I'm looking to hear what ingredients/additives you use, have used or plan to use in your soaps. I'm not really looking for oils unless you have a passion for one and it isn't a well known oil (like cherry seed oil I just found - expensive stuff!!) - but more like clays, infusions (herbs or spices) in oil, foods, preservatives, scents and anything else that you may add.
If you would be so kind as to tell what the ingredient is supposed to do and how it effects the soap and the production process (amounts and when to add).
Here are the additives I have tried so far:
Sugar & powdered sugar (table sugar or 10X sugar) - supposedly increases lather. I found that keeping about 5% of the water aside to dissolve the sugar will work and then it can be added to the lye mix after the lye is dissolved. DO NOT add it to the lye water as it will cause a mess nor add it to the oil as it won't dissolve. I've found that 28g per KG (or about 1oz per KG) of oil is a recommended amount. Honey can also be used but it can darken the color of the soap.
Salt - increases the hardness of the soap. Can be added to the water before adding lye or added the same was as adding sugar. Amounts have been suggested at 28g per KG, same as sugar.
Chocolate Liquor (bakers chocolate) - this is totally unsweetened chocolate and it is not sweet. All bakers chocolates are different and info is hard to find but I found that about 51% of the content is fatty acids below is the listing of the FA contents of some Brazilian Chocolates (only content list I could find). It should be added to the hard oils and melted with them. Be sure to stir often and heat slowly. Care must be taken to mix all lumps as even when heated it does not melt like oils or milk chocolate. It may be ideal to heat 1 part oil to 1 part chocolate in a seperate container and use a silicon spatula to mix/spread against the bottom to smooth out lumps. I have used 10% of total oil as chocolate and added the 3 FA's to the lye calculator (referencing the chart below). After melted it was mixed into the rest of the oils.
Cocoa Powder - (used Hershey's Dark) - put through a fine sieve/sifter (tea strainer works well) before adding. a few OZ's of oil were added to the powder, mixed thoroughly and added to mixture before trace. Does not seem to speed trace nor give a grainy texture. Amounts were 30g per KG oil.
Coffee (powdered) - Coffee is finely ground (dusted) in grinder & sifted in fine mesh sieve (tea strainer). 30g per KG. This was treated the same as the cocoa powder. A Couple of OZ's of oil were mixed with the powdered coffee & thoroughly mixed. Add it after mixing in the lye water. Does not seem to speed trace. It does seem to give a little bit of grit to the soap but the finer you grind and sift, the less it is noticed.
Coffee - liquid - Ultra-concentrated coffee was made with distilled water. 1cup of coffee grounds were added to 600ml of Dist H2O and brought to a boil then filtered. About 400ml of coffee was recovered and it was STRONG. Lye was added to room temp coffee, 25% of the lye at a time. It seems to corrupt the odor of the coffee to a distasteful odor. I would recommend chilling the coffee and adding the lye in 5-6 different intervals (this way it doesn't get a hot at one time) and allowed to chill before adding next amount of lye. It may be beneficial to freeze the coffee as I have ad success with milk and cream this way.
De-ionised water - used in place of distilled water. Collected from a dehumidifier or air conditioning unit. Neutral PH.
Lemon Zest - used cheese grater to scrape the "rind" of lemons. This is best done with cold lemons. (This can be done with other citrus fruits). Make sure to wash the fruit first. Zest was added near trace and turned a very white soap (TitDiox was also used) a very dark yellow, almost a mustard color. I added 85g of zest to 650g of oil (which in hind sight was too much). It seemed to speed trace dramatically when added.
Titanium Dioxide (TD) - finely powdered TD is put through a fine mesh sieve (tea strainer) to make sure there is no clumping. Powder was added to a few OZ's of EO's or melted oils and blended thouroughly. When added to batch use blender to agitate TD/oil mix before adding then use spatula to remove remaining powder.
Cream - Heavy whipping cream - frozen in ice cube trays into small 15g (15ml) sizes. Mixed with frozen milk cubes when making lye water. I use a 3:1 Milk:Cream in place of the water. Lye is added in 4 steps, mixing constantly to ensure not to burn/scald milk/cream.
Milk - whole milk - frozen in 15g or 30g (15ml or 30ml) sizes in ice cube trays. Milk is substituted for water in making the lye solution. Lye is added in 4 steps, mixing constantly to ensure not to burn/scald milk
That is about the extent of my additives so far. I'd really like to know about some anti-bacterial, natural preservative, anti-viral, additives as well as special moisturizers & smoothing agents like clays if anyone has some special insight on those.
