Coffee Comparison

Despite mixed reviews from testers, I really like the espresso bar I made before. Mostly I love how rough the coffee grinds are. LP suggested I designate this a men's soap... I got two coffee-based scents from BB: Turkish mocha and chocolate espresso. I wanted to test them side by side with the same recipe, but I forgot that a 2:1 water discount sets too fast. The recipes are identical except the water content.

I wanted to deviate from my normal recipe and use up some of the other oils in my fridge. I also thought including cocoa butter would be nice and add to the chocolatey scent of the soap. So here are the two recipes, which you'll note have a respectable conditioning value.

Chocolate espresso:

- combined at 50C
- 24g of chocolate espresso fragrance oil
- 20g of coarsest freshly ground coffee
As I mentioned earlier, this set way too quickly. It was a paste by the time I transferred, and I had to use a spatchula to get it into the mold.

Turkish mocha:

- combined at 50C
- full oz (~28g) of turkish mocha fragrance oil
- 20g of coarsest freshly ground coffee
This was pretty reasonable, and I think I'll generally stick to a water discount of 2.5:1. I could pour it just fine, and it solidified by the following day.

Sandlewood Shave Soap

First off, I stumbled upon this article about discounting the water content in order to speeden the curing process:

http://southernsoapers.com/news/soapmaking-tutorials/discounted-water-cold-process-soap-methods/

I was very excited about this because the writer said cure times can be reduced to two weeks. I'd like to stop oven-baking to accelerate the curing as I'm worried that degrades the fragrance/essential oils, but am impatient and don't want to wait two months for a bar of soap to be ready. So I decided to try it out on some shave soap that I've been meaning to make. Huge mistake.

Here's my recipe:

I blended attributes of the two shave soap recipes I posted previously, maintaining a heavy castor oil presence and about 1 tbs/lb of bentonite clay (this is important for providing slip to the razor). Jojoba oil was my own addition. Jojoba is supposed to have healing properties which is appropriate given that shaving ravages your skin. I discounted the water content heavily, going to the lowest amount they recommended to someone who had never done this before.

I combined the oil and lye, added a tbs of clay and a tbs of colloidal oatmeal and blended for about 30-60s before hitting trace. Now here's where things started going wrong. I only had a sandlewood sample size (1/2oz) so I wanted to divvy the mixture up and fragrance quarter of it with OMH. I was able to get a quarter out which I had LP fragrance with OMH while I mixed the sandlewood FO in. By this point, the mixture began to thicken, achieving a putty like consistency. I quickly started pouring into bowls, but by the last one, I was scooping it out and packing it into the bowls. Discounting water was not the right move for soaps that need to be poured into bowls and where a flat surface is desirable.

I casted about 100g into each bowl and got 5 bowls total.

Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey II

Followed same recipe as before (4/8/2011), except reduced the oatmeal content to 25g total. Hit trace, then added ~10g of oatmeal and fragrance oil. Then restored trace and added the remaining 15g of oatmeal and mixed by hand before casting. This should help maintain some full-sized oats.

Coconut-Lime-Verbena

Same procedure as OMH bar. Added the grated peel of 5 limes (3 lime's worth of peel was completely dessicated, 1 was partially dried, 1 was freshly grated; don't ask why). Added coconut-lime-verbena FO from CS. Hit trace, added FO, retraced, added peel, blended until trace, but noticed added the peel caused the solution to lose some viscosity.




UPDATE (7/3/11): The fragrance has almost completely disappeared. This may be like other citrusy scents - they just don't last. Barring the scent, it's a good bar - moisturizing.

Lavender

Using the same recipe as OMH bar from 4/8/11. 3h bake time at 150F, followed by at least 12h in oven.

Added Lavender and Herb fragrance oil from BB and an absurd amount of lavender (20g). Hit trace, added the FO, restored trace, then hand-stirred the lavender buds in.


I have a number of different lavender scents from BB, I want to do a side by side comparison and figure out which is best. Perhaps I won't devote a full batch to each lavender, but will divide the next one up in two.

