Rebatching Soap - Crock Pot vs. Double Boiler

There are a few ways to rebatch.  Here are a couple; double boiler and crock pot

The first batch consisted of 2 failed batches of soap, the first one I left it on cure rack for 2 weeks and the second batch was quite new.  I grated the soap together but separated the white and pink, then put it in the double boiler over gentle heat.  It took nearly an hour and a half to dissolve.  Then I mixed the two parts up, perhaps too much, because the colors just blended together.  The texture looks acceptable considering I used 33% lye solution with no extra water when rebatching.

In the second batch was a new soap fresh out of the mold.  I planned for orange and yellow soap, but the colors disappeared, so another rebatching opportunity.  And since I wanted to know if there is any difference in  the texture of soap using crock pot to the one done in the double boiler, I decided to give it a try.  The crock pot had higher heat than the double boiler.  Soap did stick to the side of the pot a bit more.  However, it used less time, only about an hour.

I added more color at the end of the cook, since there was little color to begin with, but still not much showed up.  Perhaps I needed more orange.  This is the result:

Personally I prefer the texture of the soap from the double boiler.  How about you?  Which is your preference?  Would really love to hear what you think of these two methods or if there are any differences.  O was it just me?

Vanilla Cream Soap

Here we sometimes use lard for cooking, but after hearing so much praise about it in soap, I decided to give it a try.

Here is the recipe for this particular batch, hope it will be gentle with plenty of bubbles as lard is said to give big bubbles.

Olive Oil             35 %
Lard                   40 %
Coconut Oil        10 %
Cocoa Butter      15 %

It's said that lard takes a long time to trace, and since this batch contained both olive and lard, I decided to go for the extreme 42% discounted water.  Even with this steep discount, it took quite a while to trace.

I was not going to color this as I know the F.O. will discolor, so I added whipped cream, honey and colloidal oat at trace.  Also made some textured top to add some excitement to a rather plain looking soap and a little gold mica for fun.

This is how it looked when it went into mold.

I have left this batch to cure for a month now, the soap discolored beautifully and it smells so good.

Now all I have to do is wait a couple more months before I can try this.

If you are interested in DWCP, here is a link to one http://southernsoapers.com/news/soapmaking-tutorials/discounted-water-cold-process-soap-methods/.

Thank you for reading.

Swirl in the Mold Part 2

After a few days, I had finally managed to get the soap out of the mold.  I had to put the mold in the freezer for a several hours and then let them thawed, before they would release from the mold.

I did some drawing to go with the how to in the previous post and hope this will make it easier to follow.

1.  Pour the soap in thin line over the base, diagonally all across the mold.  Try not to over the colors.

2.  Then use chopstick to make the swirl by dragging it across the soap, make sure that it goes all the way to the bottom.

Thank you for reading.

Swirl in the Mold Part 1

This is the most basic of all the swirls on soap.  It is likely the first attempt a new soaper would try to do, I tried this method first, too.  It is quite easy to achieve a good outcome as you can see what the result will look like.  As with other swirl in the mold methods, this is done at light trace.

All you have to do is to divide the base soap into 3 parts; 2 parts will be used as base, and another part to be  mixed with the colors for the swirl.  In this batch, I misjudged the soap and ended with 2 parts only, so the swirl pattern was quite heavy.  The main batch was left white, while the rest was divided into three parts to be mixed to make - blue, black, and purple soap.

1. Pour all the base into the mold. 
2. Then pour a line of colored soap onto this.  I did a diagonal pattern all across the soap, one color at a time and tried not to overlap them.  And since I had too much colored soap, I repeated the process in the opposite direction.  
3. Then drag a chopstick through the soap, once horizontally, once vertically and and once more diagonally.  

This is how it ends up.

Enjoy soaping!

(Some drawings in Part 2)

Mantra Swirl

Making soap is quite unpredictable.  You can hope for the finished look, but until it is cut you can never be sure.

Mantra swirl is also known as the secret swirl.  As its name suggested, the swirl is a secret until it is cut.  First you have to divide the mold into two parts to hold two colors.  Then you pour another color down the middle and to create the swirl using a coat hanger method.  How deeply this last part of soap will go depends on the trace stage of the soap, the lighter the better.

I had never used this fragrance oil before, I guess it accelerated trace a little bit, because there were tiny bubble rising while I poured the last part of the soap.  

A lesson learned, test your fragrance oil.

Let's Start Soaping!

Making soap is not difficult and very gratifying.  There are lots and lots of sites that you can search for info about how to make soap.  Here are a few good ones that have great tutorials:

- millersoap.com
- www.teachsoap.com
- candleandsoap.about.com

Also try Soap-Queen blog.

Basically making soap is combining oil with the right amount of lye solution.  And yes, in making handmade soap, we do use lye.  Lye is a dangerous substance, but if you do it correctly, all will be neutralized by the end of the process.

So before jumping into making soap, take time to obtain as much information as you can.  Safety is a big issue in making soap, always wear your goggles and protective clothing.  Don't take chances.

Let the fun begins.

Solid Perfume

Some more fragrance oils have arrived and they smell really good.  At first I wanted to make perfume oil, but I could not find the recipe that was simple enough for me.  Instead I stumbled upon a recipe for solid perfume which looked very simple and more important I had all the require materials.  

I never made any type of perfume, so this is the first try.  I found this recipe from Snowdrift Farm but had modified it a little bit.

Ingredients
Beeswax 5 grams
Carnauba wax 4 grams
Fractionated Coconut Oil 50 grams
Mango Butter 5 grams
Vitamin E 0.6 gram
Fragrance Oil  12 grams

This makes about six tins.

As I used natural beeswax, I had to grate it to make it easier to melt.  Then I melt the waxes, oil and butter in a double boiler.  After everything melted, removed from heat and added vit. E and stirred.  Then I filled one tin at a time with 10 grams of oil and then added 2 grams of fragrance oils to each, gave it another stir.  Did the same with the rest.  Then let them rest and that's it .

Isn't this easy?