Experimenting With Colour

Left to Right:  Powdered Strawberry, Indigo, Alkanet and Brazilian Purple Clay,
Alkanet, Cocoa Powder

These are the results of my experiment on the weekend using natural ingredients to colour my cold processed soap.

My soap batter was made up of the following base oils.  Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Rice Bran Oil & Cocoa Butter.

Into 500 ml of batter I added:

1. 2 tsp of Strawberry Powder - Initially there was a faint smell of strawberry. Four days later, there is no indication of the smell of strawberries, and the soap has turned a light tan colour.

2. 4 tsp of infused Indigo - Initially, there was a pale blue tint to the soap.  However, after four days, the soap appears white.  I don't think this will deepen in colour but will check back in a week.  Most likely, I will need to increase the quantity of infused oil.

3. 1 tsp Brazilian Purple Clay mixed with 2 tsp Infused Alkanet - I'm really loving this colour and I'm hoping this won't deepen too much.

4. 2 tsp Alkanet - Initially there was a very pale pink tinge to the soap but it seems I have completely missed the mark and used too little Alkanet infusion.  At the moment, I can't see any colour tint to this soap.  Back to the drawing boards for this one :-(

5.  2 tsp Cocoa Powder - This is a nice brown colour to the soap.  This one I think will darken over the next few days as it is exposed to the air.

Even though some of the colours haven't turned out how I thought they would, I am really happy with the colours produced and how creamy and complimentary they look all lined up together.

Glycerin Rivers

Glycerin Rivers Coursing Through the Soap

I didn't mean to get a 'tiger' pattern in this soap, but I really like it.  You see, this pattern was created by rivers of glycerin forming in my soap during the saponification process.  Glycerin occurs naturally in cold processed soap and is part of the reason that soaps made in this manner tend to be very moisturising and nourishing for your body. So why did this occur?  During the saponification and curing process, my soap got very hot and basically, little rivers of glycerin formed in between other oils which had started to solidify.  It is still fine to use; the translucent parts just happen to be a little bit softer.

In fact, often when people comment that soap is very drying to the skin and that their skin is left feeling tight, what they are referring to is commercially produced soap. Large-scale commercial production of soap often deliberately remove the glycerin and add it to moisturising products such as lotions marketing the lotion or cream as a moisturiser to combat the 'dried leather' feel associated with soap.

Poor soap, it gets such a bad wrap at times all because people are led to believe soap has to be drying.

If you regularly use cold processed soap full of moisturising oils, you will find over time the need to use moisturisers diminishes.

You can see in this photo how the parts of soap with
Glycerin Rivers are more translucent

Unmolding My Soap

The soap fairies have worked their magic and my batch of Honey & Oatmeal soap as been unmolded.

I am really happy with the results.  The silicone cylindrical mold leaves a lovely glossy surface to the soap.

Unmolding the soap from the cylindrical mold

I'm loving the marbled pattern that has been created.

 I wonder what the soap will look like once it has been cut?

Experimenting with patterning on the surface made using a bamboo skewer.

Happy with how this turned out considering how thick and quickly the trace became.

Getting Back In The Saddle

Some say soap making is like riding a bike.  Once you've learnt how you never really forget.  Sure you might fall off but it is important to get back on and keep going.

Where has the time gone?? This year has flown by so quickly that until yesterday I didn't realise that it has been almost 12 months since my last batch of soap.  Why did I leave it so long?  There are a number of possible reasons.

1) I started a new job at the end of last year.

2) We moved interstate and took a long time to adjust to the reality of downsizing from a house to a 2 bedroom apartment.

3) Dealing with the passing of  some special people in my life.

4) Trying to make time to complete work related course work.

5) Supporting my husband whilst he was in between jobs a we settled into our new lives.

6) Travelled back to the UK to visit family.

Or perhaps I simply lost my creative spark.  I don't know what happened but late last week my husband asked me when I was planning to make some more soap as the stash of my honey and oatmeal soap had been depleted and how he really likes it.

His comment took me by surprise as I hadn't realised how much he likes my soaps.  He also noted that he knows soap making makes me really happy.

So with this in mind yesterday I set aside time to make a double batch of my honey and oatmeal soap that is made with olive oil, coconut oil, rice bran oil. cocoa butter, vitamin e, honey, oatmeal, lye

Honey poured into traced soap

On the whole I thought I had it in the bag but boy had I forgotten a few things.

