Wednesday July 2, 2014
One of our customers has requested several "rustic" looking soaps to sell in her store. One of the scents she chose was spearmint and lemongrass, so today Alison and I will use the HP (hot process) method to make this soap.
We used spearmint and lemongrass essential oils for this soap. As we measured the amounts (heavier on the mint) we realized that the flash point on the spearmint was pretty low. The soap would have to cool down before we add the scents or the essential oils will "flash off," or, disappear.
Alison reworked the recipe to double its size while I was getting all the ingredients together. We picked fresh spearmint and made a mint tea to add to the water we will mix with the lye. Once the tea had steeped for a while and was still fairly warm we weighed it, then added enough distilled water to get the correct amount for this recipe.
We do our lye mixing in the laundry room; it's completely separate from the workroom/kitchen, so it's out of our way while it is cooling. Today as we added the tea/water to the lye it got a little weird, and we learned a good lesson.
We did a little Internet research to see if what we experienced was unique to us (which wouldn't have surprised us), and we learned that it's not a great idea to mix lye into liquid that is not cool.
What the tea water looked like.
After I poured all the lye into the water, I began stirring (I had my goggles, gloves and an apron on) , but each time I moved the spatchula the liquid around it boiled up and kind of sizzled. Hmmm, this had never happened before, so I yelled for Alison to come and look.
She said the same thing I had said, "Hmmmm, this is weird." It was also a little frightening.
After a quick discussion, muffled behind towels we held over our noses and mouths, we decided to very slowly continue mixing the lye. It still sizzled and bubbled each time we stirred, but eventually the lye completely dissolved without any disasters.
We learned that it was because the water was still too warm. It did not affect the soap at all. The only danger would have been to us if the lye mixture had boiled out onto our skin. We are fine, though, as is the soap.
The oils and butters this recipe called for.
Since this batch was a duplicate of one we had made earlier using the CP (cold process) method we used the following variety of oils: olive, palm, sunflower, rice bran, sweet almond, coconut, and shea butter. We mixed some titanium dioxide in sunflower oil so there would be a lighter color in part of the soap. The finely ground mint leaves were mixed with sunflower oil which would give us a slightly green color as well as an exfoliant.
The shea butter took the longest to melt, even with the crock pot on high.
To begin with the batter was very loose and runny, this picture is right before we began stick blending.
You can see it's very much a liquid at the start.
After a few minutes of blending, the batter began to thicken. At this point we didn't even have a light trace yet; the batter was still too wet.
About 5 minutes or so of stick blending brought us to light trace. If you look carefully, you can see the drips on top of the surface of the batter. We were making progress but wanted the mixture to be thicker.
After about 10 minutes of on and off blending and hand stirring we were at a good medium trace. It was time to put the lid on the crock and let it cook.
We checked the batter every fifteen minutes. This is the first time we checked it. You can't see it in the picture, but the soap is changing; there is a little gel forming on the edges.
This is actually how thick it gets at this point in the cooking; we stirred it up to make sure it was cooking uniformly.
In the upper portion of the picture, you can clearly see the soap gelling; this is one of the cook stages we look for. We stirred it again and put the lid back on for another fifteen minutes of cooking.
After approximately one and a half hours we did a PH strip test, and the colors seemed to be within the range we were looking for, but we still feel the need to test the batter ourselves. We resorted to the "zap" test; Alison and I both tasted the soap. We weren't zapped and only tasted soap. Time to add the TD and the mint mixtures.
We removed about one-third of the soap into a separate measuring cup and added the mint.
The TD went into the soap remaining in the crock.
The mint mixture cooled down faster because it was out of that ceramic crock.Wwe added part of the mixed scents to this portion of the batter with no problems.
Even though we had removed the crock from the heating element, it was still very hot; it took about fifteen minutes of stirring to get it cool enough to add the essential oils.
Once we were able to add the essential oils to the white portion, we added the green back to the white and gently swirled it in the pot.
The soap was cooing rapidly, so we moved quickly and filled the mold.
The soap was stiff but still workable and had just the right coloration.
Here is the soap in the mold.
We will let it sit overnight then remove it.
Thursday morning it was a little lighter and smelled great.
As I cleaned up the bits and pieces I began washing my hands, here is what the lather looked like. I wish you could smell it. The soap is very minty with a smidge of lemon.
Three random bars.
They are a great size and fit the hand quite well.
Spearmint and Lemongrass HP soap;
it will be ready to use in a week.
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