Eye of the Tiger. Roar!

What I learned today; I am NOT a soap cutter. My husband bought me a mitre box to help me cut my soap straight. He is a detail man about things like that. My last batch drove him crazy because it was crooked. There is not a single detail thing about me. I deem my husband and his O.C.D., the official cutter of the soap, forthwith! (The mitre box didn't help me at all.)

I did not swirl deeply enough. My swirl stayed mostly on the top of the bar. Perhaps I had more time to swirl than I thought I did, but live and learn.

Try to ignore how crooked this bar of soap is. 

Thanks. ;)                 



I cut the top 1/4 inch off the top because the swirl was prettier underneath. I can use the scraps for rebatching, where you shred the cured soap into something you can use in a future batch.

But I am not unhappy with my result. It's not what I was expecting or even trying for, but I like it.

I also wanted to show you the difference in the color after 24 hours. See what I mean? You can't tell anything about your soap until it sits. It may change even more in the next few weeks.

Look at all the crooked bars. Various sizes and shapes. So pretty. (Hey, perfection is in the eye of the beholder!) 

 

If I was going to name this soap, I'd call it, Eye of the Tiger. The color is hard to see because I have not mastered the art of the blog photo, but it is a pale sort of rusted orange with very pretty copper-ish swirls. The smell is a very subtle citrus and I don't notice that the paprika or cocoa powder added much to the scent at all, but as the soap cures, that too can change.

I wonder if I have time to get one more batch in before I leave town?!?! Maybe I will master the mitre box by then. Eh, probably not.

Chocolate Citrus Swirl

Today I decided to try my hand at the swirl! I wanted to work with what I have at home because I am getting ready to go see this little man...

Liam Garrad Alexander

and I didn't want an order of base oils and essential fragrances sitting on my doorstep in the heat all weekend.

I had 6 oils and some citrus fragrance left over from previous batches, but I REALLY wanted to try something with COLOR! Who knew that paprika and cocoa powder work wonderfully?!  In this batch, I colored my base soap with paprika and swirled in my cocoa powder. In order to use the paprika for color, I mixed 1 Tbls. of paprika with 1 Tbls. of olive oil BEFORE I added it to the rest of the batch to keep it from clumping. I mixed 2 cups of uncolored soap with 2 Tsp. of cocoa powder and reserved it for the swirl.  

I am learning to pour the soap evenly into the pans. It begins to gel right away and I still forget and usually find I don't have enough time to even it out in the pans. This is especially true when you want to swirl, because you have to work quickly to get the second color into the base.



I used a bizarre piece of a plastic I found in my junk drawer; a handle to something but I have no idea what, to drag through the soap to make the swirl. That was the fun part!



I am quite happy with the colors. Granted, it's more of a fall /Halloween/ Thanksgiving combination, but as I said, I was working with what I had at the moment. I added citrus fragrance oil because I was kind of going for a chocolate orange thing. I will have to wait to see what kind of smell develops. I almost wish I hadn't added the fragrance at all. The smell was interesting and kind of like honey when I added the chocolate swirl, but you can't judge the scent of the soap before it cures. It changes dramatically.

Tomorrow let's cut it and see if the swirl was successful! Cutting the soap after 24 hours is like opening a present and you never know what you're gonna get!



It ain't pretty but it's soap!

 My first batch ever of actual soap!

These pictures are pretty bad and I'll do better next time, but Houston, we have soap! It unmolded and cut like a dream. It smells awesome too!

 A big, beautiful, block of soap from the silicone loaf pan mold. This pan unmolds very easily. You just sort of pull it off the soap. Nice.

Acrylic mold- I had to put this mold in the freezer for a few minutes but it released the soap easily. You can see how it is much more like a commercial bar of soap.

18 bars of actual soap!!

The bars on the right are from the silicone bread pan mold. Nice big soaps which I will use again when I want to add a top layer of fancy stuff. The bars on the left are from the acrylic mold which is much more uniform. I still like the big chunky ones better. This was a 3.5 pound batch of soap and it made 10 large and 8 small bars. If you ever get into making soap, you'll see how batch size and molds are somewhat confusing.

This soap will sit and cure for 4-6 weeks. In that time, the pH goes to the proper place so you can use it on your skin. The water evaporates and the bar becomes hard and usable. I have a curing room set up in my house.

This recipe consists of olive oil, coconut oil, and palm oil with rose hip jasmine fragrance. It's simple and a beginner recipe, but if you find a good base recipe, there is no end to what you can do with it. It's like a really great cookie dough.

Now what am I going to use these very plain bars of soap for? I will use them for sure, but I can also do something called re-batching where you shred it and use in another soap. I can't wait to use color and additives. I just had to get the process down first. Now I am moving on to something much more creative... hopefully. Can't wait!

Soap babies all nice and cozy...

Well this old gal finally got up the energy and nerve to make a second batch of soap. For some reason, there was enough energy left at the end of the day to put it all together. I could tell right away that it was going to be a much better batch than the first one. The first batch traced immediately, an indication of too much lye. I also mixed this batch at a warmer temperature which made a big difference in the texture and the pour.

