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....

Last time I wrote about soap making , I’ve talked about ‘water discount’ (See HERE ) and how reducing the amount of water in the lye solution has solved many of the problems I’ve been facing over the last months ( soda ashes , soft   soaps   etc). This time I’ve used the same water discount as the last time, but I’ve stick-blended the batter a little longer to get something thick enough I could pipe on top of the soap. Total oil weight: 800 gr Water as % of oil weight: 28.17% Superfat: 7% Water:Lye Ratio 2:1 Essential oils: myrtle (23 gr), juniper (5 gr) and rosemary (12 gr) Soaping temperature: Oils @ 52 °C, Lye @ 50 °C Micas: Candy Pink and Plum Purple  Activated charcoal OIL/FATS Olive Oil (pomace) 28 %  Coconut Oil 32.5%  Palm Oil 22.5% Shea Butter 10%  Castor Oil 3.7% Sweet almond oil 3.3%

I have been recently writing a guest post  about water discounting in soap making for  the American blog Lovin soap .   CLICK HERE  to read the full story and to find the recipe of my Cobblestone soap. You will also find two videos ( courtesy of my husband 😄) with the techniques I used for this soap (in-the-pot swirl and piping). I want to thank again Amanda for hosting me on her wonderful blog.

In my recent  Review of the Aroma Zone (AZ) soap making workshop  I've been complaining about a peachy fragrance I bought on the day of the workshop. Before buying it, I've asked if the fragrance was going to work well in Cold Process and the alleged expert said "YES, sure!"  When I got back home, I read on the AZ's website that this fragrance is not great for CP and got quite p****d off. Needless to say, that there's no explanation concerning this statement (does it fade over time? does it affect soap color? Does it ACCELERATE trace?!?) and therefore I had to find out myself... I didn't have much choice in terms of raw materials and I didn't want to invest in new stocks in case something went wrong. Few precautions: 1) I scaled down the amount of total oils in the recipe (325 gr instead of 800 gr) 2) I used silicon moulds (didn't want to spend time lining the wooden mould) 3) I added the fragrance at the very last moment...

I've unconventionally used two techniques for the swirl in the inside of the bar: tilted tiger stripe swirl and +  hanger swirl or, as I call it, TANGER SWIRL !  To create the colorful swirl I tilted the mould of about 35-40°C (see this post for details on the technique). Then, I moved it back in a flat position, and used bass strings to do the hanger swirl ;-) Recipe (slow moving trace): Olive oil (extra virgin)  56.25% Unrefined virgin Coconut oil  20.38% * Palm oil (organic)  17.13% Canola oil  6.25% * Palm oil I use comes from a sustainable source. When I made my last soap ( HERE ) I've used all my stocks of pomace olive oil and coconut oil. Honestly I didn't want to place an order for two items only and I decided to take a look at the supermarket's shelves... I bought extra virgin olive oil from Puget , which gave a nice yellow color to the soap bar and unrefined virgin coconut oil from La Tourangel (very ...

The teardrop technique allows you to create a sort of multi-stratified drop inside your soap bar. Like the one below (please be fair folks! That's my first teardrop soap ever) Chevron swirl on top! 💖 Looks complicated, uhm? At the end of this post I've shared a video from Kapia Mera Soap Company  showing how to properly do it. I initially thought to use the same recipe as for the Fire Vibe Soap (high olive oil content, slow moving trace). I've then considered that this design is even  more complicated and that I am not fast and experienced enough to leave things to chance...  I therefore formulated a recipe with a Saturated:Unsaturated fat ratio of 28:72...this trace is moving soooooo slowly that you have the feeling you can work with it forever 🤣🤣 Recipe (super slow moving trace): Olive oil (pomace) 39.25% Canola oil 31.25% Coconut oil 12.50% Palm oil (organic) 17% Note that the palm oil I buy from  The Soap Kitche...