It may be the end of the week but we are full of Energy, and it's yellow, pink and orange!

Energy Hot Process soap

Friday September 19, 2014

We had an interesting morning. As soon as she arrived, I ordered Alison into my car and we hit a neighborhood yard sale. It was lame as only 4 families joined in, but we did find a treasure or two.  The best buy was, for a buck apiece, two silicone molds.  They are the perfect size we need to do sample soaps, or small guest soaps. Yes! We were happy.  

Alison picked up a great cookbook published by the folks at the King Arthur Flour company - it was a buck.  I grabbed a vase for my son and his wife who will use it in their flower business; it was twenty five cents. So you see, it was a quick but productive venture.

Once we returned to Soap Lily World HQ, we quickly jumped into making a batch of Hot Process soap.  The scent we used today, Energy, is one of our favorites and is part of the order for Glen Ella Springs Inn. We have made soaps using this scent several times.

The above photo shows the color scheme we wanted.  We made that soap using the Cold Process method, but today we wanted get the colors right as 

we know Hot Process soap will be more rustic looking.

We purchase Energy from +Bramble Berry. They describe it as follows:   "A stimulating blend of Citrus, including Grapefruit, Lemon and Lime, with hints of fresh Cucumber and Jasmine, and a touch of Pineapple, Blackberry and Champagne."

We stayed true to the original colors using Fizzy Lemonade, Tangerine Wow, and Fired Up Fuchsia; we added TD to the base batter to keep it as white as possible.  Like the fragrance oil, all the colorants we used today came from Bramble Berry. 

When we use colorants we always strain the powder into the oil because many times there are lumps, and we've learned that sometimes the lumps stay lumpy and appear in the soap after it's finished.  It won't hurt anything, it's just a little strange to find little dots of color mixed into the soap. So, we strain.

After we mixed the colors into a half tablespoon of Safflower oil, this is what they looked like.

We mixed the TD right into the olive oil and then added it to the rest of the oils; it is much easier to mix in this way.

We have goggles, gloves, and aprons on when we mix the lye/water into the oil mixture. Lye is one commodity you do not want to be careless with.

We used the stick blender until we reached medium to heavy trace.  We put the 

lid on the crock pot, made sure it was on the low setting, and began our 

fifteen minute cooking increments.

This is about thirty minutes into the cook, and we are looking good at this point.

In this picture you can see the soap has begun to cook on the sides of the crock. We took this picture at probably an hour and fifteen minutes into the cook. We are really close to having soap at this point.

We finished cooking, added the 3 ounces of water we had reserved, cooled the soap down to about 140 degrees, and then we added the Energy scent.

Oh brother, does it smell good!!!

We mixed like crazy to make sure every speck of batter/soap

is infused with the fragrance oil.

Once we had the fragrance oil mixed evenly, we put about 2 cups of batter into three different measuring cups and added colorant to each one. 

Pictured above and below is the Fired Up Fuchsia.  

We stir like crazy so it is all pink. 

This is the Fizzy Lemonade colorant.

We stirred as quickly as possible because the batter in the different measuring cups was cooling rapidly. That meant we had to work really fast.

Pictured above is the Tangerine Wow. We didn't have time to take a picture of the mixed batter.  Our picture taking took a back seat to getting the colors mixed and into the mold while it was still workable.

Our original idea was to put a layer of white batter down first, then add small dollops of the different colors so we could swirl them and make a nice color combination.

This didn't work the way we wanted it to because the soap was cooling so quickly. We had to bail on that idea and start plopping globs of batter in as fast as we could.  In this picture all the batter is in the mold and we've decided to fold the soap to mix the colors.

Here we are folding away.  Honestly, we were laughing 

out loud at this point, but we kept folding.

And folding......

And folding.....

                            We finally said enough already and grabbed the dividers.                                                                                                                                                                                              

We smoothed out the top and inserted the dividers.

Tomorrow will be the unveiling. We will see how the FOLDED soap turns out; our fingers are crossed for sure.

It's now Saturday afternoon (9/20/14), and the soap is out of the mold and smells incredibly good!

This is how the soap looks after curing for 24 hours.

And this is what the bars look like, all the colors are showing.

Even though it's not an artistic swirl the smell is out of this world, it's no wonder we sell so much of this soap.

All three colors are visible in each bar.

Here is a close up of the blended (folded) colors.

Energy Hot Process soap, it will be ready in a week.