at is:

Fat
1/3 Olive oil
1/3 Hydrogenated coconut oil ("Copha", I gather this is "Coconut Oil, 92 deg" in SoapCalc?)
1/3 Rice bran oil

Additives
50g of peppermint EO per kg of fat

Lye
Per SoapCalc with default 5% superfat, 38% water

I'm happy to learn that animal fat and/or palm oil are necessary for good soap, but I'd like to try a recipe without them first - if it's good enough I'll never need to trouble myself over the sustainability of those particular ingredients (yes, I'm sure I can get them sustainably; no, I don't want to bother!)

Can you see anything obviously wrong with this recipe?
Is the amount of peppermint EO too high (or low)?
Is it worth adding 1-2% beeswax or carnauba to harden the bar a little? (I have these lying around already)
Will fresh spearmint leaves blended in towards the end give a lasting green tinge, or is it likely to fade to a dull brown?

 

[vjbakke]

You may want to up the super fat % maybe to 7-8 it has over 20% coconut and that can be drying for some. I'm not sure if rice bran oil is prone to DOS or not more experienced soapers could help you with that. In my opinion it looks like a good starer.

 

[carebear]

animal and palm are absolutely NOT necessary for good soap, tho they are lovely to soap with.

I'd personally drop the RBO, since it's very like OO. What else do you have?

 

[Edward]

I'd personally drop the RBO, since it's very like OO. What else do you have?

I'm worried about slime from too much OO - not sure if that would be an issue with 2/3 OO (or even if using the RBO would help anyway).

In terms of what else I've got, there's macadamia, sweet almond, virgin coconut, carnauba and beeswax in the house, plus whatever I can find at the supermarket. I'm up for some instant gratification with this first batch, so I'm keen to avoid having to wait for anything to come via mail-order.

 

[Sunny]

I'd leave out the wax, it's hard to work with because of the high melt point and I've heard it can decrease the lather.

All of the leaves/herbs I've added to soap have turned brown. I think the spearmint leaves will still add some interest to an otherwise uncolored soap. I'd add a small amount, careful though because some leaves can be pretty scratchy. You might ground them first and limit the amount you use. Or, you can always add oatmeal, or just leave it plain. Plain, uncolored soap is nice too!

 

[busymakinsoap!]

I make a bar very similar to that - it's lovely without any slime. It's a nice cheap bar to make - it does however take a long while to cure and harden up.

If you want something you can use a bit sooner, you could try adding a butter - cocoa butter even at 5 - 10% will make a harder bar.

I would also increase the super fat - I do 8% with mine and it's very gentle.

I think it's a good one to start with.

I just read the bit about instant gratification, maybe not cocoa butter then

 

[Edward]

All of the leaves/herbs I've added to soap have turned brown.

Yes, from what I've read chlorophyll reacts with alkali and can be decomposed by heat, with either reaction turning it brown. Given that soap-making tends to involve both heat and alkali it's probably not the ideal pigment

I've also read that if it is treated with strong alkali for long enough it will eventually revert from brown back to green, due to a stable alkali salt forming. I might try pre-treating it by mixing it with the cooled lye solution to get a full reaction back to a (hopefully) stable green.

It could also be worth trying to extract the chlorophyll into the EO and adding it as late as possible, to try and protect it from much reaction with the lye at all. I don't know enough of the physical chemistry involved to guess at whether this will work, but I can have some fun trying.

 

[judymoody]

That seems like a lot of peppermint EO - a little goes a long way and too much can tingle or burn. 5% WRT your soaping oils is a lot, maybe back it off to 3% or 30 grams per kg.

A good batch size if you're starting out is about 750 grams of oils. This works out to about 8 good-sized bars of soap.

 

[Edward]

I make a bar very similar to that - it's lovely without any slime.

Just to clarify, are you talking about 1/3 OO, or 2/3 OO? Thanks

 

[Edward]

That seems like a lot of peppermint EO - a little goes a long way and too much can tingle or burn. 5% WRT your soaping oils is a lot, maybe back it off to 3% or 30 grams per kg.

Thanks - that's probably the part of the recipe I was most worried about. Tingly is good, very tingly is better, burning is probably too far

 

[busymakinsoap!]

Just under 1/3 RB just over 1/3 OO and about 1/3 CO is what I use.

 

[Edward]

The one ingredient I had to order online (peppermint EO) hasn't arrived so I just took the plunge making a plain soap and testing fresh spearmint for colour. I blended the leaves with the water then added the caustic soda, at which point the whole thing turned an ugly brown. After a minute or two though it had returned to something like a dark olive green (random guess: this is sodium chlorophyllin).

It was such a small batch (370g of fat) that my stick-blender had trouble mixing it without incorporating air. By the time I'd managed to get it to what I felt was a sufficiently mixed state it was starting to get a very slightly grainy texture - something to worry about?

At this point it's sitting in a 65mm PVC pipe wrapped in a towel. It's mostly an avocado green, but there are darker splotches towards the middle. Can I assume it's gelling?

 

[fiddletree]

I've never had a soap go grainy, so I don't know on that count. If it is turning darker in the middle, and wasn't that way when you poured it, it is indeed gelling!

 

[fiddletree]

Also, for when you do use peppermint, it is more potent than many other EO... I wouldn't go over 30 g/kg, like the others said, and might even kick it down to 20.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

Drop the Peppermint Oil to 3% of oils. Too much will sting your pink bits. Many herbals added to soap go yucky brown and look like mouse poo. :wink:

 

[judymoody]

The one ingredient I had to order online (peppermint EO) hasn't arrived so I just took the plunge making a plain soap and testing fresh spearmint for colour. I blended the leaves with the water then added the caustic soda, at which point the whole thing turned an ugly brown. After a minute or two though it had returned to something like a dark olive green (random guess: this is sodium chlorophyllin).

It was such a small batch (370g of fat) that my stick-blender had trouble mixing it without incorporating air. By the time I'd managed to get it to what I felt was a sufficiently mixed state it was starting to get a very slightly grainy texture - something to worry about?

At this point it's sitting in a 65mm PVC pipe wrapped in a towel. It's mostly an avocado green, but there are darker splotches towards the middle. Can I assume it's gelling?

When I've done small batches like this one, I have sometimes had my soap batter get thick and grainy initially - this is false trace. I then stir with my stick blender off until it gets thin and smooth, and then SB to get to a true trace.

Yours may be fine. But if you end up with separation, you might not have achieved a true trace.

 

[Edward]

All seems to have gone well. It's a uniform mid-light olive green with tiny flecks of deep green mint-leaf, except for a lighter and more opaque layer at the bottom, where the mould was in direct contact with the pot it was sitting in, so it probably stayed too cool to gel.

It looks like soap, smells like soap (maybe a tiny hint of mint), lathers like soap, tastes like...well, it doesn't zap. The hardness is something like cool butter - I could easily gouge out chunks of it with a fingernail. Hopefully it will get a bit harder over the next six weeks. Meanwhile I'll be breaking out the peppermint EO that just arrived for a new batch.

Thanks for all your advice

 

[Edward]

I should add here that the green I thought I'd managed to preserve is slowly fading to light brown (or very quickly, in the case of one bar that sat in a sunny windowsill for a day).

I've given up on the fresh mint for colour and gone ahead with my peppermint EO batch without any colouring. It's currently a fairly vibrant lemon yellow, which is interesting.

Also, straight peppermint oil doesn't smell "green" enough for my liking. I might have to try pairing it with spearmint.