Adventures With The Sage

Bacon Style Soap for Father’s Day

Here my trial at the bacon soap contest for Father’s Day. It doesn’t look as similar to bacon as the one you showed on your blog, but I hope my dad will enjoy using it.

Ingredients:

- 100 g of Coconut Oil (20%)
- 75 g of Vegetable Shortening (15%)
- 250 g of Olive Oil (50%)
- 50 g of Safflower Oil (10%)
- 25 g of Beeswax (5%)
- 170 mL of Water
- 66 g Lye (about 5.5% excess fat)

At trace:

- 1.5 tsp of Blueberry Flavor Oil
- 3 tbsp of reduced red wine for the red color of the soap

Equipment:

- Safety equipment (goggles, rubber glove, long sleeve shirt, long pants and covered shoes);
- Molds (I use little plastic containers) and mineral oil for coating;
- Stainless steel cooking pot;
- 2 spatulas;
- 2 thermometers;
- Scale;
- Graduated measuring cup for measuring water;
- Heatproof glass container for mixing lye solution;
- Whisk;
- Old blanket
- Sponges

Directions:

1- Prepare the workspace. Make sure there are plenty of clean working space and good airflow.

2- Gather all safety equipments. I use a long sleeve lab coat, pants and covered shoes that I won’t mind get ruin if a spill happens. A pair of rubber glove and safety goggles. I also make sure that I am close to a source of water and have some vinegar and sponges in case of a spill.

3- Gather all your ingredients. Measure each ingredient. I make sure I am wearing all the safety equipments from the moment I start working with the lye. Prepare the molds. I use mineral oil to coat my plastic molds.

4- Mix the water and lye in the heatproof container until total dissolution of the lye crystals. Make sure you don’t breath the fumes coming out of the solution. They are temporary. Set aside.

5- Slowly heat the oils in the stainless steel pot until everything is melted. Take the pot off the heat source.

6- Once the oils and the lye solution are about 110 F, slowly pour the lye solution into the oils stirring constantly with the whisk. Keep stirring at a good pace until a light trace occurs. With a whisk it takes me about 10 to 15 minutes.

7- At light trace, add the flavor oil and mix well.

8- Take about half the soap solution into another container. Set aside. Add the reduced red wine to the other half of the soap solution and mix well.

9- Pour the soap with red wine to fill half of the plastic molds. Then slowly pour the other half of the soap solution to fill out the rest of the molds.

10- Cover the soap molds with the old blanket and let sit for at least 24 hr or until firm.

11- Take the soap out of the molds, cut in desired size and let cure in a cool dry place for four weeks.

Personal notes on the recipe:

The ingredients in my vegetable shortening included canola, soybean and palm oil. I use soybean to calculate the amount of lye needed since it is the oil that takes the less lye among the three.

I use red wine that I simmer until all the alcohol was evaporated and the liquid reduced by half. I was hoping the red wine would give a light red color to the soap. However, the slight yellow color of the olive oil and the blueberry flavor oil gave the soap more of a brownish color than red when mixed with the wine.

The first soap we made was a layered soap for the Fourth of July. Beck actually makes three batches of soap and divides each batch of soap between three molds. She told me that it was easier this way rather than trying to divide her oils into smaller batches to make one soap. These layered soaps are poured into log molds that Becky made specifically for her soaping. Each mold is lined with sheets of heat resistant Mylar before the soap is poured and this helps the soap come out of the mold smoothly. We didn’t use any goat’s milk for this soap, but it still looked great!

Becky made the first batch and heated her oils to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Once she had reached her starting temperatures, she used her handy immersion blender and mixed her soap until the soap hit a light trace. Once the soap was at the light trace, she added Ultramarine Blue and a little Black Onyx to color the soap a dark blue as well as her special patriotic fragrance blend. Then Becky divided the raw soap between the three molds and then let it set for about 15 minutes to allow the soap to become firm before pouring the next layer. I had to see how firm it was for myself, so I tipped the mold and the soap didn’t move. Becky told me that she could tip a mold and judge how if it was ready or not.