The 20g of lavender may have been too much. I think next time I could do with half that amount and a bit of oatmeal. Also, for some reason, the lavender turned brown. The lavender I got from Rishita stayed purple, even with the hot processing. Maybe this is justwhat BB's low grade lavender does.

The scent is pretty nice, very similar to the previous batch using CS's lavender FO.

UPDATE (7/3/11): Ok, adding 20g of lavender is not a good idea. The bar is way too crumbly. 5 or 10g should be more reasonable. Also, I can't stand that it turned brown. I'm not sure what to do with a lb of lavender, but I know I can't use it for soapmaking.

Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey

Ok, I pushed the conditioning value beyond the suggested range of 44-69 and achieved a 72. If this bar isn't moisturizing, then I'm going to conclude it just can't be done. One possibility is that the oven process does something, but I can't really see why.

Used the below recipe and 25g of oatmeal, milk, and honey fragrance from BB and 40g of oats. Baked for 3h at 150F, left in oven overnight.


This bar is good. Doesn't produce that dry skin feeling in the shower. I think this'll be my go-to recipe from here on in. Will post pictures as soon as it's sunny out.

Shave Soap

Found this about.com from David Fisher.

40% Olive oil - stable lather and good skin conditioning
30% Coconut oil - rich, bubbly lather
22% Palm oil - stable, creamy, hard bar (can substitute lard or tallow)
8% Castor oil - for lather and creaminess

For my 3 lb. batch of soap, this works out to be:
13 oz. Olive oil
10 oz. Coconut oil
7 oz. Palm oil
2.5 oz. Castor oil
4.7 oz. Lye (about a 5% discount)
9.4 oz. water
2 Tbs. of Bentonite Clay
1 to 1.4 oz. of fragrance or essential oil

And here's another recipe from soap-making-resource.com:

Olive Oil = 23.9 Ounces (45% of total oils)
Coconut Oil (76 Degree) = 10.6 Ounces (20% of total oils)
Castor Oil = 10.6 Ounces (20% of total oils)
Palm Oil, RBD = 4.2 Ounces (8% of total oils)
Almond Oil, Sweet = 3.7 ounces (7% of total oils)
Bentonite Clay = 3 tablepoons
Colloidal Oatmeal = 4 tablepoons
Distilled Water = 20 ounces
lye = 7.269 ounces (206 grams)

Wake-up Rosemary

Followed SoapQueen's moisturizing bar recipe: http://www.soapqueen.com/bramble-berry-news/my-favorite-cold-process-recipes-2/

I'm fairly skeptical that this is going to be better than my most recent attempt (Grapefruit/Sleepytime) as her conditioning value from soapcalc is fairly low compared to what I produced. Then again, she's pro and I am noob, so we shall see.

Here's the recipe. I only added 30g of cream of wheat. Am baking for 3hours and will let it sit in oven overnight.

Grapefruit and Evening Face Bar

Made some soaps with my new supplies, including a free sample of Sleepy Time EO from BB. Used all the oils I have now, tweaking the amounts to try and get highest conditioning value possible. Discovered jojoba actually detracts from conditioning index, so was going to leave it out but forgot. Had to recalculate and add more NaOH and water... Was kind of a mess.


Grapefruit:
40g grated grapefruit peel
14g (0.5oz) pink grapefruit FO (BB)

Evening Face Bar:
unknown amount of cream of wheat (little less than an aluminum weighing tin's worth)
14g (0.5oz) sleepy time EO (BB)

Had trouble with the grapefruit. After an hour of baking and cooling, clear phase separation between top and bottom. Had to manually remix it to get it to set in a more homogeneous state. You can see the white streaks from the top-crust that got mixed back in. Not sure what's going on with the citrus soaps anymore... The face bar seemed fine and they both came from the same batch, although there is a strange discoloration in the center. I'm guessing this'll go away as the bars dry.

Supplies!

Got brambleberry shipment. Ingredients for mass producing lavender and grapefruit, as well as some new scents to try. Also got all the items needed to make a conditioning bar.

