Sunday, December 31, 2017

One of the things I love about the Soapmaking Forum is the fact that there are some wonderful, very knowledgeable willing to share their knowledge. One of the things someone suggested as a way of increasing later in a low (or no) coconut soap is to use a dual lye method. My interest was piqued.

The recipe I used is as follows:

55% lard
15% coconut oil
15% olive oil (pomace)
10% avocado oil
5% castor oil

38% water as percentage of oil weight
5% Superfat

I added 1 teaspoon of sodium lactate and scented with cedarwood, rosemary, and lemongrass and swirled with Aztec Gold mica.

Right now, 24 hours later, it's out of the mold but still not unwrapped. It's quite soft so I'll be leaving it to firm up for at least another day. It will be interesting to see how this one works out. 





Sunday, December 3, 2017

Salt Bars for Christmas

One of the reasons I started this particular blog was so that I could keep track of the batches of soap I've made. Lately, there haven't been very many batches, unfortunately. However, last week, I did make a batch of our favourite soap. When I say "our" favourite, I'm referring to Kristen and myself. There's good reason it's a fave.

With equal parts rosemary, peppermint, and lavender, it smells amazing. Once the soap has cured completely, at minimum 8 weeks and preferably as long as a year or more, the lather is creamy and decadent. It is the only soap I use on my face.

Last weekend, November 23, I made a large batch. I based the recipe on 1000 grams of oil and used 500 grams of sea salt. The resulting batch was 32 bars. Some of them are small bars (1-2 ounces), most are regular sized bars (up to 4 ounces).


For this batch, I used goat's milk as the liquid rather than water.

There is a thread going on in the Soapmaking Forum at the moment about how long to age salt soap. The consensus is a minimum of one year and up to three years or longer! I think I'll need to make more so we can have some put away for the long term.




Saturday, June 17, 2017

Soaping Again

It feels like it's been forever since I last made soap. In reality, it's only been a couple of months since making a batch for a challenge on the Soapmaking Forum but, still, it feels like a long time.

This week, I received a phone call from a friend, giving me a heads up that she will soon be out of one of her favourite soaps (and mine), Salt Soap. After explaining that I'm all out and that it would take about six weeks before I would be able to sell it to her, she was very understanding and did let me know that she was down to one bar. That should suffice until the new batch is ready.

And so, today is soaping day. The Salt Soap is already in the molds; some time tomorrow, it should be ready to unmold and then the cure begins. This soap really does benefit from a longer than normal cure. Most soaps are ready to use (not necessarily at their prime) by about 4-6 weeks. I know of people who have left their salt bars for six months to two years before using them and they rave about the soap.


As I'm on my last bar, as well, I'm glad my friend called. I use it daily as a face soap and love it!

The other soap I've had a request for is my Tooth Soap, a peanut oil based soap that contains xylitol, activated charcoal, calcium carbonate, as well as peppermint and anise oils. Surprisingly, the request came from my neighbour's son, a young man in his early 30's. He told me he loves it and some of his friends would like to try it as well.


The Tooth Soap bars are small bars, about 1 oz. each (I suppose I could have made a bigger batch... next time). One bar lasts me about four months, with daily use; I only use it at night, though. In the morning, I use regular toothpaste but I find minty toothpastes too strong to use at night. They burn my mouth and the flavour tends to be a stimulant; I don't find that with tooth soap. And, trust me, it's nothing like having your mouth washed out with soap for swearing. Honest!