While the soap was setting, we quickly cleaned the immersion blender and prepared the Titanium Dioxide and fragrance blend. Becky adds a little bit of water to her Titanium Dioxide to ensure there won’t be clumps of white color in the soap. Becky quickly prepared a new batch of oils and heated the oils to 120 degrees Fahrenheit for starting temperatures and mixed this batch of soap until it hit light trace. Now this batch was ready to have the fragrance blend and Titanium Dioxide added. Once again, Becky divided the raw soap between the three molds, but this time she poured the soap into a large soup spoon to prevent the white soap she was pouring from putting dips in layers. The white soap ended being a little thicker than Becky wanted, but it still was fluid. We let the soap sit for 15 minutes to set to the firm point that is desired.

For the last batch, we repeated the same steps as the second batch only adding a red oxide and red mica for the red color. After the soap had been poured into the molds, we set the filled molds aside to make a swirled soap.

The swirled soap is beautiful and has yellow and orange feathery looking swirls. We melted the oils until we reached the starting temperatures of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Once we had reached the starting temperatures, we mixed the soap until we reached light trace. Once the soap had reached light trace, Becky added the fragrance oil and then after blending that into the soap, the soap was quickly divided into three containers and color was added.

After the color was blended in, Becky started pouring the yellow colored soap into the mold in swirling patterns. She poured about a third of the yellow soap and then started again with the orange soap. Again, she poured about a third of the orange soap into the mold in a swirling pattern. Now she poured a third of the white soap into the mold, still keeping with the swirling pattern. This was repeated three times until the soap was all in the mold. Then, Becky took a small rubber scraper that had the tip bent and told me she used it to pull colors up as well as swirling the soap. She gently pulled the scraper through the soap until she had feathered the color enough.

Becky has been making soap for about 10 years now and it has been something her family has been involved in since the beginning. Her daughters also get to make their own soaps and sell them to promote a charity of their choice every year. I do have to admit, they have some adorable soaps of their own, including snowmen, reindeer, and artwork melt and pour soaps!

I’ve enjoyed visiting Becky’s Soap Kitchen, and I would love to visit yours!

Can you see that the mold was warped by the excessive heat? This soap got hot so fast we had a hard time holding the beaker to pour the soap into the mold. Unfortunately, pour isn’t a great descriptor as the soap glopped into the mold rather than pour in the fashion I’ve shown you before.

Aren’t you glad this happened in our testing rather than your production?

Happy Soaping!

First things first, what is trace? According to all of our staff that have had experience making cold process soap, trace is simply when there are no more oils floating to the top of the raw soap. We also described it well on Cold Process Soap, Day Three.

Trace is a term that is vague, it is used in every soap book, yet is far more fluid than every beginner expects. Trace is an indication oil will no longer rise to the surface when mixing is stopped. If you aren’t sure if you have achieve trace then stop mixing, go get a glass, fill it with water, do not drink it. Come back to your soap. Is oil floating on the surface? Oil is floating if you see a dark appearance to the top and it appears very slick. A quick press of the button on your immersion blender will tell you if oil has risen. A dark swirl appears on the top of soap close to trace, but not quite there. Keep blending if you see this happen. If the soap looks homogeneous, pour into the mold.

Trace is sometimes explained as having the ability to hold an impression on the surface of the soap. This is true if you have a light across the room and you can see its reflection on the surface of your soap. Gently touch the surface of the soap with a spoon and draw a star or heart. If you can see the raised impression left on the soap from your spoon, you are at trace. Pour into the mold.

Trace is not about being as thick as a milk shake, or about being thick at all. If you could see the mixture we pour into the molds, you would be surprised that our soap looks more like pouring skim milk than it does look like cream of a milk shake. Think fluid!

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them and see the notes that I’ve written on them.

Next week is Hot Process Soap Week!

Oils to use are olive oil, coconut oil, palm kernel oil. Today’s thought is that coconut and palm kernel give great lather but we want to temper the aggressive cleaning with gentle care. Let’s use 3 ounces coconut oil, 3 ounces palm kernel oil and 10 ounces olive oil for our base. Use the Lye Calculator to figure the lye and leave about 6% excess fat. The lye should be an easy to weigh amount, but right close to 6% is our target.

Tea tree and lavender can be used neat, this means undiluted, on the skin. However, baby skin is so tender and new we don’t want to overwhelm. Let’s keep the essential oil addition to 1%, this will be plenty for our extra mild soap. Because tea tree is so strong, stronger than lavender, let’s use it as 1 part and lavender as 3 parts to make our scenting mixture. We will need a total of 4.5 grams of essential oil. If you want to make measuring a bit simpler, you can do 3 grams lavender essential oil and 1 gram tea tree. This will be lighter, but certainly in line with a baby soap.

