Soaps with e.g. cocoa powder or charcoal turn out grainy

[Anich]

Ok, this is mostly a matter of taste but I'm not a great fan of the appearance of my very first batch which contains cocoa powder. I wasn't smart or handy enough to dissolve the powder well enough so it formed tiny granules and did not colour the soap anywhere near evenly. My heart-shaped soaps look exactly like grayish-brown heart-shaped stones with dark speckles and all

However, the soap smells divine, lathers quite well (given the short curing time, I just HAD to try it ) and the best part is the scent remains on my hands. I used dark chocolate and a hint of hazelnut FO, and the natural cocoa scent is also distinguishable. It also has a nice exfoliating texture due to the cocoa granules and it STILL is my very first batch so it can not be perfect, but...

...but the appearance still is hideous. I bet someone has some tips to repair this next time I'll try this out?


EDIT: I edited the subject of the topic as I had similar problems with charcoal too and thought it could be covered in this topic also

 

[judymoody]

Blend the cocoa powder in a bit of your soaping oils until it has a smooth consistency. You can use a little latte frother to get out all of the clumps.

 

[IrishLass]

Ditto what judymoody said, but your description of, "grayish-brown heart-shaped stones with dark speckles and all", actually sounds like it looks pretty cool. I made a soap with Dead Sea mud once in which I purposely did not blend the mud in very well so that I could get a stoney, granite look to in my finished soap. It's one of my coolest looking soaps to date.

IrishLass

 

[Padamae]

I used cocoa in my last Coffee soap I added to the melting oils and stired it well. Added my lye to my cold chocolate piñon coffee made in a coffee press with distilled water then mixed it to a light trace added my coffee grounds used to make the coffee for a scrubby. They look like they could be brownies. They were curing on my counter a few days before I moved them and my daughter made brownies every day they were out. The smell made her crave the chocolate.

 

[Cashie]

I would love to see pictures.

 

[Padamae]

I would live to see pictures of the stone colored hearts also. Maybe tonight I can get my laptop and post pictures. I think it might be impossible on my iPhone.

 

[Relle]

I presume you want a brown soap to go with the chocolate and hazelnut FO. You can put dark 85 % melted chocolate in at trace and get that chocolate colour, it comes out smooth and creates a creamy bar.

 

[Soapy Gurl]

I always make sure to add my powdered additives when my soap is barely tracing, then I can really hit it with the stick blender's power. If I just hand mix it in, even if I have added it to oils first, I still get lumps.

 

[Pretty n Plain]

When I use the cocoa powder I always make sure I sieve it through into another container to get all the lumps out then I mix it with a little soap batter.

 

[my2scents]

As everyone else said & Cocoa powder soaps always have a funky smell for a few days while curing I've noticed.

 

[Anich]

Thank you all! Next time I'll definitely blend the powder in a smaller amount of oil before adding. I don't know why it never crossed my mind when I made the mix, guess I was too excited about my very first soap

So here's a pic of the eyesore as some of you asked:

My gosh it's huge :shock: I thought I resized it before adding and now I seem to be unable to edit the size for some reason, sorry...

BTW, I'm a bit concerned about the tiny reddish-brown dots that can be seen around the cocoa grains. I think they're not quite visible in the pic but there they are anyway. Again I find myself wondering could they be lye pockets, as it can be seen I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to them :mrgreen: However, I'm not sure if they are pockets or bubbles at all, the colour is uneven all along so maybe it just... belongs to this soap? I'm not sure. The soap does not zap, so can it be considered safe?

 

[Padamae]

I like them. I don't see anything that makes me think lye pockets. Maybe it was an reaction with the lye. I had that happen in coffee soap too. It was so pretty made in a tube from the plotter paper at work. I so wish I could post pics from my phone.

 

[Anich]

It's interesting that those reddish spots appeared only on these heart-shaped soaps and the other ones (with a milk carton as a mold) in this batch are just fine, the colour is more even. I guess these are also ok since no excess lye should be found, it must have been some kind of reaction with the lye like you said, Padamae. What exactly happened with your coffee soap? I wish I saw pics of it too

 

[IrishLass]

I think your soap is beautiful.

IrishLass

 

[Anich]

Ha ha, as said it must be a matter of taste I'm not too thrilled about it, but then, the rest of my four batches seem to turn out even more ugly due to some horrid uneven discoloration :roll: I guess they might have slight chances of becoming better as they cure, at least I hope so, but this first batch seems to remain this way.

The most important thing is that now I know how to fix it next time. I just HAVE to try the melted dark chocolate also as Relle9 suggested, thanks for the tip!

 

[adelej]

I love the look of this soap- it looks like soapstone! Pardon the pun. Haha.

Anyway, it's quite pretty and does look like natural stone. If I saw this I would definitely think it was deliberate.

 

[Soapy Gurl]

I find it quite charming and would buy it if it smelled yummy!

 

[newbie]

If you're going to give any of this away, you have to call it "Heart of Stone". It's a great look! Love it.

 

[Padamae]

It was just that my first coffee soap had these reddish orange spots through out it. It was in a paper tube I used for a mold. Hopefully som I can not work past 10 so I can get online and post the picture I have of it. And I also thought that the coffee would smell through the process so I didn't use FO but it smelled like peanut butter to my daughter. Ever since then I haven't had that happen. And everyone loves my coffee soap.

 

[BlondeSquirrel]

I love cocoa powder! It is great to use to try out new color techniques without wasting expensive soap dye!