RobsCreations

I haven't been making soap in months!!! I thought I wouldn't remember, but it's like riding a bike: you never forget.  The initial plan was to test a recipe with 15% cocoa butter , to make an in-the-pot swirl and some piping on the top. Total oil weight:  800 gr Water as % of oil weight: 28 % Superfat: 7% Water:Lye Ratio 2:1 Fragrance/e.o.: NONE Soaping temperature: Oils @ 62 °C, Lye @ 65 °C Mica: Hot Chocolate ( swirl and flowers on the top*) *the flower plan failed, see below :-/ OIL/FATS Olive Oil (pomace) 25 % Palm Oil 25 % Coconut Oil, 76 deg 25 % Cocoa Butter 15 % Castor Oil 5 % Almond Oil, sweet 5 % Everything went well with the in-the-pot swirl!  On the other hand, the brown-colored batter I left in the pastry bag has become pretty thick and I couldn't pipe the flowers on the top of the soap... when I squeezed the bag the batter clogged the piping tip... I gave up with the piping and put the soap to rest overnight....

You can refer to my previous post  (here)  if you want to know more about the amazing properties of the bay laurel berry oil and in general on Aleppo soap. Today's post is about cutting and testing the soap I prepared few weeks ago ( here )!  Let me remind you that I've used an olive oil-rich recipe in which I've also included ~15% of bay laurel berry oil, some coconut and palm oil, as well as a bit of shea butter. Soap was still slightly soft after 4 days (1 day in the mould + 3 days outside, as a whole bar) but that's pretty normal in soap bars with high olive oil content. Anyway, the smell is incredible , the colour (coming from the bay laurel oil ) is delicate and the texture is not bad at all!  There are at least two more weeks to go before it's fully cured, but I had a leftover from the slicing process that I've tested for you...  The soap is great : not slimy at all (read my comment about soap bars with high amounts...

Before I started making CP soap myself, I've bought and tried a handmade Aleppo-like soap from someone else... I've appreciated the mildness of the soap, the benefits exerted on my very dry skin in a short period of time and the intense and amazing smell due to the bay laurel oil. On the other hand, I noticed that the soap slice didn't last long and once wet it became very slimy and soft (this can be due to the extremely high content in olive oil).  With the hope of fixing these issues while retaining the benefits of the olive and bay laurel oils, I decided to create an original recipe myself.   A bit of background...  The original Aleppo soap recipe comes from Syria. Aleppo soap is basically made with olive oil and bay laurel ( Laurus nobilis )   berry oil (the % of which can range from 5% to 30%). It's a 100% natural soap with no colours or fragrances  added (believe me, bay oil is incredibly scented and dark green-ish so that you don't need to add...