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!