Carrot, Coconut & Honey Soap

I made another batch of soap. An improvisation of my earlier Carrot & Coconut milk soap. This time I made Carrot, Coconut Milk & Honey Soap, superfatted it at 8%. I used 50% each of frozen carrot puree and coconut milk. No water at all. Went very slow while mixing in the lye, so as to not discolour the carrots. As you can see, it kept the lovely orange colour. Was praying that the colour would not change during the saponification process, like the last time.

Mixing the lye

The lovely orange of the carrots

The soap turned out wonderful and I could also cut it smoothly the next day. I love the way the carrot puree shows through the soap. I scented it with orange EO.

As you can see below, the vast difference in colour between my last batch and the current one. Wonder if the honey had anything to do with it. Also, will the colour hold through the curing period. Updates shall follow.........

Soap for Eczema

My DD has suddenly developed a form of eczema and is very upset about it. She suffers from a lot of allergies, especially asthma, which she has had since the age of 7. It had settled down a couple of years ago, but has been acting up again. Unfortunately, Bangalore is not one of the best places to live in for asthmatic people because of the high pollen in the air. We plan to put her through an allergy test to help us identify which allergens are causing this problem. In the meanwhile, I started searching desperately for a soap I could make for her which would help relieve some of her symptoms.

One of the things I found during the course of my research and reading a lot of blogs of people with similar problems was that oatmeal is very beneficial in cases of eczema. Apparently, it is due to the high protein content in oats. So, I decided to make her a plain & simple soap with just olive and coconut oil, and put in finely ground oats. Kept it clear of essential oils, though I was tempted to put in some Tea Tree oil for its anti-bacterial properties. Nor did I put any colour. It is currently curing. I can’t wait to see if it helps her. Shall post an update once she starts using it.

Can you see the specks of oatmeal?

Honey, Beer & Butter Soap

Based on the rave reviews of my previous batch of Beer & Honey Soap, I decided to make another batch with a few improvements……..I think. In any case, I have just 3 bars left of the previous batch and they could be on their way to Dubai soon as someone wants to pick them up as a Christmas gift for the family back there……….

This time, I added my recently procured Cocoa & Shea butters to add that extra luxury to the soap. I scented them with a mix of Orange and Cinnamon fragrance oils and a few drops of Fennel and Nutmeg essential oils. I had recently visited a micro brewery with my DDs. They had some real good home grown beers flavoured with different herbs like fennel, coriander, cardamom etc. That is where I got my inspiration from. I must say, the soap smells divine. I am sure a lot of the smells will grow milder as the soap cures. Will be interesting to note which smells last. Will keep you posted. Any guesses?

Fresh soap in mould

There is no colour added to this soap and for the life of me I cannot imagine where the this lovely rust colour came from. I wonder if it was the reaction of the FO with, probably, honey. I think it looks good. It definitely does not look anything like the beer & honey soap I made earlier.

This is also the first time I have had Soda Ash forming on my soap. I wonder why? The internet tells me that it could be because I did not cover my soap enough while it was in the mould. Soda Ash is basically your Sodium Hydroxide coming into contact with the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. It does not impact the soap in any way, except, aesthetically. I seem to quite like it, though. I think it adds flavour to the overall 'handmade' concept..... To avoid it, the best thing is to keep the soap suitably insulated when you pour it in the mould. I normally do it, but this time I did not since I wanted to avoid a ‘volcanic eruption’ considering the amount of honey there was in it.

Soda Ash on Soap

Cutting the soap was also difficult and it kept crumbling, as you can see below, especially on the sides. I think it was due to the high butter content in the soap. Between Cocoa & Shea butter, I had nearly 30% of butters in the soap. Plus 8% SF. Plus water discount. What did you expect? Anyway, it seemed to settle down after about 48 hours and I was able to cut some decent bars. Lesson learnt. Don’t try to put too much into one soap. 

Ok......am back

My dad passed away on the 27th. So, I was away in Chennai for nearly two weeks with my mom and my sister.

Am back and have been restless to make some soap. I am kind of getting obsessed with this whole soap making……and so have just made a new batch of soap. I have attempted Milk Soap this time. Many soapers have warned about the milk getting burnt because of the heat it creates in soap. The sugars in the milk are the problem. After a lot of research, I decided to use the Half and Half method to make this soap. I divided the total amount of liquid required into half water and half milk. I mixed the lye in the water and when the oils and the lye mixture reached light trace, I added the milk in a slow stream. The soap mixture immediately started to heat up. I had very little time to add my FOs and a bit of colour. It really thickened up and when I poured (put) it into the mould, it was the consistency of thick pudding. Also, despite my best efforts to keep the temperature down,  it gelled on me. Am a bit disappointed as I was hoping I would have an ivory coloured soap. Have to wait and see how it turns out.

