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I love grease monkey soaps. I really like to get into my gardening or other messy jobs. I then have some serious clean up. A grease monkey soap does the job perfectly. I have an overwhelming stash of melt and pour soap and I wondered if I could make a melt and pour grease monkey soap. So I headed to the kitchen for some testing.
Here is the equipment you will need for this recipe.
Here are the ingredients you will need for this recipe.
Here is the recipe in ounces.
Gently melt the soap until liquid. Once liquid add the Ground Vanilla Bean Specks. Allow the soap to cool until more viscous. Add the pumice and stir well. Pour the viscous soap into mold and allow to cool. Remove from mold and use. In my first test, I only added .22 oz of Pumice. My soap was also very hot. My pumice sank to the bottom of my mold (the top of my soap), then cooled. I wanted a soap that had pumice through out the bar and as I looked at my bar, I decided I wanted more pumice. I multiplied my pumice by three and I allowed my soap to cool more before adding my pumice and pouring. Down at the bottom you can see the comparison of these soaps. The one on the right is the desired soap. I grabbed a bar and gave my hands a good scrub down to test. It worked great! So simple to make and exactly what the mechanic ordered. |
 Finished Soap  Liquid Soap  Adding Vanilla  Adding Pumice  Stirring in Pumice  Mixed Soap  Soap Comparison |
For what it’s worth, I usually add 1 tablespoon dry ingredient per pound oils. Is that approximately the amount that ended up in your soap? I’m curious because the trick is getting the amount of scrubby just right — not too harsh, not too soft.
As it happens, I have an order for 3 scrubbies — Grease Monkey, Gardeners, and Kitchen/Coffee Soap. These will be used to make a Housewarming Gift Set — a stack of 3 in orange, green, and brown on a rectangular wooden soap dish. I plan on using pumice with orange X 5 + litsea cubeba for their cleansing properties in the grease monkey soap; double strength coffee, coffee FO, and powdered coffee grounds for the Kitchen/Coffee Soap; and herbal tea, herbal FO and infused herbs in the gardener’s soap with powdered lavender buds for the scrubby.
How does that sound? Thanks in advance for any advice…
Cee
Cee,
I am so sorry it took so long to respond. I have a mile high stack of papers on my desk. Ahh! Yes, I did use 1 Tablespoon of Pumice per pound of soap. I generally stick to 1 Tbl per pound, but sometimes if I am making soap for tough and dirty jobs, I will let it heap on top of my measuring spoon. 😉 Be careful though! A little generosity sometimes can go a long way.
Those soaps sound great! Let us know how they go. If you have any photos, put them on the forum so we can Ohh and Ahh. (Too bad computer screens aren’t scratch and sniff!)
Taylor
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