Soap Lily: A double date with Energy and Grace!

Saturday October 25, 2014

Soaping on Saturday night isn't something we usually do, but with the Wine Fest approaching, we are out of time and had to get these two soaps finished. We knew that Alison was going to be otherwise occupied over the weekend. She worked the sound board for four performances of the Habersham Community Theatre's Alice in Wonderland, Jr. production (her daughter, Emma, is in the show).

Amazingly Grace and Energy are two of the most popular soaps that we sell. We've made both fragrances several times before, so there were no surprises. The first group of pictures will be Amazingly Grace, then I'll wrap it up with Energy.

Amazingly Grace (Type) is from +Natures Garden, who describes this FO as "Italian bergamot and sparkling lemon are sweetened with freshly picked citron and neroli. A white floral jasmine, orange blossom and rose are blended with sheer musk and cedarwood."

Basically, this scent has it all; it is truly wonderful.

The colors are from www.rusticescentuals.com, Cornflower Celebration Mica on the left, and Toffeelicious Mica on the right, both have a little sparkle mixed in already.

From +Natures Garden I added a teaspoon of Diamond Dust Mica to the olive oil, then I combined that with the other oils in this soap, coconut, palm, and castor.

Silk gives the soap a smooth feel once it has cured, this is about a 1/2 ounce. To dissolve it I added it to the lye/water before I mixed it with the oils.

The colors are beautiful!

Toffeelicious on the left and Cornflower celebration on the right.

I used TD to lighten the batter.

I poured the TD, diluted with a tablespoon of

safflower oil, into the batter.

The soap cooked for 1-1/2 hours, and once it was finished I added

the FO and thoroughly mixed into the batter.

Sticking with a new technique that we developed this week, I next added the Cornflower Celebration to a pocket that I had created on one side of the batter.

Toffeelicious went into an indentation on the other side of the batter.

I folded/mixed the colors just enough.

Then I spooned the batter into the mold, slamming it every so often

to hopefully prevent air bubbles.

Once all the batter was in and mounded fairly nicely, I began cleaning up and preparing for batch number two for the evening.

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Inserting the finished soap on Sunday evening.

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Back to Saturday and Batch #2

Energy

From +Bramble Berry, Energy is a fragrance that causes anyone who smells it to smile.

It's that good.

Bramble Berry describes it as " 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."

It's almost perfection in a bottle.

You might notice the number 140 written on the side of the bottle. That is the flash point.

A flash point of 140 is not good for HP soap - it is a low temperature. It means that I will have to wait for the batter to cool down before I can add the scent.

It's going to be a long wait!

Before I complain too much though, lets make the soap...

When we make Energy soap, we add TD to the whole batch to lighten the batter. For the colors, we like to use the same ones each time. All the micas are from +Bramble Berry, they are Tangerine Wow, Fizzy Lemonade, and Fired Up Fuchsia.

I measured out all the oils called for in this recipe, coconut, palm, castor and olive. I removed about 2 TBSP of the olive oil and mixed in 1 tsp. of TD.

Once I had the TD mixed into the olive oil, I added it back to the other oils.

I mixed all the oils together, then added the lye/water, and used the stick blender to bring the batter to medium/heavy trace.

I put the lid on the crock pot and after 1-1/2 hours the soap was done.

While the soap was cooking, I mixed the colors. To each I added 1/8 tsp of Diamond Dust Mica from +Natures Garden. It adds a nice sparkle to the soap that we really like.

All mixed - Fuchsia, Tangerine, and Lemonade.

Right on time the soap was done. I did a zap test

and used PH strips to be sure. No problems.

The temperature was about 170 degrees when it was finished, but it had to cool

down to 140 before I could add the FO. I did not want the fragrance to

"flash off," or, disappear. Energy smells too good.

Tick tock, one hour, twenty minutes later......

I could finally add the FO safely, the temperature was right at 140, so in went Energy, it smells so nice.

I began adding the colors starting with Tangerine Wow.

Next, Fizzy Lemonade....

Finishing up with Fired up Fuchsia

Now I gently fold/swirl/mix the colors. I was envisioning a little definition with the three colors, but won't know if it worked until tomorrow when I take the soap out of the mold.