If you are looking for a stronger scented soap, or one for acne prone skin, you can increase the scenting to 2%, which would be 9 grams total.

Let’s show some pictures of our test batch.

I’m using Lemon Yellow from our blog on Jan 12, 2009. I have added 5 drops of color to achieve a pale, sunshine yellow soap. I have used a lovely mold from Soap Hutch that is scaled for this 1 lb fat batch.

3 ounces weight Palm Kernel Oil
3 ounces weight Coconut Oil
10 ounces weight Olive Oil

2.2 ounces Sodium Hydroxide
6 fluid ounces cool water

Weighing time: 8 minutes
Adding lye to water: 5 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of stirring
Heating of oils time: 2 minutes
Pouring lye solution into the fat mixture: 5 seconds
Using immersion blender to mix soap solution: 90 seconds
Blending in Tea Tree and Lavender Essential Oils: 30 seconds
Pour into mold: 10 seconds
Allow soap to rest: 24 hours

The soap is going to look dark because of the olive oil, but the color will lighten significantly when cured.

Let’s make our regular test batch type of soap. If you missed the original week of cold process testing, you should look here.

6 ounces Hydrogenated Soy
5 ounces Coconut Oil
4 ounces Olive Oil
1 ounce Shea Butter

2.2 ounces lye
6 fl oz water

We are going to use the higher end of the water recommendations in the Lye Calculator so we can mix the powder in easily. We are also making this soap in dry weather so the soap will dry/cure quickly. If you are making this in a humid location, please use a dehumidifier to help dry out the soaps.

Weighing time: 8 minutes
Adding lye to water: 5 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of stirring
Heating of oils time: 2 minutes
Pouring lye solution into the fat mixture: 5 seconds
Using immersion blender to mix soap solution: 90 seconds
Pour into mold: 10 seconds
Allow soap to rest: 24 hours

2 tsp rose hip powder

Pour the majority of the soap into the prepared mold. Leave about 1/2 cup remaining in your mixing vessel. Add rose hip powder and stir well. Dollop the colored soap on the white soap in the mold. Use a Q-tip or small painting brush to swirl. This shallow mold will have a better swirl with a stick that has some kind of texture to assist in spreading the colored soap. Think of this as more fingers to make the swirls.

Place a heating pad on the counter. Set to low. Place a cake/cookie cooling rack over the heating pad. Set the mold on the cooling rack. Leave in place for about 2 hours. Remove the heating pad.

We are providing a bit of extra heat because we received snow over the weekend and through the night. It is quite cool here. Instead of worrying about the soap losing all of its heat, we will add a bit of supplemental heat to make sure the soap will go through gel phase. In the summer time I would just turn off the air conditioner and allow the soap to stay warm.

If you have curious cats or children, cover the mold with a box and check on it every half hour. If you have a house free of curious fingers, just leave the soap in the open.

If you are concerned about any soda ash developing on the exposed surface of the soap, then cover it with Saran Wrap. We like this heavy plastic wrap because it doesn’t stick to everything in sight and require two people to place it.

Uncover the soap in 24 hours. If the soap doesn’t want to easily come out of the mold then allow it to sit for another day. Dehydration is helpful to removal from the mold. Once the soap is in the mold for 48 hours, try to unmold. If the soap still doesn’t want to come out of the mold, then place the mold in the freezer. If the soap is extremely scented try putting ice in a cardboard box lined with a plastic bag instead. It is a difficult thing to explain to your family that the ice, meats, veggies and Popsicles taste like Patchouly. The goal is to make the soap cold, not flavor all the refrigerator foods. Freeze for about 20 to 40 minutes. Remove the soap and allow it sit on the counter until the soap mold is sweaty with condensation. Press gently on the mold until the soap releases. If the soap is slow to release try freezing again. Patience is key. We find only a few soaps are this difficult to remove, but these difficult soaps can certainly try the patience of a good soapmaker. Your soaps, and soap molds, will appreciate the gentle care.

Next week is all about fun with Melt & Pour soap! Swirls, toys, shapes and curls! Great fun for an afternoon with the kids or for some peaceful time by yourself.

If your soap looks like this, STOP! Go back to your recipe and re-work it through your mind. What happened? Did you weigh the lye twice? Go to 2.4 instead of 2.2? You need to review, step by step, what happened in the soap and making process.

