Hippyish Natural Cream Soap

[FlybyStardancer]

So, I finally got around to using my olive oil infusions.... They've been infusing for... far too long now. Longer than I want to admit to. But I made soap with them, and it's in the freezer because I added cream to it too (and calculated that in to make sure my superfat stays close to what I want).

In the pictures where things are nicely lined up on the top, they are in order left to right... Annatto, madder, alkanet, and titanium dioxide (just mixed in).

Loaf went in to the freezer. Hopefully it doesn't overheat! It was heating up pretty darn quickly!

 

[shunt2011]

Those look really pretty. You must show us what they look like when done!

 

[snappyllama]

I cannot wait to see the cut pictures. The colors in the containers are lovely.

 

[claryza]

Looking forward for pic

 

[FlybyStardancer]

So, I took the loaf out of the freezer this morning and I'm letting it warm up... And it looks like it overheated, even in the freezer. The top is all cracked and sunk. I'll have to see how the insides turn out when it's warm enough to come out of the mold and be sliced...

 

[Rowan]

Fingers crossed that it will be ok or that you can save some of it.

Your colourants look pretty cool and I love your jugs. I've been trying to find some like that (with long spouts) in the UK with no luck.

 

[Sonya-m]

Fingers crossed that it will be ok or that you can save some of it.

Your colourants look pretty cool and I love your jugs. I've been trying to find some like that (with long spouts) in the UK with no luck.

Here you go:

http://www.wilko.com/watering-cans/wilko-watering-can-jug-shape-15l/invt/0310756

 

[Rowan]

Here you go:

http://www.wilko.com/watering-cans/wilko-watering-can-jug-shape-15l/invt/0310756

Wow, thanks so much. I've only just seen this post. This is why I love this forum, you are so helpful. I'd given up on finding these jugs.

 

[Obsidian]

How did your soap turn out?

 

[FlybyStardancer]

I still haven't unmolded & cut it. Even with all of the hard oils I added, it's VERY soft. I'm pretty sure that my lye was too old, and I ended up with a much higher superfat than I intended (even with trying to compensate for the added fat in the cream).

 

[FlybyStardancer]

Okay, I unmolded tonight. I definitely have a MUCH higher superfat than I intended. It's still pretty soft, and that's a week and a half out and with something between 43.5-52% hard oils (depending on how you count the fat in the cream--after all, butter is basically a hard oil). Granted, I used full water in this recipe for the added time to do delicate color work at light trace with oils that are prone to speeding up trace (palm, coconut, and shea).

I haven't cut it yet, because I don't know how I want to handle it. I'm probably going to make some sort of embeds out of it... I'd LIKE to do something that would preserve and show off the colorwork I worked so hard on, but I don't know if that would be possible, or if I'm better off just grating it up and mixing into a low-SF batter for a confetti soap.

The pictures where one side is darker is where I turned off the warm lights, to be able to get a true color with the daylight bulb. You can also see on the top where it cracked on me.

 

[nebetmiw]

Looks good. I would cut it with wire. Put in freezer for an hour before then cut it.

 

[Obsidian]

I'd cut it and see how it cures before deciding what to do with it. When I make round soap, I've noticed it stays softer in the mold for longer since it only has a small surface area to dry from.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

Even the little bars are soft, and the areas that were exposed (and thus should be the driest) rub off onto my hands just from touching, like you would expect from plain mixed oils. And I did a batch of whipped soap about a week earlier with the same lye, and that's still soft enough that I can put dents in, despite being a couple weeks out. My previous experience with whipped soap was that it went rock hard right away. And since I already know my lye is suspect...

 

[cgpeanut]

I would make an embed out of it. I saw one where someone had a patterned soap and then cut cube-ish long horizonal pieces and use them as embeds in their logs to make a geometric pattern. You could do that easily with them. Wish I could remember where I saw the one I have in my mind.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

cgpeanut-there's a Soap Queen video that does that. Don't know if that's what you're thinking of, but that's where I saw that idea.

And instead I just cut into pucks. I love how the swirls came out! I'm definitely going to need to do this again. I took my column mold and tilted it, then poured down the bottommost point as if I were doing a tilted tiger swirl. Then once the mold was full, I took a bamboo skewer and put it down the center of the column, and spiraled it out. I love how I got the big blocks of color, and then the really thin wispy lines from the skewer.

 

[Obsidian]

They are very pretty. Any chance you've tried to lather one? I once made my regular soap with a 15% SF just to see what it was like. It was just a tiny bit softer then normal with a slight lather reduction. After a year it still didn't have DOS. It wasn't the best soap but was definitely usable.
I bet your would make really cool confetti.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

Just tried a little piece... I had to really work to get any lather, and what I did get was very little and sparse. My hands were also dry afterwards, but they're getting to the point where they're overwashed and any soap is going to be drying.

 

[cgpeanut]

love it love the colors and swirls.