Batch #917 ~ Paradise Reef ~ born on Jan 4, 2013

It's been awhile since I've made a batch of cold process soap.......   I've been so busy making my various shaving soaps as well as scrubs and lotions and lip balms etc as of late for the Christmas holidays and I haven't had time or the energy to make more cold process bath soaps.  That and labeling the bath soaps that I had made up to give to friends and family as part of their holiday gifts. That was a lot of work, but I hope the gifts were appreciated by those that received.

So now I will need to replenish the bath soaps that I had given away this holiday season. So today I began the process of restocking with just one small test batch.  The scent I used was one that I bought a small 1 oz bottle of the scent to experiment and test the scent out.  But it was just a small batch making just 4 large round bars.

But I also had a specific reason for making that batch of soap as well.   I had formulated a recipe the other day and I posted that recipe to the blog that I created for the soap form that I run.   Today I made that recipe and posted pictures and described the process.

I wanted to post a recipe for others that would be great for dry winter skin!   But also for my customers to enjoy as well.  That is if I can keep my daughter out of them!

Going with the tropical theme of the scent that I used I also used coconut milk as the liquid.  Which is a non-dairy milk which is really nice on the skin and makes a wonderful soap. While the base oil of the soap is tallow, what can I say I'm a girl that loves her tallow!  But I also limited the use of coconut oil and palm kernel oil in this soap because while they add lather they are also drying to the skin when they are saponified with lye.  There are many soapers who don't realize this about those two oils.  But I also love my lather so I upped the castor oil in it like I usually do.  Castor oil is not just moisturizing but it also adds a wonderful lather to the soap.   Egg and lanolin was added because they both add moisturizing properties to the soap as do avocado oil and unrefined shea butter. 

The ingredient list looks like this.
Ingredients : Coconut Milk, Tallow, Castor Oil, Whole Egg, Sodium Hydroxide, Palm Kernel Oil, Unrefined Shea Butter, Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Avocado Oil, Fragrance, Lanolin, Sugar, Sodium Lactate, Talc, Sea Salt, Titanium Dioxide, Electric Bubblegum Colorant, Fizzy Lemonade Colorant, Aqua Pearl Mica Colorant, Raw Silk Fibers

It's currently on my curing rack for awhile. 
 http://prairie-creations.com/pc/product_info.php?cPath=96&products_id=1979
Be aware when I offer it for sale, the curing rack listing is deleted and a new listing is created. 

But why not make a pretty soap, so it not only feels good on your skin but it is appealing to the eye as well.  I think I did a good job at turning it into a bit of eye candy as well.   

I just pulled the soap bars out of the mold, that is not long before I wrote this.  But I haven't taken pictures of it yet.  So this is what it looks like in the mold.  My teen daughter loves how it looks!

The inside of the bars will be a swirl of an aqua blue, pink and yellow.

The scent is............  Okay I'm sure you saw that already on the photo above since I add that bit of info to all my pictures.   But this is the description that is provided by the supplier where the scent was purchased.

Paradise Reef

Let's get away and go deep-sea diving at Paradise Reef. A popular vacation get away place. Paradise Reef is a sparkling fragrance with salt water and fresh air notes. This fragrance begins with notes of nectarine, bird of paradise, and water lily, followed by middle notes of passion flower, orchid, and hyacinth. A well-rounded fragrance empowered by fresh air and salt water notes. 

Batch #917 Born On January 4, 2013

Look for it in a couple of weeks in my store where it can be purchased.  The curing time allows the soap to harden more as the extra liquid evaporates out.   Even though it can be used right away because the saponification process that converts the lye and oil into soap is completed with 24 hours but it will be much better if it's given a few weeks to age.    


EDITED : January 9, 2013
I thought I would edit this post to add in that I took a photo of this soap after it came out of the mold.  It looks wonderful and smells awesome!   I did take a bar of it to use last night as well and while it's still fresh it felt wonderful on the skin, so it will only get better as it ages.  I can say the swirl on the inside looks really cool.  Later I'll take a photo of that to share as well.  The outside looks rather plain and you wouldn't guess it has an amazing swirl inside.   

 

UPDATED January 10, 2013
I took a photo of this soap to show what the swirl looks like inside.  Because of how it's poured the swirl does change every time the soap is used!  That's what makes this kind of soap so much fun, unlike soaps that just have the swirl what amounts to as being just painted on the top surface of the soap and the main body of the soap being a solid color.  This swirl goes through and through the soap and is always changing when the soap is used.