Just look at my sleeping babies all wrapped up in their blankets...er, beach towels. 5 in all. They stay like this for 24 hours and hopefully are gelling as we speak!

I used my Rose hip Jasmine fragrance oil for this one because I REALLY did not like the last sent I used in that ugly batch. I am going to start buying essential oils instead of fragrance oils. Essential oils are actually plant extracts with real benefits for your skin.

Here is my next project:

DOGGIE SOAP!

He's so excited!



Soap Batch FAIL!

In soap making, there is something called lye heavy. Now I know what it looks like:

Not pretty. 

When you cut your soap, it's supposed to be firm, but still soft. Not brittle. This stuff cut like a frozen chocolate bar.

A couple of things went wrong here. First, I think my scale was off. Second, I may have added too much fragrance oil which I've read can throw things off. It is chemistry and has to be pretty exact. Also, I tried to adjust the recipe for the size of my mold. Apparently not a good idea for a newbie. I think it threw everything off.

Disposing of this presents another problem. You can't use lye heavy soap for anything at all, and you have to be careful how you get rid of it. I'm asking the experts at http://www.forum.soap-making-supplies-blog.com/index.php to let me know.

So...batch one, EPIC FAIL. But I am not discouraged because this is how you learn, right?

Let's try this again, shall we?

I finally lost my virginity!

I DID IT! YIPPY!!
I know you want to look at pictures and we'll get to that, but if you are seriously interested in making soap at some point, this blog is supposed to help you, so let me say a few things first:

*Check your scale first. Recipes are in decimals not fractions and I had to convert between the two. There is a new scale in my soap making future!
*Lye will not jump up and try to strangle you! I mixed it under my vent on the stove. I used a dishwasher safe pitcher which got warm, but worked fine. I liked that it was deep and I didn't have to worry about splashes. I then placed the pitcher in an ice bath to cool it down. Your oils and your lye have to be within 10 degrees of each other before you mix them together to get soap.
*Get all your things out in advance and do a run through. Remember to have things ready for cleanup because YOU CANNOT WASH THE LEFTOVERS DOWN YOUR DRAIN!

Okay, here's what happened in my kitchen this morning. Not great pics, but it's hard to take pics while you're trying to keep the soap process going at the same time.

 Everything out and ready including putting the animals away. Don't want to trip over a critter with caustic substances in your hands!

This is the dreaded LYE! Take note of the white distilled vinegar. It's the neutralizer and you need plenty on hand in case of an emergency spill and also when it's time to clean up.

This is lye in the pitcher. Use a candy thermometer to monitor the temp. Also, use  chilled, DISTILLED, water. ADD THE LYE TO THE WATER. NEVER the other way around or KABOOM!

 These are the oils. Some are liquid and some are solid and you slowly warm and bring into a cohesive goo. 

 

This is called soaponification. You have added the lye water to the oils and as  you stir, you are waiting for something called trace to happen. Trace makes you very, very, happy! :)

This is fragrance oil. This one is called Energy and smells like citrus. Note that the cute little bowls I bought are useless because they are too cute and too little. You add the fragrance after trace happens. (my house stills smells like this)

This is how my recipe started out. Nice and neat. The paper on the right is the actual recipe.

And this is how my recipe looked at the end. I am such a SLOB!

~~~~~

And here we have soap in the mold! There is plastic wrap on the top.

Then you do this...

You wrap it all up nice and cozy in towels to insulate it so it can keep cooking and the lye can do it's job. It goes through a gel phase and then gets hard enough to slice in 24 hours. But you can't touch it until then! No Peeking!!

Tomorrow we slice the sucker up! See you then!!



Joy turns to frustration and a lot of Grrrrrrrr...

 First I felt like this: Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

Then I felt like this: Huh? You want me to mix what with the what?

Then I felt like this: I'm gonna kill you cause I don't understand!!!

Now I feel like this: I can't do this. Whaaaahhh!!!

The items on my table have been staring at me for 2 days intimidating me. I've been looking at them, but I don't go near them. I wave from the other side of the room. "Hello soap things. I'm so happy you're here!" Then I run away.  They woke me up last night calling my name. "Annggie...Annggie...ANGIE!.."  So today I swallowed hard and approached the table. I snatched up the recipe the company sent with my "starter kit". Starter being the key word. Here it is:

Can you see it? Can you see this tiny slip of paper? This is all I got in the instruction category! I've never even seen this stuff before and you're gonna send me this? Right. What part of STARTER do you not understand? STARTER kits are for STARTER PEOPLE, are they not?!? (PLEASE REFER TO PHOTO #3) To be fair, there is a book, but you aren't exactly looking at the book about procedure when you're making soap with hot lye in your hands. You're looking at the recipe. Am I right? Nod and say yes.

 I have been reading. And reading, and reading, and reading, and I know enough to see that there are a few things missing on this mighty mini soap recipe. Luckily I have joined a soap forum where I can beg for help from people who actually know what the *bleep* they're doing. After several emails, I'm feeling a lot more like this:

 Never fear. Soon there shall be soap!