Soap Lily: Soothing Aloe

#hotprocesssoap #aloeleafsoap #aloeandgreencloversoap #handmadesoap

Thursday, May 28, 2015
(Alison writing today)

Not too long ago we did a little testing on some aloe fragrances using aloe vera leaf powder. (See our blog entry Hello Aloe.) At that time we used the cold process method, but on this day we needed to switch gears and go with hot process. One of our customers saw our sample of Aloe and Green Clover and wanted several bars, but prefers the rustic look of the HP method. Cool with me! The HP method absolutely suits my impatient side - it's ready to use in one week rather than six.

The first time I made this soap, I used cocoa butter, but today I switched to shea butter. In addition to shea, the soap has rice bran, castor, olive, coconut, and palm oils. I have already been using the CP myself, and I LOVE it.

For a little added skin happiness, we added powdered aloe vera leaf to this soap. We added it to the distilled water before adding the lye. To mix properly, we had to warm up the water first, then mix in the aloe vera leaf. Once it was properly mixed, we had to then let the water cool (again, due to my impatient side, I just stuck it into the freezer for a short time) so it would be safe to add the lye.

Above, you can see how the water looked with the aloe leaf powder mixed in. I know - looks a little less than appealing (it smelled less than appealing at this point, too). But, trust us. This soap ends up smelling fresh and clean, and it feels wonderful on the skin.

This soap also contains silk.

An additional luxury to pamper the skin. We cut the silk into small pieces and added it to the aloe/water before we added the lye.

The butter and oils were melted and warm,

and the lye/aloe/silk/water was ready to go,

so we combined them and mixed well.

We stick blended until the batter had reached a thick trace. Then we put the lid on the crock pot and set the timer to let it cook on high for 30 minutes.

Normally we don't stir until 30 minutes is up, but after only 10 minutes, the mixture had begun to bubble up on one side. I went ahead and stirred to be sure it would cook evenly.

After just another 10 minutes, it had bubbled up this much! Different ingredients react differently during saponification, so we have learned to keep an eye on the crock pot. After this point, the batter calmed down and continued to cook exactly as we expected.

While the soap cooked, we measured the needed amount of fragrance oil. Green Clover and Aloe is from +Natures Garden who says that the fragrance "is a terrific unisex scent. Green Clover & Aloe is a fresh, green fragrance that reminds us of wild summer herbs growing in a field. This fragrance is much more complex than it's name sounds. A floral fruity combination of fresh citrus and jasmine petals on a woodsy, sweet musk background."

Above you can see the colors that we used for this soap. Because the aloe vera leaf powder darkens the soap, we added titanium dioxide and icicle mica with a bit of safflower oil to the entire batch of soap. The TD is from +Bramble Berry and the Icicle Mica is from +Rustic Escentuals. We wanted a bit of green to hint at the green clover, so we colored a small bit of the batter with safflower oil and Pistachio Mica from +Rustic Escentuals.

This is how the soap looked when it was done.

After adding the FO, the TD, and then swirling the green portion back into the batter, we put the soap into our 18-bar mold.

Then we inserted the 18-bar divider set from +Bramble Berry.

This is a closeup of how the soap looked just after we inserted the dividers. You can see the bit of green swirled through a pink-colored base. We then put the mold into the curing room to cool and harden for 24 hours.

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Friday, May 29, 2015

We took the bars out of the mold today, and we are very excited about how this hot process soap turned out.

Following are a few final shots of the soap.