Cold Weather? Hot Process.

#hotprocess #handmadesoap #goatsmilkandlanolin

Monday, January 26, 2015

While a blizzard is supposed to strike up north, we're lucky today that all we have is a very cold wind blowing outside.  It's cold, but a hot process soap will warm things up!

The entry period for the Great Cakes Soapworks Butterfly Swirl Challenge has closed, and we have 11 batches of truly beautiful and enticingly aromatic soaps curing. We learned some new things about recipes, mixing temperatures, and swirling techniques as we created all of those batches.  Kathy really is so artistic when it comes to swirling colors together and creating beautiful designs in loaves of soap.  I figure that she's the artist, so I can be the chemist (snicker, snicker, snort!).

However, along that line of thinking, I DID develop a new recipe that I used today.  Several of my family members really, really (did I say REALLY?) love the lanolin soap that I made before Christmas, and Kathy and I have been making a variety of goats milk soaps that are pretty dang popular, too.

I have to give credit to my mom for today's idea.  She asked me why couldn't I put the lanolin soap and the goats milk soap together.  I didn't have a good reason not to, so I starting working to do just that.

We've been doing the goats milk soaps as a hot process, and I did the lanolin as a hot process, so I carried that right through today and did this soap as hot process, too.

While Kathy was busy filling Etsy orders and printing out mailing labels, I got the goats milk measured and put into the freezer.  It's best to keep milk cold and slushy so it doesn't curdle and discolor in the heat of the soap.

I mixed warm distilled water with local honey.  Honey helps increase lather and retain moisture.  I think I may want to try a higher honey content in a future batch.

The soap contains the following oils:  Coconut, Palm, Sweet Almond, Castor, Avocado, Olive, Grapeseed, and Palm Kernal Flakes,

I added Icicle Mica to the oils to give the soap a bit of luster. 

Above you can see how beautiful the mica looks when mixed into the oils. 

Next I added the lye/water and used the stick blender until the batter reached a thick trace.  I put the lid on and cooked the batter on high for 30 minutes.  After that I cooked on low and stirred in 15 minute increments until it was done.

While the soap was cooking I got the fragrance and the colors ready.  I originally had planned and blended a completely different fragrance especially for this soap.  I had also planned a color scheme around that fragrance.  Unfortunately, I realized that one of the fragrances I wanted to use had a very low flash point (or maybe it was fortunate that I realized it in time to change my plan).

Kathy helped create a new blend of fragrances that are from +Rustic Escentuals. 

Rustic describes Bonfire Bliss as "a fragrance reminiscent of gentle, dusky breezes and bonfires, with notes of dried, wind-blown leaves, heliotrope, charred woods of pine and cedar, amber, smoky sandalwood, and musk with a background containing hints of roasted marshmallows, brown sugar, coconut and soft vanilla."  

They describe London Fog as "Jasmine and ylang ylang entwined with rich green citrus and punctuated by ozone and the earthiness of thick moss. Mature and sophisticated."

With that fragrance now in the plan, we decided to use colors that came to mind when we thought about a bonfire:  24 Karat Gold Mica, Aborigine Amber Mica, and an even mixture of Tangerine Wow!, Brick Red Oxide, and Icicle Mica.

Above shows the colors after I had mixed them with a small amount of safflower oil.

Once the soap was done, I added the lanolin and stirred until it was completely melted and evenly mixed throughout the soap.

It did take a little while but this soap is worth the effort.

Next came the honey water,

then it was time for the goats milk.  Technically, I probably should have taken it out of the freezer at the slushy stage, but

frozen works too (Let it go, Let it go! Can't hold it back anymo-o-ore!).  

Kathy scraped and chipped at it until it was in mixable chunks.

All of the frozen goats milk went into the soap,

and I stirred until it was all melted and evenly mixed into the soap.

Isn't your skin screaming, "Oh YES!" just thinking about the 

milk/honey/lanolin goodness of this soap?

Next I mixed in the fragrance oils, again stirring to mix completely and evenly.

Finally, I created three wells in the batter, one for each color, and poured the colors into the batter.

Again with the stirring!!  My arm was definitely getting tired, but this soap was going to be too great to slack off.

A little more stirring to create ribbons of mica swirling through the soap.

The soap was really cooling and hardening at this point, so I had to hurry and slap it into the mold 

one spoon plop at a time until it was all in place.

 I smoothed out the surface, and slammed the mold on the counter several times to be sure the soap was packed in as well as possible.

It was time to put the dividers in!

Don't they look great?

We'll let this sit over night and then see how the bars look when they come out.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

We took the soap out of the mold after lunch, and we really do love the fragrance blend.

The mica swirls are very very subtle.

And they are ready for their close-ups Mr. DeMille!

"Foggy Night by the Fire" will cure for a week, and then will be ready to go on Feb. 2.