Teach Soap

I have made 4 batches to date, 2 at the beginning of September, a simple goats milk recipe and a simple olive/coconut recipe. Toward the beginning of this month I tried getting a little fancier. My wife discovered that the local Woodman's Market had a decent selection of fancier oils so I went and bought some and she hit a couple stores and picked up a couple EO's and some apricot seed. At the moment we are working with whatever we could find locally.

I'll list what I did and then proceed with the question...or questions, there might be more than one. Of course I did run the recipes through a couple calculators.

The first I concocted used 20 oz olive oil (cheap stuff from the grocery store), 10 oz coconut oil, 4 oz sweet almond oil, 4 oz avocado oil, 2 oz castor oil. Distilled water for the liquid and obviously lye. At trace I added .5 oz of lavandin EO that my wife bought at the health food store (think she was after lavender) and some apricot seed (went a bit overboard on that but the test piece I tried scrubbed machine grease and ink from work off my hands so I consider it a win).

When I poured it into the mold it was yellow, much to my surprise the next day it was a really cool dark green color. So I guess my first question would be, is this normal? What caused that to happen? I have an order coming this week from Brambleberry as I'm ready to start experimenting with colors and fragrance oils and well, if my soap always turns green that might be an issue of sorts. To me the lavandin smells kind of like limes so it works this time, but who want's to smell a green pumpkin souffle right?

The second batch I used 25 oz olive oil, 14.5 oz coconut oil, 6 oz grapeseed oil, 4.5 oz avocado oil, 4 oz hempseed oil, and 2 oz castor oil. I also used distilled water for part of the liquid but added 8 oz frozen whipping cream as well. I know citrus EO's don't hold well in CP but my wife didn't and I used the .5 oz lemon oil she had bought. This turned a pretty yellow color and stayed that way (despite having 2 green oils in it) but it's a shame the lemon scent didn't hold up in this as it too worked with the color. This one I refrigerated to keep the heat down as I've read you do when using milk.

Well those are the results of me playing mad scientist, any pointers would be helpful. I have some FO's and clays and exfoliates coming in a day or 2 and I'm anxious to try them out (and avoid failing horribly if possible). I'll probably settle down on the oils selections eventually too but this is so much fun I just want to try everything! Thanks much!

- Todd

It's possible that the olive oil you used gave it that green color, or it was possibly adulterated since you say it was cheap. Lavandin should not smell like limes. So there's something amiss there too. I don't use grapeseed due to the short shelf life. It could give your soap DOS. (The dreaded orange spots from an oil that has gone bad or oxidized).
0.5 oz. of lemon for that batch size will not keep its scent. That amount would be barely enough for even 1 lb. of soap. You can boost the lemon oil staying power with some Litsea.

If you're not sure on ingredients or amounts, feel free to ask in this forum.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thank you Irena. That is reassuring. I was concerned that I screwed up somehow, even though I do like the green. I'm not familiar with lavandin at all but it did seem odd that it wasn't floral. I'm cool with it all, it will be a great after work scrub soap anyhow. Your advice on the lemon is appreciated. The color would be pretty with some cranberry seed in it and I'd like to see a lemon scent stick. I'll omit the grapeseed in the future.

I priced out oils at Brambleberry yesterday and found their prices better than local so I'll get them there from here on. Availability is better too. Anything I can save money on is good. I seem to have a bad habit of picking expensive hobbies.

I ordered FO's in the 2 oz quantity if I recall. What size batch should I be shooting for? I'll have many questions and really appreciate your help. There is just so much to explore and I'm trying to ramp up the difficulty or at least complexity each time out. Looking at the soaps that the members here have made really gives me something to shoot for. I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn from such talented crafters.

Oh. I remembered another question. About the cure, what is actually taking place there? Is there still a chemical process taking place or is it mostly waiting for the excess moisture to dissipate? Right now I'm curing on baking racks on a shelf upstairs and am curious if moving the operation downstairs by the dehumidifier would accelerate it a bit. Or is there no substitute for patience?

Brambleberry has a fragrance calculator as not all fragrances are used at the same rate. http://www.brambleberry.com/pages/Fragr ... lator.aspx
Soaps need to cure for 4-6 weeks. Saponification is normally complete in 24-48 hours unless the soap did not gel. Ungelled soap can take up to three days to saponify.
As the soap cures, water evaporates and the pH changes slightly. So it's important to let the soap fully cure.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

1) There is no substitute for patience. That being said, putting the soap in the room with the dehumdifier is a good idea. There is a book called "Scientific Soapmaking" that explains the soap making process from a chemistry persepective. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my wish list and it's highly recommended. Try your soap at 2 weeks, then again at 4 weeks and 6 weeks. I think you will see a marked improvement between 2 and 4, and 4 and 6.

2) Not sure why your lavindin smelled like limes. that is weird.

3) Lemongrass EO sticks pretty well, and it's pretty cheap too.