Soap going thru gel stage

 Adding fragrance oils instead of essential oils is another first for me. Thankfully, there was no issue when I added the FOs. I have scented the soap with a mix of Melon and Berry FOs. It will be interesting to see how the smell holds up after the soap has hardened and cured.

Since I wanted a really moisturizing soap, have added a good amount of cocoa butter. 

I bought myself one of those chocolate moulds so that I can make sample sizes of my new soaps. Aren't they cute?

The colour of the samples indicate that I could have ivory coloured soaps after all. Can you notice the hint of blue in them? I tried to swirl in some colour as it was thickening up pretty quickly 

Update on Thyme soap

As promised, here is the soap less than 12 hours later. It is quite a neutral colour, the way I wanted it. The sad part is that it has lost the lovely green of the Thyme as well. But, it did get through the gel stage as is visible in the second pic. I love the speckled look. Cannot wait the 6 weeks for it to cure. 

For all those who are new to the process of soap-making, this is a cold-processed soap (CP). There is no cooking involved like in hot-process. Hence it needs at least 4-6 weeks to cure, by which time, the lye would have completely reacted with the oils, allowing the saponification to complete. Also, it will allow the excess water to evaporate, thereby leaving behind a hard, mild soap. 

Love the speckled look

Will post more pics after unmoulding...........

Another batch of soap

I promised to share my clay soaps with you today. But, I just whipped up a new batch of soap and want to share that first. A month ago, I had infused some olive oil with thyme and have been wanting to use it in soap. Thyme is said to have antibiotic and anti-bacterial properties. In fact, it is believed that Thymol, which is extracted from the oil of Thyme, was used as an antibiotic before Penicillin was invented. The Egyptians discovered that it helped in preserving mummies. 

Lotion Bar

Two days ago, I had attempted my second lotion bar and used a bit of  the thyme infused olive oil. I was surprised at how nice it smelt and decided to use it in soap.  It had developed a nice green colour. Though I filtered the oil, I left a little bit of the thyme as a mild exfoliant. It would also give the soap a nice speckled look. I decided to stick to a woody smell and scented it with Juniper Berry, Cedarwood, Ylang Ylang and some Vanilla. It smells very nice. Will need to see how it turns out once it has cured. 

At light trace. 

Kept the oils simple. Apart from the olive oil and coconut oil, I added palm oil (i know, i know...palm oil again) and Rice Bran oil. The reason for these oils was to try and keep the bar as white as possible, except for the thyme. I hope I have achieved it. Tomorrow will tell. I have superfatted it at 7% and hope it will be mild. I wanted to add a couple of teaspoons of Castor oil. But, as I was clicking the photographs, it came to thick trace pretty quick and so I had to pour it into the mould. It is also my first attempt at a water discount.

In the mould

Decided to leave the top simple instead of the usual swirls. Have covered it with towels and hope it reaches gel stage. I know a lot of soap makers do not like their soaps going through the gel stage in order to maintain the opacity, but I like my soaps going through the gel stage because they add a nice translucent look to the soap. I shall post photographs of the soap tomorrow after I have unmoulded it.

The smell of first rain......

Despite complaining about palm oil earlier, I decided to try it out again in this soap since I was superfatting it at 8%. Maybe it would not be as drying as I thought it to be. I must say the smell is absolutely divine. The combination of the Vetiver, Cedarwood and Petitgrain EOs gives it the smell of earth drenched with the first showers of monsoon. 

Vetiver, cedarwood & Petitgrain

This is the first batch that I have attempted without Olive oil. I like using Olive oil in my soap because of all its wonderful qualities. I have used Sunflower oil, Rice Bran oil, castor oil and of course, coconut oil. I substituted Olive oil with Rice Bran since it is very similar to olive oil in terms of its composition and also in what it contributes to soap. This was also my first attempt at doing the in-the-pot swirl. I must say, I am pretty happy with the results. The moisture that is visible on the soaps is due to the fact that we did have a bout of very heavy rains right after I made this batch. But they are all nice and dry now. Waiting to use it. Tomorrow I shall post about my two batches of soap using the clay that I ordered...........

Back home..

