Soap Lily: Confusion...try 4 batches of soap at once!

left to right: Shiraz, Vineyard, Tuscan Fields,

and in back on the right is Blackberry Sage

Tuesday August 19, 2014

Good news and bad. First the good.... we are going to be at the Yonah Mountain Vineyards Crush Fest on August 30th, www.yonahmountainvineyards.com. There will be grape stomping, lots of wine tasting, tons of stuff to buy and look at, food and live music, and did we mention wine tasting??? We will be one of 50 N. Georgia vendors selling their wares, that's the good news.

Now for the bad. We have to make a lot of "wine related" soap...fast! Not that it is a bad thing, but it is a lot to get done in just a few days, so we used the hot process method to get the soaps done in time.

We've ordered several sample scents that are "wine related," and have tried a couple of them already using the CP (cold process) method. Those soaps will be cured and ready to sell by the 30th. Today we had a marathon HP session, making four batches basically at the same time.

Alison made one batch of soap and divided it in half to test 2 fragrance samples, and Kathy did the same thing, thus the four batches of soap.

We will try to make this blog post easy while we take you through the making of four different Hot Process soaps.

Have we said four too many times already?

We did not boil the wine down this time so the sugar content was pretty high. Alison froze the two types of wine - red Blackberry Chardonnay and a white Gewurztraminer. From what we've read, the possibility of "volcanoing" is a huge risk as the lye interacts with the sugar in the wine. Mondays wine soap making went well, but we were taking no chances and decided to mix the lye and frozen wine on my back deck, just in case.

We added cut up silk to each batch. Alison worked on the Gewurztraminer (wish I could pronounce it), and I tackled the Blackberry Chardonnay.

The Gewurztraminer with the silk already added, just about ready to add the lye, wine is still pretty much frozen.

This is what mine looked like after I mixed in the lye.

The Chardonnay with silk added just before lye was added, the wine is still frozen.

As Alison mixed in her lye we noticed it wasn't dissolving as quickly as mine had.

Hummmm, Alison wound up with three chunks of compressed lye that were hard as rocks. She thinks that it happened because she poured all of the lye in too quickly rather than pouring it into the wine slushy in small increments and stirring in between additions.

The temperature of the frozen wine was so low the lye stopped dissolving. What to do?

We took it inside, put the pot in a pan with water in it and heated it back up. It took about ten minutes before it completely dissolved.

Another first for us - non dissolving lye!

As we reviewed these pictures we realized how confusing this could be,

so to clarify, for the cooking process Alison had the crock pot with the black bowl and cooked the blackberry chardonnay soap.

This picture shows us adding the lye/wine/water to coconut, castor, palm

and olive oils, our Old Faithful recipe.

As it thickened up the batter lightened up.

After a few minutes of mixing we reached medium trace and put the lid on to let it cook in fifteen minute increments.

We checked on both batches constantly because we did not want to be surprised with volcanoing.

This is Kathy's batch, note brown crock, the lye/wine/water is being added to the oil mixture, again, we used Old Faithful as it is by far a tried and true recipe.

The color of the white wine had obviously affected the color of my batter. It was a pretty light beige color.

After a minute or two we reached medium trace, so we covered it and set another timer for fifteen minutes.

This is Alison's blackberry chardonnay after 15 minutes. We think this is what the early stages of volcanoing may look like, but from what we've read if you stir it down the bubbling subsides. We stirred like crazy.

After fifteen minutes the white wine batch looked pretty normal, it had

hardened somewhat, but no volcanoing.

Whew!

So we stirred and cooked and stirred and cooked, over all about 2 hours for each batch, we watched both batches very carefully.

The two scents Kathy used were from www.rusticescentuals.com

In the white wine batch we used Tuscan Fields described as a scent that "begins with a rich blood orange highlighted with notes of black raspberry and Mirabelle plm; the heart blends incense, pink peonies, and burgundy rose; the base is rounded out the nuances of dark vanilla bean, vetiver, balsam and sensual musk."

In the other half of the white (the name that I cannot pronounce) wine batch we used Rustic Escentuals Vineyard scent, described as "the sweet aroma of plump merlot, cabernet and zinfandel grapes."

In the Vineyard scented batch, we used +Bramble Berry Amethyst Purple mica mixed with a cup or so of the batter leaving the balance of the batter natural.

Mixing the mica with the batter.

Vineyard/chardonnay batch, the non colored batter is in the mold, and we are almost ready to add the purple mica and spoon swirl it.

A close up of the spoon swirled Vineyard/chardonnay batch.

This is the Vineyard batch in the mold.

Now on to Kathy's second batch Tuscan Fields-

Since the light beige batter was so pretty I decided to add a small amount of TD to about a cup of batter and swirl it into the uncolored batter, basically the same thing I just did with the Vineyard batch.

What the cooked batter looked like, you will have to use your imagination for the lighter batter swirling into the uncolored batter, there was so much going on we forgot to take a picture of this.

This is what the soap looked like in the mold; you can see the two shades of batter.

Now we will switch over to Alison's two batches.

Remember, Alison used the Blackberry Chardonnay wine.

The fragrances oils she used were from two different suppliers. The Blackberry Sage was from www.rusticescentuals.com, described as "herbal yet fruity, zingy, tart blackberry, fresh green sage leaves, with a touch of spice".

This is Alison's finished soap with empty scent bottle, honestly we have to do visuals to keep them all straight!

Alison used this Desert Sunbeam mica colorant from www.rusticescentuals.com, which we mixed it into about a cup of batter then swirled into the balance of uncolored batter.

Ok, it may not look pretty here, but it looked great when we swirled it.

Alison scented her second batch with Shiraz, a fragrance from +Natures Garden. After all, we were trying for a wine theme! They describe the scent as follows:

"Shiraz wine is the finest and best known red wine in Australia. The aromas and flavours of Shiraz vary with wine style and region, but are usually blackberry, plums, and pepper in varying degrees dependent on growing conditions."

What the Shiraz batch looked like when in the mold.

We decided to color a cup of batter with pink clay mixed in water, and swirl it with the balance of the uncolored batter. What we didn't realize (oh boy, yet another lesson learned), was the effect the cooled clay water would have on the hot batter. Did we ever move fast! It was hardening very fast and would have been tough to incorporate into the uncolored batter if too hard.