Let's talk Coffee!!!

[MzMolly65]

Searched around a bit and can't find the answers I'm looking for.

I'd like to make a coffee soap and have a bunch of info available from the lovely people here at the forum but I would like to know ..

what does using the actual coffee water do for the soap? (as compared to just plain water and coffee grounds)

do you use fresh grounds or grounds that have already been used to make coffee?

Is the colour nice with coffee water or do you need add colour?

Do you need to add a coffee FO and if so .. what's your favorite? The only local option is a mocha FO that is waayyyy too sweet for my nose, so if I need a FO I'll have to order one on line and I'd like one that's strictly coffee scent.

Thanks
Molly

 

[ca_soap]

I make quite a bit of soap with coffee and have tried a variety of ways. I have tried brewing coffee and freezing it and using that in place of water vs simply using water, what I have found is I get the same results if I simply add fine ground coffee at trace with my fragrance oil as I do if I go through the trouble of brewing and freezing coffee. I use fresh, unused coffee grounds and add approximately 1/8 cup to a 6 lb loaf. The coffee fragrance does not survive saponification. I have tried a coffee bean oil, the one I tried was from essential depot, it is terrible and once was all it took for me realize that. As far as fragrance oil, the recipe I make I use an almond fragrance oil from brambleberry and it is fabulous. The coffee does add a little to it but the fragrance is mostly almond, the coffee simply adds the color and exfoliant properties. I do not add any extra color. I will attach a photo of my almond coffee soap, this particular batch I just cut yesterday.

 

[MzMolly65]

Thank you .. awesome looking soap. I just want to make sure I understood you .. the brown part of that swirl was made with water (not coffee), fresh grounds and almond scent?

 

[ca_soap]

I use my base soap recipe and make it as I would any other cold process soap. At light trace I add almond fragrance oil to the entire batch. This fragrance oil when cured will be the same color it was when poured which is the white in the pic. I then split the batch in half and add fresh finely ground coffee to one half of it. The dark specks you see are specks of coffee, the brown you see is the color that comes from the coffee and nothing else. This particular batch I used just a regular ground coffee and put it in my coffee grinder and ground it as fine as my particular grinder would grind it. I have also used finely ground espresso style coffee and actually like it better as the grind is a little finer but both work fine.

 

[boyago]

Not sure if this helps but here are two soaps I made. The first is made with strong coffee as water replacement. The second is finely ground coffee added at trace. Neither have any scents added and the what ever coffee scent that went into the soap got eaten by the lye.

 

[Ruthie]

My coffee soap looks a lot like boyago's second photo, but if anything is even darker. I use 4x brewed coffee (no added water) and probably 2 T. of the used grounds as an additive. (3 lb. batch) I chill but do not freeze the coffee. It smells gnarly when the lye is added, but it all works out in the end.

The caffeine in the coffee stimulates blood flow to the skin and some say makes them "tingle." I love it for getting the grimy off my hands when I have been gardening. A friend uses it to get the "outside play" off her boys.

As for scent, I've used Chocolate Espresso, but of course that is not strictly coffee. I've also used 10x sweet orange. I've heard that with both grounds and 4x coffee a slight scent will survive saponification, but have not tried it myself.

You have searched, but I do not know how far back you went. Here is a thread where I learned SOOOOO much!:
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=32305&highlight=coffee

 

[ourwolfden]

I really like Turkish Mocha from BB not too sweet, but a nice true coffee smell. It discolors to a dark brown but if you don’t scent 1/4-1/2 you can make a really nice swirl effect.

 

[Obsidian]

I've only made coffee soap twice, both times using strong coffee in place of the water. Once I added the used grounds and the other time I used fresh grounds. The fresh grounds did make my soap a bit darker. I honestly don't see any benefits from the coffee and the grounds are way too scratchy for anything except hands or feet.
I also really dislike the brown mess the bars leave behind. I've been thinking about trying white coffee, maybe it won't be so dark and nasty. I also won't add grounds any more unless I can completely powder them in my grinder.
I use a vanilla scent in mine as I can smell the nasty burnt coffee smell from the lye/coffee reaction but I have a sensitive nose, other people can't smell it.

 

[lsg]

Here is my coffee soap.

