Soap Lily: Friday: Parts Two and Three

Friday October 17th, continued.......

Sometimes we go overboard with pictures. We try not to, but but when we make three different batches in one day it's hard to take only a few pictures. The following photos show the results of the remainder of Friday with a batch of Energy and a batch of Honey Almond Oatmeal.

Alison's daughter has to deal with eczema and allergies on a daily basis. It is so much a part of their lives that they usually don't even stress about it anymore, but they do have to think about everything she does, or touches, or eats. Several months ago we made a soap that she just LOVES, partly because it is her favorite FO, but also because the soap felt so smooth, gentle, and moisturizing. She kept having trouble with her skin, though, and we THINK that the Shea butter in this particular recipe may have been the culprit. Often with Alison's daughter, we know exactly what her triggers are, but sometimes it is trial and error.

When she stopped using that soap, her skin started clearing up. DANG! She was so disappointed, but we were determined to make something that would be good for her. It seemed that Shea butter was out even though for most people it is supposed to be very moisturizing. For anyone who has eczema, you know that moisture is in high demand. What other butters could we try that would be moisturizing and good for her skin? Ah! Cocoa butter! We have one container that is all natural and smells so good that we just want to eat it, and we have another that is refined and unscented.

For today's recipe, we let Alison's daughter choose, and she went straight for the natural, scented cocoa butter. Her favorite FO is Energy from +Bramble Berry which is described 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." Now, imagine that blended with rich buttery chocolate. MMMMMMMmmmmmm. That is what she was going for. She is definitely Alison's daughter!

Because we were testing a new recipe, we only wanted to make a small batch. Why waste too many ingredients if it doesn't work out, right? We decided to use some silicone molds that Kathy had picked up at a yard sale and make some cute shapes.

We wanted to use the Tangerine Wow! colorant from +Bramble Berry to swirl into her soap.

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The colorant, FO, and shaped silicone molds

This recipe includes olive, coconut, Castor, palm, sweet almond oil, and cocoa butter. Because Emma has a severe nut allergy, we decided to just avoid even the almond oil. Usually allergies are to the protein and not the oil, but we wanted to avoid anything to which she might be sensitive. Grapeseed oil has some wonderful benefits for the skin, so we decided to use that in place of the sweet almond oil.

We ran our recipe through the lye calculator to double check our lye amounts, and we were ready to rock and roll, or, at least, to make soap.

We added diamond dust sparkle to the olive oil. We just can't resist it!

We added silk to the lye/water mixture, and then combined them with the oils.

Emma is just as impatient as we are, so we made this recipe HP. We didn't want to wait six weeks to see how she liked it.

Adding the lye/water/silk to the oils in the crock pot

Stick blending the batter until thick trace

After 1 1/2 hours the soap was done. Such a small amount of soap would

probably have done better as a CP soap, but if we use this recipe again, we will

make a larger batch. Now, however, it was time for the hard part.

Energy FO has a relatively low flash point - 140 degrees. So, we had to wait for the

soap batter to cool down significantly before we could add the scent. The cooler the batter

gets, the harder and dryer the soap gets.

As the soap was cooling we took 1/2 of the batter out of the crock pot and colored it with the Tangerine Wow! colorant that we had already mixed with safflower oil. We added 1/2 of the FO to the orange portion and 1/2 to the white. Then we put it all back in the crock pot to swirl it together.

We pressed the batter into the molds.

It was feeling dry, and honestly we worried that maybe we had over-cooked

it since it was such a small batch. But, our worry was unnecessary.

The finished product!

We didn't even wait 24 hours to unmold the soap. It held together just perfectly.

Alison even used the soap Friday and Saturday nights. The lather is creamy and thick. We think this recipe is a keeper, but we will give Emma a week or so to see how her skin likes it. (PS - The cocoa smell didn't really come through the saponification process. We don't smell it in the soap the way we thought we would. It's okay, though. The AHHHH-mazing-ness of the Energy FO makes up for it.)

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To wind up our Friday activities we made a batch of Honey Almond Oatmeal.

When we make our Honey-Almond-Oatmeal soap, we use a combination of Oatmeal and Honey FO from +Lebermuth Co, Eucalyptus EO from +Bramble Berry and Clove Bud EO from +Natures Garden. It is an interesting mix of scents that blend together to make a heavenly smell.

With numerous projects going on at the same time (and to keep Emma and her soap away from the almonds) we used the kitchen table to grind up almonds and mix honey with water.

We ground the oatmeal and mixed our fragrance and essential oils. We measured out olive, coconut, sweet almond, avocado, and Castor oils into the crock pot, then mixed the lye/water into the oils.

We added the almond milk (that we made from grinding up almonds in distilled water) to the batter.

Next we added the honey water, (2.5 oz local honey mixed in 3 oz. warm, distilled water)

In went the ground oatmeal.

And we cooked, and cooked, and cooked.....

The batter kept separating, over and over, so we finally grabbed the stick

blender and mixed until we got it back together again.

(All the king's horse and all the king's men, got the soap batter together again!)

The above photo shows how the batter looked after almost 2 hours of cooking. It smelled like cooked oatmeal and soap. We performed the zap test; no zap = finished soap!