Yesterday I made 3 test batches, was going to do 4, but Hubby called to say he would be home from work sooner than I expected, so I cleaned up and put everything away.
I also started using Soapee, which I am strongly suspecting I am going to like much better than SoapCalc, at this point anyway. I saved my newer recipes in Soapee and really love that I can edit them later, adding notes and what I learned from a recipe is such a great feature! (Thanks to
mcnazar for developing this fabulous tool.)
The three test batches I made are each a 1-lb loaf with enough left over for one bar in individual molds. I could have adjusted the recipe down, but I like doing the additional single bar with my test batches.
The first was a Carrot Juice Soap with a Turmeric and Cocoa Powder Swirl. I am experimenting with lower cleansing numbers and adding sugar to compensate, as well as salt to harden, since I decreased Coconut Oil to 9% in this recipe. Another thing I am looking for in this test batch is to see if the Turmeric as colorant will actually look much different than the plain carrot juice color once this one cures for awhile. I sifted some turmeric onto the first layer, then mixed some into the second half of the batter before adding it to the top. Then did a hanger swirl. Then cocoa powder on top with a chopstick swirl on the top portion. For fragrance, I mixed Rosemary, Lemon & Eucalyptus EOs. The scent is rather strong today. Hope it mellows.
For the second test batch, I wanted to try out Red Palm Oil. I've never purchased it before, but a jar of it in the grocery store was on clearance at less than half price, so I decided to give it a try. I wanted to see how it looks (colorwise) and if it feels any different than the soaps I made with regular palm oil (I expect not). I have only used regular palm oil when I went to Soap Making Boot Camp earlier this year, and it sure does make a nice bar of soap, but I have never before purchased any palm oil myself, except when it is an ingredient in Crisco for example. Anyway, this recipe is Zero Bubbly and Zero Cleansing, so I used milk in the lye solution, and I added honey to boost bubbles and salt to harden the bar. Probably didn't need the salt, but I added it to all 3 test batches so figured I would be consistent in that. The fragrance I used in the Red Palm Oil Milk & Honey Soap is Honey Vanilla Love Dust by Nature's Garden. What a fabulous fragrance.
Unfortunately it has a FP of 134 F and I think a lot of it burned off during gel. The scent is still in the soap, but much more subtle than last night. I later though that maybe I should have added Orris Root, but that did not occur to me until it was too late
and I don't really have any idea if that helps regarding the Flash Point temperature anyway. *
I have removed both of these 1-lb soaps from their silicon molds to allow air to reach more surface for drying. I don't plan to cut them until tomorrow.
The third test batch is still pretty soft and has me worried about it's softness, in fact. But I did make it pretty late last night. It is a Pumpkin Seed Oil Soap and because it has only 18% hard oils I should not be surprised it is still pretty soft. Well anyway, the goal of this recipe, besides finding out how pumpkin seed oil works in soap (just for fun, probably not to be used on a regular basis), it was yet another one with Zero Bubbly and Zero Cleansing. So I added Sugar and Salt to this one as well. And I had boiled some water with seaweed in it the day before to use (some in my soup and some in my soap) in at least one test batch of soap today. I was hoping the seaweed water would support the deep green that I am expecting from the PSO based on another post I read here on SMF. Perhaps I should not have mixed the seaweed water testing with the PSO testing batch since I've never used either before. But I did, so I'll have to see what happens. I can always do more batches of just one or the other. I did add a little Rosemary as antioxidant, but other than that, no fragrance. I want to find out how long the pumpkin seed oil scent remains. I love the smell of nut oils on their own.
Another day I'll do a single oil soap of just Pumpkin Seed Oil and another of only Red Palm. I found that exercise very useful when I did it last Summer with every oil I had in the house. One thing I learned from that was that sesame seed oil produces a really nice bubbly bar, which I have never read anywhere and the numbers say differently. But then maybe toasted sesame seed oil is different and that's what I used because it is what I had in my kitchen. Anyway I find doing single oil soaps is a really useful exercise for me.
A few days ago I made some Thieves Blend and haven't chosen a recipe to test it out in yet. I'm stilling thinking on that one.
Then after a long nap (I was up too late last night and just couldn't stay away this afternoon) I unmolded and cut a 2.5-lb mold of some CP soap that I had to rebatch after the original soap zapped me. My first zap since I started making soap almost a year ago. I was so disappointed, but I learned an important lesson on that soap. Don't add a frozen lye solution to the batter and expect it to re-melt and incorporate in CP soap. My heavens, what was wrong with me that day!?! (I have no excuse, and no idea how it got past me that I was pouring huge chunks of frozen lye into my mold, pepples actually when I cut into that log!) Seriously I did recently watch a soapmaking video where a soaper did add frozen lye to her oils and said 'it will melt again and incorporate', but then she was doing hot process, so I suppose it probably did (anyway I hope it did). Still, I will not be doing that again, I can assure you. I think I need to make a few more milk soaps to develop a reliable methodology to be sure I can avoid such a disaster in the future. I thought I had, but obviously not!
So, chagrin aside, I share this horrible failed soaping experience because it is yet another reason I know I have so much more to learn. And it is part of the process that led up to today's soap cutting. And as a cautionary tale, more for myself than anyone else, though.
It's 6 days old now from first inception through first unmolding the next day, cutting, rebatching, remolding, etc. and today's cutting. For the rebatch, I cut it into tiny little bits, pulling out the few too many lye pebbles (about 4 or 5), then left it on warm in my crockpot overnight. The next morning I added so much almond milk & about 3 T. of yogurt to the batter that it expanded in volume. I couldn't smell the original fragrance anymore, so I wanted to try a new one that had just arrived that day which is Lily of the Valley. And I thought I'd try another scent I had bought from another soaper's destash, so I took out enough to make 6 and a half additional bars in individual molds with a plumeria fragrance and some added colorant to lend a purplish hue to the soap. The remainder I used green because I didn't really want muddy colored Lily of the Valley soap (the original soap log was a 6-color multi pour from 6 different pouring spouted pitchers; I still don't know how frozen lye pepples got past my notice!) It is not a very pretty soap now, but it lathers beautifully and smells fairly nice. And of course, no zap as I cooked that baby to death. I don't think I used enough fragrance in either one, though. I tend to be very conservative with the amount of fragrance or essential oils when I add them. I also unmolded 3 of the plumeria-fragrance soaps, but decided to leave the others for another day. I'm hoping another day or two will help them retain a bit more crispness of design of the molds, as these 3 did not.
In any case I will be reserving these bars for myself. I also might felt them because they aren't at all pretty. But if I felt them, I have less chance of discovering any residual issues, so maybe not a good idea after all. Whatever I decide to do, I do have to wait for a fairly long cure to dry out all the added fluid in the rebatch.
Then when taking pictures I had to troubleshoot my camera because the focus wasn't working correctly. Somehow I had accidentally set it to MF mode which I have not learned to use correctly so my soaps were not in focus. I'll do photos again tomorrow, though since the light is really not good enough now.
*
Greyed out because I couldn't get strikeout to work. I was incorrectly understanding what was affecting the fragrance. Evaporation or chemical interaction during saponification.