Oats, they arent just for breakfast anymore

Quite some time ago a friend of mine and I were determined to add oat something or another into our lotions, with the exception we didn't call it oat milk. We simply cooked up some old fashioned oatmeal in water and used the liquid. Once it cooled it was a thick gooey mess. But we were proud of our accomplishments at the time. I didn't make it again as it was a mess to work with and make. Instead I opted to add a certain percent of colloidal oatmeal directly into my lotions or creams.

With soap, I add in the colloidal oatmeal directly into the soap. This has a powder fine texture so it doesn't add much grit into the soap. For those that prefer something that exfoliates just a little more I use the old fashioned oatmeal and run it through a food processor to break it down.

I don't use baby oatmeal, quick cooking or instant oatmeal because I feel that the process that they have gone through breaks down and removes the goodness of the oatmeal that you need.

The FDA has approved colloidal oatmeal as as skin proctant.  After all this is what the AVENO company has based their product line off of.   For many people it helps to relieve dry and itchy skin.

But this has recently been something I have been thinking more of lately. So I began looking more into what is called Oat Milk. This has a liquid consistency or sometimes the consistency of heavy cream but not thicker than that. People use it to drink in place of actual cows milk when they can't drink that for health reasons.

I looked up some recipes and found where some people cooked there's while others just amounted to steeping the oats in hot water for 8 to 10 hours then to continue with the process. I learned from before that cooking makes a mess of things, so I wanted to try the steeping method. But I didn't have the old fashioned oats in the house and I didn't feel like running to the store. But I knew that colloidal oatmeal was ground up oats and I did have plenty of that. I also found a recipe on the net that used the colloidal oatmeal and water but it didn't give any measurements. So I guessed. I believe I figured on the heavy side which benefits the oat milk even more. I strained it almost a dozen times to get out as much of the grit as possible and I was quite pleased with the results. Now my oat milk has the benefits of the oats without the grit. I'm so very excited about that.

So I used my oat milk in a batch of soap along with some heavy cream and I'm really pleased with the results.  This first batch as created with a friend in mine with very dry and itchy skin.  So I also added 6% PPO colloidal oatmeal to the soap batter at trace for additional oat goodness.

After I prepared my batter I was surprised to see it turn a pumpkin orange color which you can really notice the difference in this photo.  I used 16 ounces of oils and a lye concentration of 35% and a 7% superfat.   This filled 5 1/2 of the round soaps in my round silicone mold.

The next morning I was pleased to see the color of the soap had toned down into a pretty tan color.  Shown just out of their mold.

Now a few days later.  It's still a neutral natural looking beige color which I think is appropriate for the oat goodness in the soap.   I plan on letting the soap sit for another few days before taking it for a test spin with the partial bar. 

This batch was scented with a scent called Capri Olivo.  It was a scent I purchased just an ounce of to test.  It's described a. . . . . . . 

A Luxury Spa fragrance!  Wisk away to Capri Island; a breath-taking paradise overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.  Your mind will embrace this cultural encounter, while your soul attains pure harmony.  Capri Olivo is a culturally complex aroma of tart Japanese grapefruit, Fresh Osmanthus (Sweet Olive), and dew-covered watercress;  followed by middle notes of rose, jasmine,  and cassis.  To create subtle ecstasy, Capri Olivo sits on a dry down of fresh amber and myrrh. 

I look forward to adding more oat milk soaps to my store to benefit your skin even further with the goodness of oats without the grit.   In a soap that will be gentle to your skin with a well formulated soap recipe.

Lavender Soap

A customer who is also a friend has found a lot of relief to his skin problems with a simple bar of soap....

This is a recent batch that I made for him scented with Lavender.

This recipe is available for anyone and can be found here.
http://prairie-creations.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=45&products_id=1412

Ingredients :  Tallow, Goats Milk, Palm Kernel Oil, Castor Oil, Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Fragrance, Unscented Shea Butter, Lanolin, Colloidal Oatmeal, Egg Yolk, Sugar, Sodium Lactate, Kaolin Clay and Raw Silk Fibers

Goats Milk was the choice of liquids but there are several other liquids that can be used instead.
The oils are saponified or changed into soap with lye but no lye remains in the finished product.

Busy Day Making Soap

Today was a busy day in the world of making soaps as I made several batches today.

Cotton & Blossom 

A sweet and subtle blend of jasmine, violet and gardenia with a sparkle of lemon zest on a dry down of vanilla.
This soap contains 25% Unrefined Shea Butter !!!!
Ingredients : Saponified Oils Of Coconut Milk, Unrefined Shea Butter, Tallow, Castor Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Fragrance, Hemp Seed Oil, Palm Oil, Canola Oil, Kaolin Clay

Sweet Grass

The ozony aroma of fresh cut grass, clover with a hint of wisteria. 
This batch was put into my small rectangular guest mold for free samples with orders.
Ingredients : Saponified Oils Of Coconut Milk, Palm Oil, Tallow, Castor Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Lanolin, Fragrance,  Canola Oil, Kaolin Clay and Coloring.
Then I had a little extra batter after pouring it into the mold so I added a little more coloring to the soap batter and drizzled it on top.

