Made first CP soap

[JuneP]

I made my first CP soap yesterday. I didn't use the 50% Olive oil one I posted the other day, but instead, I came up with this one:

%
COCONUT OIL 20 SUPER FACT 6%
PALM OIL 22 FRAGRANCE 0.7
AVOCADO OIL 8
OLIVE OIL POMACE 40 HARDNESS 38
SHEA BUTTER 5 CLEANSING 14
SWEET ALMOND OIL 2 CONDITIONING 59
CASTOR OIL 3 BUBBLY 16
CREAMY 17
IODINE 62
INS 144

i was a day late making this soap, because I didn't realize how long it would take me to wash the new tools, get all the oils together, weighed et. But it's made! I only made a pound of soap - enough to fill about 8 oval guest soaps. The fragrance I used was Nag Champa. Unfortunately, I forget to set aside some oil to add to the vanilla stabilizer, so I'll probably have a brown soap. But, I did add titanium diox. My other goof, was to forget to set aside the sweet almond oil, so I just had to add some of the whole mixture of oils. I then added that to the large batch of soft oil, then I added the rose clay that I was using as a colorant. Then I added the melted hard oils, mixed with a large spoon, then switched to the immersion blender, on low, just to mix it enough. I thought I had a light trace (it was very hard to see with so little soap mix in a small, narrow container; but I was pretty confident that I had a light trace; but when I added the oil, it seemed to thin out! I expected it to accelerate the trace! Anyway, I kept mixing, and when it looked good, I poured. I think it worked, before when I poured it, I had to use the spatula to smooth the top, since banging the mold down didn't settle it completely. So it's been moved to the kitchen, and covered with saran wrap and two bath towels, and by dinner time tomorrow I'll uncover it and see what I have.
I can't wait to make more soap! I've already designed the next one using some lard and the ingredients in the soap above, except with the omission of the Avocado oil. My intent the recipe above and this one is to have one that will take a bit longer to trace; but that remains to be seen.

June

 

[DWinMadison]

Congrats. Can't wait to see the finished product. What did you use for a mold?

 

[seven]

sounds wonderful on paper, love avocado oil in soaps

 

[Obsidian]

Looks like a good recipe. If you replace the palm with lard, it will help slow the trace. No reason to save back any oil for superfat if you are making cold process, the lye is still active at trace and it will saponify what ever oil it wants.
Vanilla stabilizer doesn't work real great. It might help for a few weeks but eventually the soap will darken anyways. I've given up using it and learned to appreciate dark soap.

 

[JuneP]

Oval mold

I used an oval guest mold from Crafters Choice. It's a 9 bar mold but I didn't have enough soap for fill all of them - believe I just did 8. The rose clay looked more like a dull, washed out apricot; but maybe it will dry more pink. And of course, I have no idea how the titanium dioxide would affect the color other than maybe making it brighter. But then, of course, the vanilla in the fragrance might make it all a yuk mocha color. It will be interesting to see how and if the color changes after 48 hours.

June

 

[DWinMadison]

I used an oval guest mold from Crafters Choice. It's a 9 bar mold but I didn't have enough soap for fill all of them - believe I just did 8. The rose clay looked more like a dull, washed out apricot; but maybe it will dry more pink. And of course, I have no idea how the titanium dioxide would affect the color other than maybe making it brighter. But then, of course, the vanilla in the fragrance might make it all a yuk mocha color. It will be interesting to see how and if the color changes after 48 hours.

June

TD will turn even the most intense colors toward pastels, so if you want a portion of your soap to be a rich color, separate that part out and color it separately from the part with TD.

 

[DWinMadison]

Looks like a good recipe. If you replace the palm with lard, it will help slow the trace. No reason to save back any oil for superfat if you are making cold process, the lye is still active at trace and it will saponify what ever oil it wants.
Vanilla stabilizer doesn't work real great. It might help for a few weeks but eventually the soap will darken anyways. I've given up using it and learned to appreciate dark soap.

I know we've discussed this to death on another thread, but I've just made my 4th or 5th batch with lard, and you are right, it gives you so much more time to pour and play with swirls. It makes really white soap too. I recommend it highly.

 

[JuneP]

Lard

Thanks Obsidian, I have lard n the next recipe I'll be making (it has 10% lard and 7% palm). My husband will be picking up some lard and canola oil for me at the grocery store this afternoon, for the new recipe. The INS on the new one is a bit lower at 141 than the one I made yesterday, which is 144, so I'm hoping that the lower INS, the lard and lower palm, will help slow down the trace as well. The hard oil are 48% in the new recipe, 3% higher than suggest for slow trace. The proof will be in the pudding, or I should say, the soap!
I am enjoying the chemistry of all of this soap making; trying to create these recipes with the lye calculator is making me learn a lot about what oils and fats I want to use. The most time consuming thing, I found, was weighing these oils on a good gram scale. I had to weigh each of the soft oils in their own containers and weighing to the 100th of a gram of soft oil, seemed to take forever!
Question: When I add oil, or glycerine to blend Titanium or other colorants, do I have to figure that in my soap calculations? Also, does the titanium dioxide addition tend to lighten the browning that the vanilla causes?
Thanks again for everyone's input and suggestions. I'm learning so much from all of you!

June

 

[JuneP]

Titanium Dioxide

Thanks Daryl, that's good to know! I only added 3/4 tsp to a 17+ oz batch, hoping that would be enough to lighten but not turn it ind of yellowish, which was the color I saw in a photo that had more added. I'll have to try that recipe again, without the TiO2, and with a non vanilla essential oil, and compare the two. Looks like I'm going to have to be ordering more oils very soon!

June

 

[JustBeachy]

Grats on making your first soap! Be sure to post pics.

 

[judymoody]

Wow, that is one complex soap! My first batch was stone simple and I used some well-behaving scent like lemongrass.

For the future, it's better to do batches of about 2 lbs. With a 1 lb. batch, especially with so many ingredients, small measurement errors can multiply.

Enjoy, I hope it turns out well for you. Now all you have to do is wait.

 

[JuneP]

Judy

I hope so too Judy. Next time I will make 2 lbs or maybe 3 since I have a 3 lb silicone mold. There were a lot of ingredients, but I'm hoping that my very accurate, measuring to the 100th of a gram scale, did it's job! If not, then lesson learned. I'll find out tomorrow night!
I'll remember the lemon grass. Do you use a fragrance oil or EO? I have a small (15ml) bottle of Doterra EO lemon grass, as well as some others EO's from them, but don't know how much of those to use in a batch of soap.

June