Skip to main content

Second CP soaping experience: half a disaster...?


I made soap with the CP process only once before and it has been beginner's luck a success. OK, first time I used a recipe I found on a book and I made only a few minor changes (like using water instead of beer, and bamboo powder instead of kaolin clay). For my second time, I wanted to use the leftover oils/butter I had at home...I created the recipe myself, but I passed it through a lye calculator (twice), as textbooks require!
Here you have my recipe (I'm not violating any copyright, I'd say :-) )

I wanted to add a personal touch to this recipe and I decided to use coffee to color and scent the soap bar.
I prepared a medium Moka machine and kept aside the used coffee grounds.
After having mixed the oils and the lye solution, I've hand-whisked the emulsion, split it in two and added coffee (3 espresso shots) to one part and coffee grounds to the other.
I've poured the emulsion after reaching a very light trace and that's the result after 36 hours...



 I was initially very satisfied with the result: soap bar still pretty soft but good looking. I cut a very thin slice to better look at the texture and...
...I got extremely disappointed surprised at the results: the lower layer was pretty ok, while the upper layer was kind of flaky and brittle!!! How possible is that?
I wrote the following message to a very renowned Soap making supplier with the hope of getting an explanation for this very unexpected result.
Hello ***** staff! I'm at my second CP soap and while my first try has been a success, this second one had a very weird outcome...How is it possible that two layers of the same soap bar and with basically the same recipe can behave differently? The oils/lye emulsion has been split in two before adding real coffee to one layer, and the used coffee grounds to the other. I did NOT add fragrances, essential oils, sugars or colours. The bottom layer (the one containing coffee) looks pretty nice (still very soft probably because I hand whisk and there's an high % of pomace olive oil) and it went through gel phase. On the other hand, the top layer (the one with coffee grounds) is flaky and brittle (see picture)... How could that be possible? I cannot believe coffee can make a recipe work!!! Thank you for any help, explanation or idea you can provide! From a very puzzled ROBScreations. 
wink emoticon
...but apparently, they got puzzled too!

I'll let the soap bar stay for 24 hours longer, then I'll cut it and let the slices cure...and will eventually tell you more! 
If any of you has a suggestion, a theory, or an idea to explain what happened he/she's very very welcome!
Etichette:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts

Card making and papercraft magazines

Last month I had the chance to get, for the first time, a couple of Cardmaking & papercraft  magazines: Papercraft Inspirations and Make Christmas card magazine. Papercraft Inspiration December issue had a Christmas window build-a-scene embossing folder and stamp free gift, as well as  free festive papers . Make Christmas cards was offering:  2 embossing folder borders ,  13 stylish stamps ,  32 Christmas papers ,  12 découpage sheets ,  117 toppers & motifs and  73 festive greetings. Here you have some of the cards and tags I've made with the magazines' gifts All cards have been donated to hospitals 
Post a Comment
Read more

One more way to combine soy wax and gel!

The followings are all two-layered candles with the bottom layer made of gel and the upper part made of soy wax . Why combining the two of them? Because gel is transparent and allows you to embed objects   and soy wax   has an incredible  scent   throw and a long burning time ! Few simple rules for embedding objects: ideally they should be non flammable (like glass animals, shells or stones)! ...but if you do not exaggerate with the amount, you also can potentially use cinnamon sticks, dried flowers etc... To be on the safe side: if you use flammable objects I'd anyway suggest you to pour the thinnest layer of gel as possible (just to cover the embeds) and avoid burning this layer. And remember: never ever leave lit candles unattended! Let yourself be inspired and give it a try! Gel embeddings: glitters (blue candle) or sea shells (peach candle). Soy wax: caramel-scented.   G el embeddings: cinnamon sticks G el embeddings: cinna...
Post a Comment
Read more