Magnolia

The aroma of the blooming petals of a magnolia tree.
Ingredients : Saponified Oils Of Palm Oil, Coconut Milk, Olive Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Coconut Oil, Unrefined Shea Butter, Fragrance, Canola Oil and Kaolin Clay.



I made two batches of shampoo bars as well today.   These were put into round molds so they are easier to use. 
They both contained the same oils of Tallow, Palm Oil, Olive Oil, Castor Oil and Shea Butter. 
But one of the batches also contained some stearic acid to see the difference.
But both batches had the added Wheat Protein as well as Panthenol B5. 

• One was scented with Mango Passion and colored a peachy-orange color but it was also made with goats milk.  

• The other was scented with Caribbean and part of the soap batter was colored an aqua color. This batch was made with coconut milk.

I'm really looking forward to trying these out.   And once they are perfected offering them.  I can think of many advantages to using a solid shampoo bar, or having the option of a head to toe bar for less clutter in the shower.

The Loot Arrives !!!

Nothing like getting 16 bottles (each 1 lb bottles) of Vanilla Stabilizer.  Of course not all these are mine all but 4 are going out to various soaping friends of mine.  We did this to get a better deal on shipping, especially for those across the border in Canada.

Vanilla Stabilizer is a great product used to keep soaps from turning brown when fragrances oils that contain vanilla are used in them.    This is really nice to use so the soap can be colored and still look really pretty.   And there are so many wonderful scents.... that contain vanilla.  Which is where this will come in really handy.

Spiced Rum Bath Soap

I mixed up a batch of my Spiced Rum soap using tallow, lanolin and egg yolk in bath soap. It turned out really pretty as you can see by the photo.

 

Born On 2-12-2010

Ingredients : Palm Oil, Goat's Milk, Tallow, Castor Oil, Lye, Palm Kernel Oil, Coconut Oil, Fragrance, Lanolin, Canola Oil, Grapeseed Oil, Egg Yolk, Titanium Dioxide, Coloring and Raw Silk Fibers


This smells wonderful !!!  Spiced Rum is described as : "Set sail with Captain Morgan! The island liquor with tropical spices, a melodious blend of potent rum with sweet spices."

Look for it soon for sale on my website.

New Soaps

The last few days I've made several batches of soap. So it's been really busy around here for my soap pot!

But I made some Dragon's Blood scented soap made with "Moose Drool" Beer, which is a dark ale.



And then I made batch number 14 of my shaving soaps. Today I got my Tabac shaving soap which is a tallow based commercial made one from Germany and I compared the two. The tabac was a bit thicker and denser than mine but they were close. (At least I thought they were.) Hubby shaved with both of them tonight and the lather lasted the entire shave and stayed thick and dense. So I think I'm on the right track. So here are some pictures of it. Then of course i had to sit down and formulate another that I made up tonight.

• I made a smaller batch with 5 bars scented with sweet grass.
  

• And another smaller batch with 5 bars scented with Flavors of the Caribbean.
  

• The batch scented with Mango Passion Tea is actually still in the mold as I am typing this but it should be ready to come out soon. That will give me about 9 bars.
  

• Then last but not least I made up my 15th batch of my sample shaving soap. Now i'm done. Until I hear back from all my testers that I need to tweak. But I hope I've nailed it with one of these.

Today my soap pot has been very busy

I've made several batches of soap. Each log will give me 13 bars of soap and each bar will weigh between 5.5 oz and 6 ounces so they aren't small bars!

Last night I made a batch of soap with my beef tallow and it was scented with Green Apple. This just happens to also be my oldest daughters favorite scent.

Today so far I've made 2 logs of soap before I ran out of premixed lye and needed to mix more up. Those two fragrances are bay rum and cool spring (made with tallow) for the men.

That gives me a total of 39 bars of soap just from those three batches. Or a total of about 13.4 pounds of soap total. But they do smell wonderful !!!!

All of these soaps are made with goat's milk and I'm really enjoying working with the beef tallow that i've rendered down.

I'd like to get another log or two made yet tonight, but at the moment i've got brownies in the oven for the kids and when I make soap I like to work on my flat top stove. That way if anything tips or spills most of the mess will be contained and won't drip onto the floor.