Mandarin Orange

Update: I fixed this bar. Melted it a bit over the stove, then put it back in the blender and added a bit of water when it seized. Recast it and it solidified the next day. Have used it and it's not half bad. First bar I've made in a while with no texture. Citrus smell isn't as strong as I'd like, but given what it's been through, am surprised it smells like anything.

Disaster. Wanted to try and see if I could push olive oil content down given it's the most expensive. Also, returned to +5% superfat at trace with sweet almond. Added overpriced citrus EO and mandarin zest.

Soap traced normally. After adding EO, sweet almond, and zest, I couldn't retrace and had to blend for 3-4 minutes. By the time it returned to a normal consistency, the zest was homogenized. At least this resulted in a pleasant orange shade, but we'll see what this looks like once it solidifies.

Oils:
200g TJ's olive oil (50%)
140g Palm oil (35%)
60g Coconut oil (15%)
20g Sweet almond oil (+5% at trace)

Lye:
55g NaOH
152g water (distilled water)

Scent:
28g (1oz) citrus essential oil (Ye Olde Soap Shoppe)

Texture:
65g of mandarin zest

Notes:
- combined at 50C
- used blender at lowest setting, increments of 10s until trace, took about 30s total
- added texture, fragrance oil, and superfatting oil
- blended in 30s increments for an additional 3 min until a thin trace
- cast in saran wrap lined box
- baked at 65-70C for 1 hours, then let cool in oven for 18h





Here it is the following morning. I will have to try and rebatch it.

Espresso Bar

Espresso bar. Get it? Still in pursuit of the moisturizing bar. Same recipe as Black Vanilla, except increased superfatting with sweet almond another 2.5%. Used coffee FO from candlescience and a mixture of fresh and used coffee grounds (Starbucks Sumatra). Am starting to lose hope. Maybe it's just not possible to make something moisturizing with olive/palm/coconut oil.

Soap is dark brown just like the Black Vanilla. Smells strongly of chocolate. Came out of oven very oily; in fact, some oils had leached out of the bar and accumulated on the pan. Only had time to bake for 1h, so will give it a few days and pH before I use it.

Oils:
240g TJ's olive oil (60%)
100g Palm oil (25%)
60g Coconut oil (15%)
30g Sweet almond oil (+7.5% at trace)

Lye:
55g NaOH
155g water (distilled water) - accidentally overpoured 3g

Scent:
28g (1oz) coffee fragrance oil (CandleScience)

Texture:
65g of ground coffee

Notes:
- combined at 45C
- used blender at lowest setting, increments of 10s until trace, took about 30s total
- added texture, fragrance oil, and superfatting oil
- blended in 10s increments for an additional 30s until pudding-like consistency
- cast in saran wrap lined box
- baked at 65-70C for 1 hours, then let cool in oven for 18h
- at trace, mixture was dark brown.

Black Vanilla

Still working towards a more moisturizing bar. This time, tried 5% superfatting as normal, and then an additional 5% of sweet almond oil at trace. Added cinnamon to the vanilla scent from candlescience.

Oils:
240g TJ's olive oil (60%)
100g Palm oil (25%)
60g Coconut oil (15%)
20g Sweet almond oil (+5% at trace)

Lye:
55g NaOH
152g water (distilled water)

Scent:
28g (1oz) vanilla fragrance oil (CandleScience)
12g cinnamon

Texture:
40g oatmeal

Notes:
- combined at 45C
- used blender at lowest setting, increments of 10s until trace, took about 30s total
- added texture, fragrance oil, and superfatting oil
- blended in 10s increments for an additional 30s until pudding-like consistency
- cast in saran wrap lined box
- baked at 65-70C for 3 hours, then let cool in oven for 18h
- at trace, mixture was brownish. after casting and 3h bake, turned a dark brown.