If you would be so kind as to tell what the ingredient is supposed to do and how it effects the soap and the production process (amounts and when to add).
Here are the additives I have tried so far:
Sugar & powdered sugar (table sugar or 10X sugar) - supposedly increases lather. I found that keeping about 5% of the water aside to dissolve the sugar will work and then it can be added to the lye mix after the lye is dissolved. DO NOT add it to the lye water as it will cause a mess nor add it to the oil as it won't dissolve. I've found that 28g per KG (or about 1oz per KG) of oil is a recommended amount. Honey can also be used but it can darken the color of the soap.
Salt - increases the hardness of the soap. Can be added to the water before adding lye or added the same was as adding sugar. Amounts have been suggested at 28g per KG, same as sugar.
Chocolate Liquor (bakers chocolate) - this is totally unsweetened chocolate and it is not sweet. All bakers chocolates are different and info is hard to find but I found that about 51% of the content is fatty acids below is the listing of the FA contents of some Brazilian Chocolates (only content list I could find). It should be added to the hard oils and melted with them. Be sure to stir often and heat slowly. Care must be taken to mix all lumps as even when heated it does not melt like oils or milk chocolate. It may be ideal to heat 1 part oil to 1 part chocolate in a seperate container and use a silicon spatula to mix/spread against the bottom to smooth out lumps. I have used 10% of total oil as chocolate and added the 3 FA's to the lye calculator (referencing the chart below). After melted it was mixed into the rest of the oils.
Cocoa Powder - (used Hershey's Dark) - put through a fine sieve/sifter (tea strainer works well) before adding. a few OZ's of oil were added to the powder, mixed thoroughly and added to mixture before trace. Does not seem to speed trace nor give a grainy texture. Amounts were 30g per KG oil.
Coffee (powdered) - Coffee is finely ground (dusted) in grinder & sifted in fine mesh sieve (tea strainer). 30g per KG. This was treated the same as the cocoa powder. A Couple of OZ's of oil were mixed with the powdered coffee & thoroughly mixed. Add it after mixing in the lye water. Does not seem to speed trace. It does seem to give a little bit of grit to the soap but the finer you grind and sift, the less it is noticed.
Coffee - liquid - Ultra-concentrated coffee was made with distilled water. 1cup of coffee grounds were added to 600ml of Dist H2O and brought to a boil then filtered. About 400ml of coffee was recovered and it was STRONG. Lye was added to room temp coffee, 25% of the lye at a time. It seems to corrupt the odor of the coffee to a distasteful odor. I would recommend chilling the coffee and adding the lye in 5-6 different intervals (this way it doesn't get a hot at one time) and allowed to chill before adding next amount of lye. It may be beneficial to freeze the coffee as I have ad success with milk and cream this way.
De-ionised water - used in place of distilled water. Collected from a dehumidifier or air conditioning unit. Neutral PH.
Lemon Zest - used cheese grater to scrape the "rind" of lemons. This is best done with cold lemons. (This can be done with other citrus fruits). Make sure to wash the fruit first. Zest was added near trace and turned a very white soap (TitDiox was also used) a very dark yellow, almost a mustard color. I added 85g of zest to 650g of oil (which in hind sight was too much). It seemed to speed trace dramatically when added.
Titanium Dioxide (TD) - finely powdered TD is put through a fine mesh sieve (tea strainer) to make sure there is no clumping. Powder was added to a few OZ's of EO's or melted oils and blended thouroughly. When added to batch use blender to agitate TD/oil mix before adding then use spatula to remove remaining powder.
Cream - Heavy whipping cream - frozen in ice cube trays into small 15g (15ml) sizes. Mixed with frozen milk cubes when making lye water. I use a 3:1 Milk:Cream in place of the water. Lye is added in 4 steps, mixing constantly to ensure not to burn/scald milk/cream.
Milk - whole milk - frozen in 15g or 30g (15ml or 30ml) sizes in ice cube trays. Milk is substituted for water in making the lye solution. Lye is added in 4 steps, mixing constantly to ensure not to burn/scald milk
That is about the extent of my additives so far. I'd really like to know about some anti-bacterial, natural preservative, anti-viral, additives as well as special moisturizers & smoothing agents like clays if anyone has some special insight on those.
That actually reminds me of the truffles I got my self for my b-day.