I forgot;

1) That the lye solution takes alot longer to cool down than what I remembered.

2) Using a rand new stick blender can cause the soap to trace more quickly.

3) Honey can speed up acceleration.

You wouldn't believe how quickly my soap turned from a nice thin trace to the beginning of soap custard.  I was able to get it into my molds and thankfully this was planned as a simple log with no intricate patterning to be included.

The annoying thing is that I know all of the factors but somehow let them skip to the back of my mind.  Maybe it was because I have made this soap so many times before that I felt I didn't really need to think about it.

Well my soap seems to have turned out okay.  Time will tell when I remove it from its mold later on.

Has this frightened me away?  Absolutely not.  What I will do next time is be more prepared in advance.  I'll also take it easier with the stick blender and remember that less is more when it comes to using the blender.  I'm also going to make time each week in 2016 to get my mojo back.

Why I Choose To Make My Soaps Palm Oil Free

 To use palm oil or not is a debate that people in the soaping community have some strong views about, as I personally experienced whilst on holiday in Queensland a few months ago.  I was visiting a well known tourist area  in the tropical rainforest region and spotted a store that sold handmade soap and other toiletries.   I love trying other handmade and supporting small businessesproducts and I was looking at the products when the store owner approached me.

As usual they gave the usual spiel about how the soaps were made from hand etc and when asked what method was used to make the soap, I was promptly told "that it was by a little old method that I wouldn't know about called cold process soap making".  Now I was raised to be polite, but they really made my ears prick up and my nostrils flare at  the condescending attitude of store owner.  I thought keep calm and ask if they stocked any palm oil free soap.  Big mistake,  I was  subjected to another discussion about how cold process soap could not be made without the use of palm oil, how they use palm oil sourced from sustainable sources.  Great news that they use sustainable oil but no where did they have this advertised whether on their packaging or elsewhere.  I know it's not mandatory but if they are going to be passionate about using sustainable palm oil wouldn't you think they would advertise it?

 I couldn't believe how much ill informed information I was hearing. I had had enough and decided that it was time to tell  the person that indeed I did know about the cold process soap making and that it is possible to make palm oil free soap. The picture attached to this post is an example of a palm oil free soap I made using olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, rice bran oil and turmeric as a colourant.

 I have been making cold pressed soap since 2007 and started out using palm oil in my soap.  Over the years however,  I became aware of issues relating to the over exploitation of palm oil plantations in Borneo and Sumatra in South East Asia such as  mass deforestation,  species such as Orangutans and the Sumatran Tigers being  threatened with extinction.  Not to mention the exploitation of the indigenous communities and loss of their lands.

There are on the other hand, convincing arguments for using sustainable palm oil.  For example, that soap makers contribute to only 1% of all palm oil consumption and that per unit area, palm oil makes 10 times the amount of oil as soybeans,  grapeseeds or sunflowers, it is therefore in some ways more environmentally friendly.

So why use palm oil in soap making?  Not only does palm oil  add firmness to a bar of soap, it also contains conditioning properties for the skin.  These can also be achieved by using oils such as rice bran, and coconut oil.

Palm oil is now the most widely used vegetable oil and can be found in so much processed food As well as a plethora of other products such as shampoo.  Take a look when next out shopping at the ingredients label and see how it is used even in pastry products.  Can I make a difference? I hope so.  It  is for this reason that I have decided to make palm oil free products.

If you are buying hand made soap and other products, I encourage you to choose ones that are either palm oil free or at least ones that confirm only sustainable palm oil is used in the making of the products.

Soap To Swirl For

I really enjoyed making this palm oil free soap using a spoon to create the swirls.

It was fascinating to see how each slice when cut from the loaf came out slightly different.  Truly unique?

What's A Girl To Do?

Hmm, I had a little problem to solve today.  I had just unmoulded a batch of honey and oatmeal soap and wanted to try using an acrylic stamp to stamp into the soap.  I looked high and low for my stamp block to no avail.   I thought I would have to give the stamp a miss until I spied a small jar of vegemite on the shelf, which I promptly put to good use.  I think the stamp didn't turn out too bad.