Lemongrass Coconut Soap

Used same recipe as before except used coconut milk instead of cow's milk.  Recipe again:

5.6 oz olive oil

2 oz coconut oil

0.4 oz crisco

1.1 oz lye

1 oz water

at light trace added:

0.4 oz lemongrass essential oil

mixed well then added:

2.1 oz coconut milk

I'm curious about how the coconut milk will affect the lather, reports from other sites suggest that it should give a very rich creamy lather.  We will see.  Meanwhile, the lemongrass oil smells disturbingly of mosquito repellent.  I really hope it mellows to something more palatable, the last thing I want to think about in the shower are mosquitoes.

Update 2/24/11: I just cut the soap and to my amazement the center is a pale green color!  The outside is a light yellow; not sure if that green will remain after curing but it's a nice look.  The mosquito smell has faded a bit but it now actually smells like ginger candy.  Very odd.

Lavender-Oatmeal

First bar with new oils from Brambleberry. Superfatted with sweet almond oil at trace step. Already smells amazing.

Oils:
200g TJ's olive oil (50%)
80g Coconut oil (20%)
120g Palm oil (30%)
22g Sweet almond oil (+5% at trace)

Lye:
59g NaOH
152g water (Brita filtered water)

Scent:
28g lavender fragrance oil (CandleScience)

Texture:
4g dried lavender
32g oatmeal

Notes:
- combined at 45C
- used blender at lowest setting, increments of 10s until trace, took about 30s total
- added texture, fragrance oil, and superfatting oil
- blended in 10s increments for an additional 30s until pudding-like consistency
- cast in saran wrap lined box
- baked at 65-70C for an hour, then let cool in oven for 12h

Almond Cybilla Soap

A full post containing all kinds of extraneous thoughts can be found on monkey obsessions but there was an interesting thing that happened with this soap so I thought I'd mention it here to, for our records.  Basic recipe containing milk was used (see Lemon Milk Castile from before).  There was a dramatic color change that occurred during the first week or two of curing.  See picture below.  Almond scent is still quite strong and true though, which is all I care about.  I looooove this smell.

Here it is before curing:

After:

I cut this soap about two days after I put in the mold but I think next time I"ll wait a full week because it was still a bit soft and I couldn't get perfectly clean edges.

Grapefruit Bar

Full batch of previously successful grapefruit bar.

Oils:
200g TJ's olive oil (50%)
80g Whole Food 365 virgin coconut oil (20%)
120g Crisco (30%)

Lye:
55g NaOH
152g water (filtered water)

Scent:
16g grapefruit essential oil (Ye Olde Soap Shoppe)

Texture:
16g dried grapefruit zest

Notes:
- combined at 45C
- used blender at lowest setting, increments of 30s until trace, took about 60s total
- added zest and essential oil
- blended in 10s increments, probably for an additional 60s until thickened trace returned
- cast in saran wrap lined box
- baked at 65-70C for an hour, then let cool in oven for 12h
- cut the following day

Citrus-sage Bar

Lydia's first soap: Citrus-sage bar with lime zest, with slight alteration to oils.

Oils:
240g TJ's olive oil (60%)
100g Whole Food 365 virgin coconut oil (25%)
60g Crisco (15%)

Lye:
54g NaOH
152g water (tap)

Scent:
5.5g orange(sweet) essential oil

Texture:
5g dried sage
10g lime zest (one large lime's worth)

Notes:
- used blender at lowest setting increments of 15s until trace
- then added zest/sage and essential oil
- blended for an additional 30s and achieved a pudding-like thickness

Recipe:


Lime/sage mixture:


Lydia at work:


Super thick:



Casted:


Oven curing (along with sad satsuma bar that is still not solid):

Lemon Castile Soap (Recipe 2)

Soapmaking has been revolutionized for me. I decided to make a half batch since I only had enough coconut oil for a half batch and I'm planning to place a bulk order with Brambleberry instead of buying more at whole foods. I also wanted to try adding milk at trace instead of mixing with the lye as I've done previously (see Olive Oil Soap, Recipe 1). So:

5.6 oz olive oil

2 oz coconut oil

0.4 oz crisco

1.1 oz lye

1 oz water

Since I was going to add milk at trace, I mixed the lye with about 1/3 of the liquid total. First thing, I noticed that I got to light trace faster than normal. I don't know if it was the reduced liquid or the fact that it was a smaller batch and therefore a little easier to mix in the bowl. Once I hit light trace, I added

