Soap Lily: Back to the colors of the Tyrrhenian Sea only this time were using Hot Process

Neroli and Shea Blossom Hot Process Soap

Thursday September 18, 2014

Today started with medical issues. Alison had to run medicine to school for her daughter, and Kathy had a dentist appointment, so we got started a little late. This week we've been filling an order for +Glen-Ella Springs Inn & Restaurant located here in Habersham County. If you're not familiar with the Inn take a look, it's nestled in a quiet valley several miles north of Clarkesville, it's a world class Inn that we are lucky to have nearby. We've been asked to provide a variety of scented soaps using the hot process method, one of which is today's Neroli Shea Blossom.

We have made this soap before as a cold process soap, and we originally colored it to represent the deep blue and lovely aqua colors of the Tyrrhenian Sea around the Isle of Capri off the coast of Italy.

Our inspiration!

Using the cold process method makes it possible to do a nice, smooth design. Hot
processed soaps have a different look - more rustic you might say, so today's soap
will not look exactly like the original.

The first batch of cold process Neroli Shea Blossom looked like this.

Our colors all come from +Bramble Berry, They are 1982 Blue, Aqua Pearl Mica, and, to keep the batch light, Titanium Dioxide (TD). We mixed the colors with Safflower Oil. We wanted to color the entire batch white, so we mixed the TD mixture into the olive oil for this recipe.

This is what the oils looked like with the TD mixed in just before adding the lye/water mixture

We checked the soap every 15 minutes, and stirred each time. Alison couldn't stand it this time.

We are definitely not of the "never stir" hot process camp.

This is how the soap looked after 45 minutes.

And here it is at 1-1/2 hours, we did both the zap test, and the PH test.

The soap is done.

The Neroli scent comes from www.rusticescentuals.com. It is divine.

We measure out 3 ounces of the scent. but seeing it in the bowl makes us worry it will turn the soap yellow. Even though we've made it before, and it came out beautifully, we still had a moment of worry and doubt.

You will see in the photo that we are holding a wooden skewer over the fragrance oil bottle. Using a stick to pour and measure the fragrance or essential oils, helps ensure that the oil goes into the bowl where you want it, rather than down the side of the bottle and all over the counter where you don't want it.

Here goes!

Yay! It's not yellow, just a nice off white cream color. It's quite pretty, and with the scent added the soap smells intensely good.

One we incorporate the fragrance oil thoroughly, we divide the batter. Into 2 measuring cups we scooped about 3 cups of batter in each. The remaining batter stayed in the crock pot. The Aqua Pearl mica went into one measuring cup.

The 1982 Blue went into the other.

We are ready to mix the colors into the batter and begin plopping the soap into the mold.

I took the Aqua Pearl and the white, and Alison had the 1982 Blue and worked the camera.

Plopping soap into a mold is quite the tension reliever!

We keep plopping trying to achieve even coloration in the soap.

We are just about finished plopping, Only a little bit of soap left.

I make a feeble attempt at smoothing over the top!

Don't know why I bothered, as soon as the dividers were put in a smoothness was gone.

Only the rustic looking surface of the soap was visible.

We messed with it long enough, time to put in the dividers.

The dividers need to be snug to the bottom of the mold, we'll see how well we pushed tomorrow when we look at the bottom of the dividers, if there is much soap on the bottoms of the dividers, then we didn't push hard enough.