Soap Lily: Whoa! We tried 4 different fragrances today! Here are the 1st two.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Batch #1

I guess we just don't do anything small or easy if we can find a way to complicate it. That's okay, though.. We figure that we learn quite a bit, and we create some pretty darn interesting things. Take today for example.

We started the day early - way too early - because of other obligations that were scheduled later. When I walked in, Kathy already had a row of fragrances lined up on the counter, and she asked the pivotal question for the day: What do you think about making a batch, halving it, and making two different scents?

What other answer could there be? I said, "Let's do it!" So we did. Twice!

For our first batch we decided to use The Vert from +Lebermuth Co. and Kai from +Natures Garden. We also decided to do a couple of other things. First we decided that we were NOT going to add any titanium dioxide to the batch. We wanted to see how the color of the soap would come out without added colorant, and we wanted to see how the bit of colorant we did use would look without a base of white.

Today's colors were to be simple, so we chose blues for The Vert and greens for Kai. The plan was to put some color in the middle of the mold and then swirl gently, trying NOT to bring the color up to the top of the soap - sort of a swirly soap sandwich if that description helps. Maybe the pictures will make sense.

The recipe we used called for coconut, olive, palm, and castor oils. See below as we began mixing after adding the lye/water.

After bringing the batter to light trace, we divided it in half pouring 1/2 into a large pyrex mixing bowl and leaving the other 1/2 in our mixing pot. I cannot get over how often we use math when making soap. Really! Math teachers everywhere - thank you!

We didn't mix the batter in a container with marked measurements, so we had to figure out how to get 1/2 of the batter. It was important because we needed to get the correct ratio of fragrance oil to soap. (fractions and ratios...math again!). We got smart and remembered our handy dandy soapcalc printout that we made, so we consulted it for the total amount of batter. That would tell us exactly how much we needed! We felt so smart, so brilliant, in fact. We got the scale out and weighed out exactly 1/2 of the total batter. See our chart below (and the basic recipe comes with many thanks from Bramble Berry):

Rather than use additional oil to mix the color, we decided today just to use a small amount of the soap batter itself. So, after dividing the batter in 1/2 we mixed in the fragrance oils. Then, we took a small bit of each batter and mixed our colors. When the micas and oxides were evenly mixed, we added enough to make about 1/2 cup of total of each color.

blues went into the Vert

Here is a description of The Vert is according to Lebermuth:

"Harmony and balance meet in the luminous notes of fresh bergamot and lemon zest blissfully blended with tender green tea leaves, island blossoms and crisp white musk."

Greens went into Kai

And here is a description of Kai from Natures Garden:

"an aroma that contains notes of gardenia, jasmine, cyclamen, lilac, hyacinth, mimosa flower, rose, muguet/lily"

Here is where things began to get weird. Kathy's 1/2, the Kai scented, had already gotten VERY thick. We don't think it really seized because we have had that happen before. This was not the same. It just got very thick very quickly. Where she had intended to pour batter into the mold, she had to scoop and plop it.

Started with a white layer on bottom.

We were very pleased with how white the batter

looks without the addition of titanium dioxide.

Then it was time for a green layer. The plan here was for a thin layer of color in the middle. Thin was just NOT happening.

Notice the handy divider we made to separate the two fragrances? We divided the mold in 1/2 as well as the batter!

Here you can see Kathy gently swirling the color. The goal was to only swirl gently in the middle

without bringing the color to the top of the soap.

Such a thick batter made it more difficult to make the swirl that we had intended, but no matter. The final soap is still very pretty!

Now we go to the flip side. We scented the other 1/2 of the batter with The Vert. For some odd reason it did not thicken up like the batter with Kai did.

See how pourable? It is not thin at all, but definitely not scoop and plop.

Final layer of white on top and some left over. We had to put soap batter

into 3 silicone cupcake cups because there was no more room in the mold.

This is how it looked after gently swirling the color in the middle.

Look at both soaps. Notice anything? We did.

How in the heck did we wind up with so much of The Vert and so little Kai? We checked the amounts and measured out 1/2 of the batter. We divided the mold in 1/2. What happened?

Go back and look at our soapcalc print out again. See where it lists the oils and underneath says "totals?" Well, that is the number that (Kathy inadvertently) we looked at when (Kathy) we figured out what 1/2 would be. The total oils is 65.96 ounces, so we measured out 33 ounces of batter for the Kai mixture.

(note from Kathy changing font so you know it's me)

I completely misread the soapcalc print, I looked at the top line and only saw 65.96 oz. total for the oil weight, and gave that info to Alison so she could divide the batter in two. When we poured the batter into the bowl it was hard to tell the batch size difference as mine was in a tapered measuring cup and Alison's was still in our soaping pot. Since the clock was ticking on the soap thickening (which we didn't want) we went ahead and added the fragrance oils to the respective batters. Once we'd mixed in the colors and actually put the soap in the mold it was obvious something was way off. Then we discovered I didn't read the correct total. In the future I will ALWAYS know where to look for the TOTAL weight - I take full responsibility for this.)

Look very closely. We (Kathy) should have looked at the TOTAL that also includes the lye and water. The total volume of the whole batch was actually 100.666 grams. We should have measured out at least 50 grams!

Like I said at the beginning, we always seem to learn something or at the very least do something interesting.

Our mantra is "It looks good, it smells good, it feels good." So far, we are 2 for 3. Both scents look good (we'll see how they look cut into bars Wednesday), and both scents smell good. In 6 weeks we will see if they both feel good after they have cured.

So it's Wednesday evening and I am going to finish us this post, maybe you noticed my personalization regarding exactly who mis-read the soap calc, it was me (Kathy), and I take full responsibility for a nice smell, but smaller bar, believe me that's the last time that will happen. Alison is right, we always learn something.

We cut all four batches today and inspite of the mistake I made all four batches look great and smell divine. The following pictures show what the soap log looks like before we cut it, first The Vert.