I must apologize for this long break from blogging. I had the most wonderful holiday in Mumbai and Pune. DDs were going to Pune for the NH7 music fest and we decided to go along. 

Gateway of India, Mumbai

Taj Hotel, Mumbai

Unfortunately, this put my soap making on hold and have had to quickly whip up some batches since I was quickly running out of the ones I have. I took my soaps as gifts for my friends and have got really good reviews from them. In fact, I have returned with some  Christmas orders. I finally recieved my supply of Shea & Cocoa butter and also my French red & green clay and that is what I used in my new batches of soaps.

Morning after

16.10.2012 - Update on my 8% SF soap
I turned the soaps out of the moulds this morning. They are still soft. But, firm. In fact, they have a jello kind of feel to them. Wonder if it is the 8% superfat or the other superfatting oils. Will wait and see. Hope they firm up and cure. I really do like the colour and the smell is divine...

Citronella & Eucalyptus soaps curing

The smaller soap did not gel

I am not a big fan of silicon moulds for my soaps. I have noticed that silicon tends to keep the heat in for far too long and hence the soaps in these moulds do not harden at the same pace as the ones I put into plastic. Has anyone else had this problem? Please share your experiences with me. The only thing that makes me go back to them are the wonderful shapes and sizes they come in. As you can see, the smaller cake on the left was in a silicon mould. It is still too soft to the touch.

Update on Salt Bars

As promised here are my salt bars when I turned them out of their moulds this morning. The spearmint smell makes me want to dig my teeth into them. Very refreshing smell. I should probably try it in one of my sugar scrubs. I have been wanting to make a chocolate sugar scrub. A mint chocolate sugar scrub would be nice. Will share if I do...

 Salt bars made with 70% salt

Having made at least a dozen batches of soap, I realise that I do not like working with palm oil or shortening. While soaps made with palm are hard and white, I do not think they are very moisturising. Maybe I should try using them at 20% of the total oil weight. I have tried 30% in my Carrot and Coconut Milk soap, and though it turned out very nice, I thought it could do with more conditioning. I do not feel the same when I make soaps without palm oil. 

Another batch of laundry soap

Liquid laundry soap

I made a fresh batch of my laundry soap today. I seem to be running out of it pretty fast since I now use it for dishwashing as well. It is made with my non-SF soap that I had made a little while ago.

Non SF soap for laundry and dishwashing

 The proportions I have used today are a cup and a half of grated soap, a cup of washing soda and 7 ltrs of distilled water. I have scented it with tea tree and lemongrass EOs.

First attempt at Salt bars

Enough is enough........I had to try out the salt bars that I had ogled at on the net. Notwithstanding the different opinions that were out there. I would never know till I had tried it.....So, today I did my first batch. A small batch with 100 gms oils. I added 70 gms of normal every day salt. Really excited and can't wait to try them out. One month seems so loooong..........

Salt bars in moulds. Coconut, grape seed,castor 

& rice bran oils

I shall post pictures tomorrow after I unmould them. The colour in them is because I used my previously frozen carrot puree as the liquid with the lye. I have scented them with spearmint and ylang ylang(wierd combination, i know). I have superfatted them at 12% and have also added a couple of drops of almond and jojoba oil at trace. My greatest fear is not to have a soap which is suitably moisturising in the extremely dry weather we have here. So, I have learnt to be a little too cautious. My first couple of batches were with 5% SF and the familly is not very happy with the moisturizing..........

Finally......I made 8%SF soap

Finally, I got down to it. After nearly a fortnight, I did make a small batch of soap, about a pound and a half. I have been wanting to try out soap with 8% superfat. The ones I made with 5% superfat have got great reviews, and friends and family love the way it leaves their skin moisturized. But, it still does not do away with the need to use lotion. I wanted to attempt a soap which would do away with the need to use lotion. Here, in Bangalore, the weather is extremely dry. So, here goes ...........

Base oils, superfatting oils and EOs

You can see my base oils, which are paprika-infused olive oil (hence the colour), rice bran oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil and castor oil. This is the first time I am working with sunflower oil. In the foreground, on the left are my superfatting oils and honey and on the right are the EO blend of lemon grass, citronella and tea tree. 

The oils and lye at light trace

I normally mix my oils and lye at a very low temperature because I don't want to panic  with the soap coming to trace very quickly. I added by EOs first and then my superfatting oils. Since I was using honey, which accelerates trace, and Evening Primrose oil for the first time, I did not want it to either seize or come to trace quickly. Thankfully, neither happened. It was smooth sailing.  

