Soap Lily: Reworking Sage's Soap as Hot Process

#lavenderandmint #hotprocesssoap #handmadesoap

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Alison is still feeling crummy, so today I was solo in the soap kitchen. She was with me in spirit and via telecommunication - thank goodness for texting!

I was still working on the order for Glen Ella Springs B&B. They prefer to sell hot process soap, which is pretty easy for us as it's ready so quickly. The soap that my granddaughter Sage had designed, a cold process soap using Spearmint and Lavender EOs, was one of the soaps they had chosen. That is what I made today, but using hot process rather than cold..

The Lavender 40/42 I used today is from Camden Grey. We've been looking at their site for a while and finally decided to replenish some of our EO's with their products, We are very, very happy with their shipping (fast), and the quality of the lavender is terrific....but I digress.

The Spearmint EO is from +Bramble Berry and as always it is of exceptionally good quality. The blend of these two EOs is amazing, Sage picked a winning combination of scents!

I used colorants from +Rustic Escentuals and +Bramble Berry - Purple Passion will be the "lavender" and Green Chrome Oxide mixed with a bit of Icicle Mica will signify the "mint".

Since I used the hot process (HP) method this time, it wasn't possible to replicate the intricate heart design we did on the original soap (see above). I decided to do an in the pot swirl using white batter for the base color then swirl with purple (for lavender) and green (for mint).

This picture was taken before I added 1/8 tsp of Icicle Mica to the Green Chrome Oxide.

I used the old faithful recipe of Coconut, Palm, Olive and Castor oils. For a little flair I added silk to the lye water, straining it as I poured it into the oils. Once all the oils were melted and the lye/water had cooled, I combined them and stick blended until I had a medium/heavy trace.

With HP soap you either stir or you don't. We are stirrers. Our usual method is to let the soap cook for the first 30 minutes w/o stirring, then every 15 minutes stir well, cover and continue cooking. With our crock pots (and remember every crock's temperature is different), we usually cook the soap 1-1/2 hours give or take 15 minutes.

The picture above shows what the soap looked like after an hour and 45 minutes. I did a zap test and it was fine - just very hot!

I had to wait over an hour for the soap to cool down as the flash point on both the EO's was about 150F, in the picture above I had stuffed two potholders under the edges of the crock so air could circulate under it and hopefully speed up the cool down.