Overall, I don’t recommend this book. There is no point in reworking soap unless you have to. Want proof of our reasoning? Please give us ONE example of a cake that gets made twice before you serve it. Not formed into another dessert like tiramisu, but a cake that is baked, wetted, remixed, and rebaked. We can’t think of a single one.

A cake? A cookie? Not even biscotti has a double mixing. A salad?

Our feeling is: if you can’t do it right the first time, why waste your time doing it over? You will never get those life minutes back.

Call Now! Support the “I will never rebatch again” fund. Operators are standing by!

ROFL! It is Monday. I lost my mind for a moment.

Next week is all about making the home air smell good. We are going to make room sprays and linen sprays! Don’t forget about the Monster Away Sprays for Kids!

No sweets: if your fruit item is sugary sweet it will probably cause problems in your soap. If you must add a peach puree to your soap, then use a teaspoon per lb of fats. Your soap will turn out much better with less sugars going into the pot.

No sours: consider adding any juice you like to the mixture but remember the above rule. Lemon juice certainly isn’t sugar sweet, but the pH is too low to be a good addition to your soap.

Juice and tea: If your chosen fruit or vegetable has a high water content (like cucumbers) then consider adding this juiced material to your soap. It will work far better than adding cucumber shreds.

As with any item you desire to add to soap, the first test batch should err on the side of caution. Increase your chosen additive with each successive test batch, until you hit a limit of tolerance. Test batches are certainly usable, and can often be great for test marketing purposes, but failure to make test batches is just asking for trouble.

What plant materials do you like to add to soaps? Which have you considered, but haven’t yet tried? I would like to see your list of items and we can review them together. Send us your comments.

Next week is all about the face and nails. We are going to make a mask, a lotion, an exfoliating soap, cuticle jelly and a cuticle oil. I’m so excited for this! Lots of this next week will end up in the Mother’s Day Gift Baskets! Don’t forget about the drawing!

Our basic test batch from last soap week. 6 ounces Hydrogenated Soy, 5 ounces Coconut Oil, 4 ounces Olive Oil, 1 ounce Mango Butter. The scent is Blackberry Sage. This scent is noted to make great room sprays, lotions, liquid soaps, shampoos and more, it just doesn’t work in cold process soap. We will add about 1/3 fluid ounce fragrance to our test batch.

Prepare your tea kettle before you collect your soap supplies. Set it on the stove to heat. Collect your soap supplies. Once the water comes to a boil, pour the water in a cup over a tea bag, and set aside. Put the kettle back on the stove, you need to maintain at least a simmer.

Weigh the fats. Weigh the sodium hydroxide. Measure the cold water and add your weighed amount of lye. Stir well. When you add the lye solution to the fat mixture start blending with an immersion blender. Take the soap almost to a trace. If you can’t remember the definition of trace, go back to the previous blog posts and catch up to today.

Add the fragrance oil, first in a few drops. See the white change in our soap where the fragrance oil was dropped? This fragrance will accelerate trace. We are going to go from liquid, to mashed potatoes, to concrete in less than 30 seconds. Quick! Get the tea pot! A dose of boiling water over the top, about ½ cup, then stir it in, and blend if possible. Pour into your mold. The boiling water does the trick to thin the soap so it is fluid again, or at least fluid enough to pour.

Your brow probably has beads of sweat. Now, you can be relieved that you use a mold that has some extra height (the additional water takes up space) and you have mastered saving a batch. Once you have cleared the counter of your work you tea is the perfect drinking temperature.

In all the years we have made soap, there was only one batch that couldn’t be saved by this method. We discarded it in the trash. You might wonder why we don’t save each of our test batches when we make soap. The reason is we want to see the results of the soap through normal processing. Certainly we could wait to rebatch later, but it just isn’t worth our time for these test batches. Rebatching is only a way to save a batch of soap you would otherwise discard. It will compromise the soap shelf life, makes the soap cosmetically challenged and isn’t the cleanest task to ever undertake domestically.

Even if you don’t think you will need the tea kettle, put one on anyway. The worst thing that can happen is you have the water left in the kettle when you are done. The hot water in your kettle is the perfect excuse for making tea, cocoa or another hot beverage.

Next week is all about the face and nails. We are going to make a mask, a lotion, an exfoliating soap, cuticle jelly and a cuticle oil. I’m so excited for this! Lots of this next week will end up in the Mother’s Day Gift Baskets! Don’t forget about the drawing!