Ready to pour into the moulds

Once I added the EOs, it did get to trace pretty fast. But, that was fine.......... I decided to use individual moulds instead of a block since it was such a small lot.

Into the moulds...........

As you can see, I managed to get only 8 square cakes (3in square) and a small silicon mould.  I absolutely love the colour. It is such a rich orange. I wish my carrot and coconut milk soaps would have turned out this colour. But, carrot goes through a colour change after saponification and that lot of soap was more yellow than orange.

6 hrs later.....

After 6 hours, I was surprised to see that the soap had got to the gel stage despite being in individual moulds and having covered it loosely with a cardboard. If you look closely, you can see the gelled soap underneath the top layer in the mould in the centre first row. In fact, I think it had a minor volcanic eruption if I am to go by the stain on the cardboard. Honey was the culprit. And expected. I can't wait to see what it will look like tomorrow. It is currently very soft. I hope I did not superfat it too much. Tomorrow will tell.

Anyway, goodnight every body. Been a fruitful day today................

My soaps....

My current crop of soaps

These are the current batch of soaps which have cured and are on sale. Left to right in the top row are clove & eucalyptus, cirusy green tea and yummy beer & honey soap . The second row has my carrot & coconut milk, olive & coconut oil with poppy seeds and lemongrass soap. The last soap is peppermint soap. The lemongrass was my first attempt and the peppermint was the second batch........not bad, right?

In the first picture the two soaps in the foreground are rebatched soaps in which I added jojoba and sweet almond oils. My DH loves them, so I have not distributed any of those and have kept them just for him. Though, he is yet to try my olive & coconut oil soap with poppy seeds for exfoliation and the beer & honey soap. I bet he will love those too.

It has been more than two weeks since I made my last batch of soap. I seriously need to make a batch today. I hope I can, considering it's a Sunday and the gang is at home. If I do, I shall try posting photographs of the process................

A little about me........

It is nice to see that I have been having quite a few visitors to my blog. 64 views in a little over two weeks. That's a good start, I would think. Though I do not know how many actually did pause to read my blog. Maybe they tumbled upon it by accident or left just as quickly. Anyway, I shall look at the glass half full as always........

Let me tell you a little about myself. I am a SAH (stay-at-home) mom of three. Two daughters and a son. They have all been homeschooled. Or rather, the girls have completed their schooling and my son is in high school. I am proud of the fact that my older daughter is now working at an ad firm as a copywriter and my second daughter is yet to decide whether she would like to study further or take up a job. Maybe a little prodding from me would help. But, I want her to figure it out. I will only prod when I am asked to. My son loves to play tennis and enjoys his few hours of game everyday. His idol is..........yeah, you guessed it, Roger Federer. Currrently, he participates in tournaments at the state level.

Looking for a drink, maybe....

My DH works for a private company. He has been quite supportive with my soap making and loves my soaps. I am hoping he will help me with his marketing expertise when I decide to go commercial in a big way, which I should soon else my home is going to overflow with soaps.............

Prepwork........

So, I finally got down to buying myself a weighing scale since my first attempt at soap making gave me such a high that I knew this was to be my hobby for quite sometime to come. 

My new scale

It took me a while to find it. None of the supermarkets carried it. At least, not the ones I frequented. Nor could I find any online. Amazon had dozens of them but Amazon does not ship to India. As yet. I finally did find it in a small inconsequential supermarket very close to home. Funny. 

I liked what I read about soaps which had olive oil as one of their base oils and decided I wanted to try that out. So, fortunately for me, I came across a sale in one of the stores here which was having 50% on their stock of Pomace Olive Oil. I went out and bought myself 10 ltrs of it. And landed up paying for only 5 ltrs. I had all that I needed. Or most of all that I needed. Basically, oils, lye and essential oils. All I needed to do was make myself some SOAP...........

