Our Square credit card readers have arrived! We were thrilled, so happy in fact, that we decided to charge $3.00 to each of our credit cards to experiment. It was so easy, just as the advertisement says. Easypeasy!
But, that was the only easy part of the day. Next we decided to make soap, but you need to hear the backstory first. Yes, a soap with a backstory.
Today's soaping adventure started with a mistake. I will clarify; it was mine (Kathy's). Here are the sordid details...as I remember them!
About 2 months ago we were getting low on palm oil, and since our middle name is thrifty, I was trying to find the "thriftiest" palm oil around. After lots and lots of time comparing prices, shipping etc. I decided that J.Edwards (www.bulknaturaloils.com) had the best price and promptly ordered 4 16 oz bottles of palm oil, not paying attention to the difference in the name, "Red Palm Super Olein." I was thrilled at the price and quick shipping, but It was not plain and simple "palm oil."
The thrill was gone as soon as the shipment arrived, and a big fat OOPS took it's place. This oil was orange, I mean, deep dark red orange, not the usual pale beige color we were used to. I'd made a huge mistake, and since I'd opened one of the bottles the company would only take 3 back. When we thought about it, though, there was the matter of return shipping and restocking fees, which we would have eaten. So, long story short, we kept the Red Palm Super Olein oil.
We checked online and discovered that if you use too much of this oil it literally will make the soap bubbles orange, along with wash cloths, soap molds, silicone spoons and anything else that comes in contact with the soap depending on how much of it you add to your recipe; this was not a promising thought! Another site said to only use this oil as 10% of the total oils and the soap would be fine. With a wing and a prayer, we made a plan.
Since we were kind of experimenting, we cut the soap batch in half. We couldn't stand the thought of wasting 15 bars of soap if things went badly when we could get away with wasting only 8 (I am trying to be optimistic)! Given that we were making a smaller batch, we decided to use our small, silicone mold. We also thought this would be a good test to see if the oil discolored the silicone. For the sake of true scientific experimentation, we took a before picture of the mold.
I had posted a question about the oil on the www.soapqueen.com page about tips, tricks, and tutorials. Amanda from Bramble Berry replied and suggested that because it is a soft oil, it could be substituted for olive oil.
Now we had a better plan. We would use the Super Olein as 10% of our total oils, but reduce the amount from the olive oil in the recipe. Alison entered the recipe in soapcalc.net to be sure the lye and water amounts were safe and accurate, and away we went!
You can see the dark orange color of the oil. Since we knew the soap was going to have some kind of orangish/yellow coloration we used our Honey & Oatmeal FO from +Lebermuth, and did not add any extra color. This scent is really nice; however, there is a strong Almond fragrance that we both noticed, not unpleasant, but not a honey and oatmeal scent either. Once the soap cures the almond scent may recede and the honey and oatmeal come out. We will just have to wait and see.
Once all the oils were weighed and poured (we'd mixed the lye/water earlier so it could cool down a bit) we mixed in the lye/water and mixed it up using the stick blender. Once we had a light trace we added the scent, and it did smell a little different "in" the soap rather than "in" the bottle.
We noticed the orange color on our spatula and immediately assumed that we
were about to be left with stained silicone, both on the spatula and in our mold.
We were pleased to find when we cleaned up and washed dishes, that
the spatula showed no sign of stains.
We mixed the soap for about 4 - 5 minutes then (one at a time) added 3 TBSP of colloidal oatmeal (pulverized) to the soap.
We decided to try our hand at video today (is that just too many new things for one day?) It is not perfect by any means, but it will give you a good idea of how the process went.
We squirted the alcohol on the top and wrapped it in the curing box. We sprayed the soap again after 30 minutes, then Alison's daughter (Emma) went to spray it the third time. She hadn't been in there long when she called us both in for a look see. The soap had changed color.
We hope (pause), that the soap is going through what is called the gel phase. At this point we aren't sure, I checked the soap again 3 hours later, and it looked like this. I thought maybe it was too hot so unwrapped it and opened the lid of the box to let air in. We will take additional pictures tomorrow and add them later.
Hopefully my mistake will have a happy ending, but we won't know until tomorrow. For now, we have all of our fingers (and toes) crossed!
No comments:
Post a Comment