How to use green tea wax

[Izzye]

Someone mentioned green tea wax a few weeks back when I was looking for natural green colourants that don't fade stupidly fast, but I can't work out what I'm supposed to do with it. Upon discovering I couldn't mix it with water, I added some to my heated coconut oil, expecting that it would melt being a wax, but even after mixing it and microwaving it and blending it, I still have small lumps of wax in my finished soap. (and a bit too much wax in general, it looks a bit radioactive)

Anyone know the proper way to use this stuff? I did a couple of googles but it doesn't seem to be a particularly common ingredient.

 

[Cellador]

How much are you using and what temperature are you heating to?

 

[cmzaha]

Where did you purchase your green tea wax. All I find with a quick search is for hair removal and is colored with chlorophyll, and contains beeswax

 

[dixiedragon]

Does it smell nice? I've used floral waxes in solid perfumes and I like them a lot.

pretty simple:
1/8 oz beeswax or floral wax (or a mix)
1/2 ounce jojoba
7 drops EO

 

[DeeAnna]

One source I found for green tea wax says it melts roughly at 160 F (70 C). That's about like beeswax. Most of us, including me, soap below 120 F (50 C) and that's not nearly warm enough to melt this wax. A temp of 160 F (70 C) is pretty toasty with unless you're doing a hot process method.

Source: http://spwax.com/pages/products/Tea_Wax.html

 

[Izzye]

How much are you using and what temperature are you heating to?

I used about 2-3g (I was aiming for 1 but my scales threw a fit and refused to count to 1) in 150g coconut originally but the end batch was 1kg. Temperature, I couldn't say, I was microwaving it, but it was just too hot to touch when I took it out so maybe 50-60Cish?

 

[Izzye]

Where did you purchase your green tea wax. All I find with a quick search is for hair removal and is colored with chlorophyll, and contains beeswax

I bought it from the Soap Kitchen. That was the issue I came up against when trying to find out the best way to use it; all I got was hair removal!

 

[Izzye]

Does it smell nice? I've used floral waxes in solid perfumes and I like them a lot.

pretty simple:
1/8 oz beeswax or floral wax (or a mix)
1/2 ounce jojoba
7 drops EO

It smells sort of grassy to me, a bit like when you've got a pile of grass cuttings mixed with leaves that's been rained on recently and is just starting to decay. But it isn't very strong; it hasn't imparted much, if any, scent to my soap, but it is only about 1-2% of the weight of the loaf.

It could be nice with some slightly darker, more manly, scents, but the amount you'd have to use to get any sort of scent in a perfume, I think you risk making anyone using it look like Hulk!

 

[Izzye]

One source I found for green tea wax says it melts roughly at 160 F (70 C). That's about like beeswax. Most of us, including me, soap below 120 F (50 C) and that's not nearly warm enough to melt this wax. A temp of 160 F (70 C) is pretty toasty with unless you're doing a hot process method.

Source: http://spwax.com/pages/products/Tea_Wax.html

That's a bit above what I was achieving. I might go for the saucepan approach next time then, rather than microwaving it. Thanks!