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.