Love my soaps

My current collection of soap

Well, continuing on my soap journey, let me tell you, I have not bought commercial soap/detergent in more than 3 months. And the results are phenomenal. Apart from being absolutely economical, especially when it comes to dishwashing and laundry, it has helped in a lot of other ways too. The pigmentation on my DH’s face has nearly vanished (which is pretty common on dark Indian skin), the hard dry skin on his knuckles has a lot diminished. He does not need to use moisturizer on his hands like he used. My second daughter had developed a skin allergy all over her left leg roughly 4 years ago. Multiple visits to the dermatologist and several tubes of skin ointments did not yield results. She just about gave up and sacrificed short dresses, much to the chagrin of all the boys in this city. Last week I noticed her dark spots had faded quite a bit. In fact, she had a burnt mark on her calf and that too seemed lighter. I wonder if many of the current skin ailments prevalent could well be the result of commercial soaps. Is that why doctors are forever recommending us to change our soap? Hmm... Even my laundry is looking far happier and brighter in the last couple of months. Not to mention that the clothes do not have the over-powering fragrance of detergents which often makes you sneeze. Instead, they have a lovely mix of orange, lemon and tea tree smells. Boy, am I glad soap-making found me………. 

A slight correction..........

My first attempt at soap-making was not the bar of cold processed soap that I mentioned in my earlier post, but was laundry soap.

Laundry Soap

One of the very first websites that I came across was Rhonda's fantastic site on not just soap making but a lot more. And there I learnt how to make laundry soap. I was really thrilled at the end product. Not only did it do a good job of cleaning my clothes, but it was a lot less expensive than the commercially bought ones. I chose to make the liquid version since we have hard water and I wasn't sure if the powder would effectively dissolve. The washing soda did help soften my water. How do I know? Because my clothes stopped having that dingy grey look, especially the whites.Since I had not yet begun to make my own soap, I had to rely on Sunlight, which middle class India has long forgotten what with all the Surf, Tide, Ariel invading the market. My first batch of 6 ltrs lasted me a month and a half. I have a larger capacity front loader and needed a bit extra. I was also a bit unsure of the cleaning properties, so would invariably put more than necessary for each wash cycle. I am currrently into my second batch of laundry soap.  My recipe is as follows:

Laundry Soap

1 cup of grated Sunlight

1 cup of washing soda

8 ltrs of distilled or filtered water

I heat 1 1/2 ltrs from the 8 ltrs of the water and add my grated soap gradually till it is completely dissolved. Do not over cook it as it will begin to coagulate. Turn off the heat source and add the washing soda and mix it with a whisk till it is all well mixed up. Pour this mixture into a bucket which contains the balance 6 1/2 ltrs of water and mix thoroughly. You can add any essential oil now or leave it as is. I add about 10 drops of Tea Tree Essential Oil for its anti-bacterial properties and of course its woody scent and 10 drops of Lemongrass Essential Oil. Allow it to sit overnight, covered. The next day it would have gelled up, which is normal. Again, whisk it thoroughly and pour into your storage jars. If your bucket has a lid, then you can leave it in the bucket and use it from there. It will have the consistency of a thin pudding. Normally, 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup per load works just fine. Whilst Rhonda's recipe calls for a cup of Borax as a fabric whitener, I have had problems finding them in any of the stores here. Will continue to search for it and see if it makes a difference to the wash. So, there you have it my first attempt at soap. The earlier post was my second attempt. Hopefully, my next batch of laundry soap will be out of my handmade soap which I have just made with 0% superfat...........

The start of the soaper in me

I came across soap making quite by accident, the way homeschooling happened to me 12 years ago. In my constant search for knowledge (ahem), I came across homeschooling when DH and I were toying with the idea of shifting curricula for our 3 kids. The more I read about the concept of homeschooling, the more I fell in love with it. We were away in the Middle East at that time and homeschooling was a very good option when we would eventually return to our country, India. One of the biggest drawbacks of education here has been the fact that children need to learn the state language as a compulsory subject. So, every time you shift a state, the child has to learn the language. For all those netizens out there who have quirked up an eyebrow at this bit of information, let me explain. (sorry for the long diversion from soap making). India is a very diverse country and each state has its own language. Much like you have very different accents across America or across UK. Whilst English is the most widely spoken language by far, our national language is Hindi, though Hindi is generally spoken only in the north of India and sparingly in the east and west. 

Anyway, back to soap making. So, as I was saying, soap making happened to me one night while surfing and I absolutely fell in love with the creations I saw in the different blogs. I wanted to recreate similar soaps. My first hurdle, which I realized was the fact that in soap making everything worked as per weight and not volume. Since I do not own a scale, I was wondering if it would be worth an investment considering this was only an early excitement and could fast die down. Then I came across a video on YouTube where the lady was making soap using measures instead of weights. That was all I needed to try out soap. Of course, it did not come out too well, as the lady had warned. But, that initial experiment was enough to motivate me to make some more. And off I went in search of a scale......

My first batch of cp soap