2.1 oz whole milk from fridge

and boom!! trace! The whole thing mixed into a light mayonnaise consistency; this is something i have NEVER been able to achieve with my previous recipes despite mixing for literally hours. In a hurry now, I added maybe 3.5 oz lemon essential oil, threw some plastic wrap into my bread tin and poured it in. Thankfully, it wasn't getting much thicker but stayed at a manageable consistency but I was terribly excited. The color was a wonderful pale yellow and I have every hope of getting beautiful creamy bars from this. Next up, I will try the free sample of zucchini flower fragrance oil from Brambleberry with coconut milk added at trace!

Update: next day the soap was already hard.  Usually it takes several days, yay!

Grapefruit Bar

Grapefruit bar with grapefruit zest and essential oil, following same recipe as previous.

Oils:
100g TJ's olive oil (50%)
50g Whole Food 365 virgin coconut oil (25%)
50g Crisco (25%)

Lye:
28g NaOH
76g water (tap)

Scent:
8g grapefruit essential oil

Texture:
1 grapefruit's worth of peel, zested with a cheese grater

Notes:
-used blender at lowest setting for 10s, then added zest and essential oil
-blended for an additional 30s and achieved a very nice, thick trace

Grapefruit zest:


After casting:


Translucent phase?

Lemon Castile Soap

Used the same basic soap recipe as Olive Oil Soap (Recipe 2), but omitted the oatmeal and lavender. Instead, collected zest from two lemons and spread the zest out to dry for several hours. When dry, crumbled the zest further using fingers. Instead of tap water, this time used cold Brita water.

70% olive oil (11.2 oz)

25% coconut oil (4 oz)

5% crisco (0.8 oz)

2.2 oz lye

6.1 oz water (Brita filtered, cold), Note: this mixture reached a temperature exceeding 130F, but temperature dropped fairly quickly.

Oil mixture reached 140F and was taking a long time to drop. Filled sink with cold water and rested pan with oils in sink. This was very effective.

Revelation! Without the lavender and oatmeal, the solution remained a pale yellow and emulsified well. Mental note to add lavender and oatmeal at trace step in the future instead of adding to hot oils.

At thin trace (since this soap is heavily olive oil, it took forever to mix), added:

citrus zest

0.5 oz lemon essential oil

The lemon essential oil itself is yellow so may also impart a slight yellow coloring. This is nice. Next time, may use zest from 3-4 lemons instead of 2. Also, lemongrass essential oil is far cheaper than lemon, and apparently fixes in cold process soap very well so use that when this lemon oil runs out.

After adding the essential oil, noted that the mixture seemed to thin out a bit and required maybe another hour of on and off stirring before getting thicker. Lemon scent is detectable one day later and soap is a pale yellow color (pretty!)

Update: two days in and the lemon scent is a great deal less detectable. Aiiiieeeee!!

Update: six days later I turned it out and started cutting but it is still a tad too soft to make perfectly clean cuts. I think with this basic soap recipe you always need to wait about a week. The lemon scent is definitely still there though and it's a lovely light yellow color. I really can't wait to use this soap!

Satsuma Castile Soap

Second try at castile soap, using halved recipe of my first attempt. Will add some Body Shop fragrance oil to give it a Satsuma scent.

Oils:
100g TJ's olive oil (50%)
50g Whole Food 365 virgin coconut oil (25%)
50g Crisco (25%)

Lye:
28g NaOH
152g water

Scent:
~0.25oz of body shop satsuma oil

- messed up on the water, forgot to halve it
- brought both solutions to 40C
- used robot mixer for 15min before realizing it wasn't working, then hand stirred.
- the result of incomplete mixing initially was curd-like precipitate:

- got a clear trace stage - could dribble from spoon and leave a texture on surface, but solution never seemed to get thicker from there, possibly due to higher water content.
- cast into saran wrap lined iphone box:

- given the higher water content, will leave it in the oven to keep it warm and hopefully accelerate the saponification and drying process