 

[MzMolly65]

You have searched, but I do not know how far back you went. Here is a thread where I learned SOOOOO much!:
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=32305&highlight=coffee

Ruthie,

Thanks so much for the link, I obviously didn't go back that far and I just spent the last hour reading all the posts in that old thread. Some excellent information there and I'm having fun reading it all.

BTW: I found this really cool link for distilling EO with just a small coffee pot on the stove. The webpage doesn't discuss coffee EO so I wonder if coffee EO could be distilled the same way??

http://homedistiller.org/flavor/oils

 

[SudsyPM]

I have made coffee soap once and I did like the others and used strongly brewed coffee and grounds in the white portion. I was trying to avoid fragrance and hoping the coffee scent would come through...no luck..so now it's a "scent free".

 

[MzMolly65]

Ok .. another quick question since I don't have a clue about coffee (I don't drink the stuff but love the smell of it). When you guys say you brew 4x coffee .. how the heck are you doing that? Do you run the liquid back through the coffee machine with fresh grounds 4x and if yes, doesn't that ruin the machine???

 

[ca_soap]

4x coffee would be four times the amount of coffee that one would use if they were making it to drink and running it through once which produces a very strong and very black coffee.

 

[MzMolly65]

4x coffee would be four times the amount of coffee that one would use if they were making it to drink and running it through once which produces a very strong and very black coffee.

Ahhh ... thanks, that makes sense!

 

[MzMolly65]

Ok so I tried a coffee batch tonight and decided to make a camouflage bar for my Aunt who owns a hunting lodge.

I split the batch in 1/2 and added fresh coffee grounds to one 1/2. Then I split the 2nd 1/2 into 2 parts and added green chrome oxide to one part and activated charcoal to the other. I put it in the mold all random spotty and swirled just the top. The coffee sections looked a weird shade of baby poo yellow .. the black was grey and the green was green.

When I checked it an hour later it was gelling and it turned very dark. The black is full on BLACK, the green is an awesome shade of camo/army green and the coffee sections are funky shade of burnt petroleum jelly, LOL! Looking forward to seeing this cut but I really hope the coffee sections turn a proper brown. Pics will follow.

 

[Paintguru]

I do coffee soap where I do a 1:1 water to NaOH mixture and then add one more part of the actual concentrated coffee during mixing. I add a couple tablespoons of the used coffee grounds at trace and color the whole bad boy with cocoa powder. Also add a coffee fragrance and a tiny amount of peppermint EO for scenting. People seem to really like it. I may try the split colors bar at some point.

 

[lizflowers42]

Coffee House FO from Rustic Escentuals is INCREDIBLE.

 

[dixiedragon]

Ok so I tried a coffee batch tonight and decided to make a camouflage bar for my Aunt who owns a hunting lodge.

I split the batch in 1/2 and added fresh coffee grounds to one 1/2. Then I split the 2nd 1/2 into 2 parts and added green chrome oxide to one part and activated charcoal to the other. I put it in the mold all random spotty and swirled just the top. The coffee sections looked a weird shade of baby poo yellow .. the black was grey and the green was green.

When I checked it an hour later it was gelling and it turned very dark. The black is full on BLACK, the green is an awesome shade of camo/army green and the coffee sections are funky shade of burnt petroleum jelly, LOL! Looking forward to seeing this cut but I really hope the coffee sections turn a proper brown. Pics will follow.

When I make camo soap, I dissolve some instant coffee in water (probably about 1 tablespoon in 1 oz of hot water), then add it a bit at a time until the soap is the color I want. The instant coffee granuals won't dissolve in soap batter.

 

[Lin]

I've been wondering if I used coffee infused oil for ALL oils in the soap, maybe strong coffee for the lye water, and some fresh expresso grounds... I could get a mild-moderate coffee smell. I'm sure it wouldn't be cost efficient to sell or anything though lol. But I'm thinking about trying it out. I do coffee infusions to make coffee oil and butter, so I'm thinking about going ahead and infusing an entire bottle of olive oil and coconut oil and some small amounts of other oils to round out the recipe.

 

[girlishcharm2004]

Does coffee essential oil not work in soap? I was hoping to get some (though not from Essential Depot). I aim to stay away from fragrance oils but would like some smell.

This has been a really interesting thread, and I'm glad to know that I don't have to make coffee and freeze it anymore! That was so tedious. I love how all the different coffee soaps look!