Soap Lily: Labor Day is over, can fall be far behind?

September 4 & 5, 2014 - A short week in review

We did make soap this week, actually two batches of CP soap which we hadn't made in a while. Thankfully it is much like riding a bicycle; we didn't fall off, and we did create two really nice hanger swirl soaps.

Kathy had a mini crisis at her house. Her stove went off the reservation and decided to power on the broiler all by itself. The broiler started up (undetected as no one had turned on the oven) and caused the self cleaning cycle to start and locked the door! Either it caused the self-cleaning cycle to start, or the broiler got so hot that the oven thought it was in self-cleaning mode. Whichever it was, the oven was getting really hot AND it locked itself closed.

Quick thinker that Kathy is, she went to the circuit breaker box and cut the power to the stove. Eventually it cooled down, and the next morning after she turned the power back on, the door unlocked and all was good.

Well, all was good for about 5 minutes. As Kathy walked by the stove again, it was noticeably hot, and she discovered that the rogue broiler had turned itself on again!

Not good, not at all! So like the recent demise of the crock pot, so goes Kathy's stove.

Unfortunately most of Thursday was devoted to visiting local appliance stores then scouring the Internet for prices and options. Who knew there were 10 MILLION choices????

Eventually, after many phone queries, additional visits to appliance stores, more Internet browsing, consultations with relatives and friends etc., Kathy finally made her decision. She is hopeful that the new stove will be delivered next Wednesday.

Now back to soap making!!!

We mentioned we made CP (cold process) soaps this week. We picked scents that had completely sold out at the recent Crush Fest at Yonah Mountain Vineyards - Total Hot Man and Honeysuckle. Quite a variety, no?

Alison was in charge of the Total Hot Man, and Kathy made the Honeysuckle. It is really hard to take a lot of pictures when you are both wearing slippery gloves and are making soaps at exactly the same time. But, we will share with you as much as we can.

We added 2-1/2 times more silk to the lye/water this time. We keep reading how wonderful silk is in soap, but so far we haven't really noticed a big difference. Maybe increasing the amount will do the trick.

Here we add the lye/silk/water to the combination of oils (coconut, palm, castor and olive).

This stick blender is on the way to the morgue.

(crock pots, and ovens, and stick blenders! Oh my!)

It was so weak that the soap didn't emulsify before Alison began smelling an overheated motor. We tried to use it for about another minute, but it just wouldn't mix. We had to grab our reserve blender. Guess we'll be watching for one at a yard sale!

We mixed the batter until we were at light trace, then we split the batter in half. We have divided the photographs by scent/batch, beginning with the honeysuckle that Kathy made.

The scent is from +Natures Garden, and is one that we have used before; it is very true to what honeysuckle smells like.

For the green color we are using a Enchanted Forest mica from www.rusticescentuals.com

And for the yellow we used Fizzy Lemonade from +Bramble Berry, to give the color a boost we added some almost clear light gold mica sparkle in with the yellow.

I added the Honeysuckle fragrance oil to the batter.

The first layer of batter goes in. We did not use TD in this batch, preferring to use the natural color of the batter.

Sorry this picture is a bit out of focus, you can see the yellow colorant in the batter, I was just about ready to stir it together.

My batter is getting thick, really thick. Here I mixed in the enchanted forest green to the batter. It looks dark but actually is a nice light green color.

I have added scoops of yellow batter over the base layer of white.

Here I have added the green for a center layer of green and yellow combined.

I cover the green and yellow with a layer of white batter.

Here is the batter after I hanger swirled it.

As you can see the batter is really stiff, we discussed it and wonder if the added silk might have made it thicken up faster?!

I added the remaining white batter to the top of the hanger swirled batter.

I then added a few dabs of green.

Then finished up with the remaining yellow.

Once I tamped it down a few times I swirled the top.

Fast forward to Thursday and in between stove shopping we cut the soap. You can see how easily the soap pops out of the new mold. We love the silicone molds.

One thing we noticed right away was how intense the colors (especially the yellow) became after curing overnight, what a difference!

First cut of the honeysuckle, the hanger swirl looks very subtle, which is fine.

The honeysuckle soap, it has more lustre, which we think is from the silk.

Unfortunately, even with tamping it down there are a few air bubbles, we wondered if it was because the batter was so thick going into the molds?

And now to Alison's batch - Total Hot Man...Oh swoon!

The scent according to Nature's Garden is "the confident, enticing aroma for today's modern man. This fragrance is centered around a note of patchouli, balanced by fresh sage, crispy green notes, and freshly sliced mango; all sitting on base notes of earthy sandalwood and tonka bean."

In keeping with the idea of "hotness," Alison chose to use the copper sparkle mica in the soap.

There is no TD in the batter today. We both decided to go with the natural color of the soap rather than whiten it with TD.

Once Alison mixed the fragrance oil evenly throughout the batter, she took out a cup of batter to color with the copper mica.

Layer of white, layer of copper, then tamp down the batter.

Another layer of copper,

Another layer of white, and tamp down the batter again. At this point, Alison used the hanger

swirl technique to swirl the colors throughout the soap.

(sorry, no pictures of the swirling action)

After swirling, she scraped out the last of the white batter,

and the last of the copper batter,

then used a skewer to lightly swirl the colors on top of the soap.

This is the finished swirl in the mold. We put the loaves away to harden for 24 hours spraying the surface with alcohol every 30 minutes for the first hour and a half to reduce ashiness on the top surface.