Sunday, April 24, 2016

Pale Orchid Soap

Purple Haze mica, Orchid Fragrance Oil, White French Clay.  I’m going for a pale lavender color and a delicate scent.

First, while my oils were melting and the lye solution was cooling, I blended my dry ingredients.

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I pre-mix my dry stuff with a bit of the oils so that they blend into the soap solution better without clumping.  This is the slurry.  Bright, huh? 

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Once everything is mixed, I poured it into my mold.  I love this little mold.  I get 8 bars, roughly 3 oz each, from a 1 lb oil solution.  The lye solution is about 6 or 7 oz so total I have about 24 oz of soap mixture.

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Usually I unmold after 24 hours, but this time I waited 48, to see if that had any impact on how hard or soft the bars are.  It didn’t.  If I pressed hard, it would dent the soap, because they have to cure for about a month, give or take a week.  They will harden during that time as the moisture evaporates.  At this stage, they are still sticky, and if I did The Zap Test, (where you touch the tip of your tongue to the soap to test it) I would get zapped, because lye is still present.  Once the lye solution is fully saponified, The Zap Test won’t zap you and the soap is safe to use.  Testing homemade soap made with natural oils and essential oils isn’t nearly as gross as it may sound.  While I do sometimes use fragrance oils (or man-made scents) in some of my soaps, I use about half the recommended amount, as I prefer soaps that are not strongly scented. 

Don’t try this with commercially made soaps!  LOL  *gagspitptooey*

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The close up glamour shot, ha!

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Filed under: Soap Tagged: Soap, Soaping

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