ran into issues w/ coffee for colour

[onesickfreak]

was aiming for a mocha swirl... almost failed

so i made up a batch of castile soap yesterday, decided i was gonna play with some natural colour... boiled about two cups of coffee (that i added 1 1/2 tablespoons baking coco into) down to next to nothing, then added 1 tablespoon beans.

used.
h2o 7.6oz
lye 2.41 oz
o.o 20 oz

mixed to trace (in my crockpot), put some of my soap into a second container for and mixed in all the colour. then i poured my "white" (that was still in the crockpot) soap into the mold, i notice two things already... my brown is watery from the coffee goo, and my white is processing(gelling?) faster cause of the heat. so i add my colour, they mix almost immediately in the mold (not much, still (over) swirled). anyways, as the soap saponified, most of the excess liquid floated to the top, and i put a paper towel on it and gently soaked it up... in some tiny spots on the top it looks like the coco has floated up and clung together, and some of the beans rose... it will be a few days before i try to remove it from the mold, and its gonna take some extra cure time, but im sure itll work in the end.

i did learn a lot about to much liquids, heat control, and what not to do,
;-}

(post pics soon)

 

[Susie]

You need to use the coffee liquid as part of the total liquid. Not added separately to only a portion of the soap. This gave part of your soap a water discount, and the other part too much water. This will affect the cure rates, and the texture quite a bit.

When I use cocoa, I mix it dry into my oils before adding the lye water. Use the stick blender to mix thoroughly.

When you say you used coffee beans, do you mean the whole beans?

 

[onesickfreak]

no, just grounds... and i was thinking about that with the cocoa, the extra fat in it...

next time im gonna use oxides..

 

[Susie]

I mixed mine with the oils because I have made lots of hot cocoa and fought the battle with the dry cocoa at the bottom of the cup more often than not. So, I just mixed it with the oils to avoid that whole clumpy cocoa issue.

And I can't really help you with the coffee grounds issue, I am weird about "stuff" in my soap.

And we are all learning here. I learn something new every single day. Some days it is what to do, some days it is what not to do. The main thing is that you never stop learning.