Lye Safety and New Soaps!

My former set up for soap making was in a room with a cement floor using a relatively flimsy wooden base with a door on top laid flat for the working surface.  It was mostly level and mostly sturdy, and it was nice and wide so I had room for all of the dishes needed for my soap.  I knew I needed a better set up, but I had been dragging my feet on building something different.

I say that in the past tense, because recently I had a pretty scary lye spill that forced me to be more proactive on building a sturdy soap work bench for myself.  I set the container with my lye solution on the part of the table where the hinge of the door was on accident, and it spilled EVERYWHERE!  What's worse is that Hobbes was also with me, and when I yelled at him to get out of the room, he got so scared and curled up into a little ball.  So, I took gloves off and brought him out of the room, and went back to control the damage. As everyone hopefully knows by now, lye solution is very dangerous - the lye solution completely ate the paint on the floor where it spilled!  For anyone who has been feeling lax about lye safety - let this accident be a warning to everyone to continue to exercise good caution around lye and raw soap.

So, luckily I (and Hobbes) were unharmed, and the only real damage was to the floor paint.  I researched and found this work bench plan, and bought the hardware to make it.  I enlisted the help of my husband and dad to build this "two hour" bench.  Probably an experienced carpenter could make this bench in two hours, but not me.  I cannot tell you how many trips I had to make to the hardware stores nearby.  I kept going to different ones so that the employees would't recognize me :)  I powered through, though, and got it done!  I feel so good about myself now that this is built and level!

Here is the final product - I can't wait to start creating again!!  This bench is great - it has a 6" long work surface with 2 shelves, it's really sturdy and can hold a significant amount of weight, and I have a cool hanging light that I was able to attach right to the bench for plenty of light as I'm creating.  Best of all, the design created nearly no waste of wood!

My favorite part is the counter top I found for the workbench surface.  It raises the bench up another inch, which makes it more comfortable for me.  The bench is 30" deep and has 4" wide ledge in the back, but the counter top is only 24" deep and has a ridge in the back.  This makes it a perfect place for me to put the containers with lye or fragrances out of the way so they don't get bumped and spill everywhere.  Love it!

Before The Spill, I was playing around with some more design ideas for the Pinkberry Mimosa FO that I've really loved lately, and here is a Tiger Stripe version with heart embeds:

I'm glad the Tiger Stripe came out well - I want to make a signature soap for Hannah and for Hobbes, and I thought it'd be fun to have something tiger-related (either color or pattern) for him.

Happy Thursday, everyone!

~Chrissy

Equality Soap 2.0

I'm sorry it's taken so long to post pictures of my two newest soaps, but I've been working on making my own light box (blog post on that to come...) and simply haven't gotten around to it.

For the Equality Soap, I was disappointed that the green color morphed in the cold process soap.  Even though the site where I purchased the colorant said it was safe in high PH products like cold process soap, it just didn't do what I wanted.  I have had good luck with BB's Green Chrome pigment, and I had previously made a number of small Christmas tree guest soaps using that pigment that were a perfect green for the rainbow color scheme.

I chose my 3 least favorite Equality bars and shredded them down and separated the colors (and excluded the gross maroon color that was supposed to be green.  I'm sure that it will be lovely embedded in a different soap, though!).  I also shredded 2 of the small tree guests soaps for the green color I needed in the rainbow color pattern I wanted.

I really love the confetti look of this soap!  

I scented it with WSP's Pure Rain fragrance oil, because I was looking for a clean, ozone-y scent for this rainbow soap.  I mixed a white batter to a medium trace and poured 1/6 of the white batter with the shredded red color.  I did the same with the other 5 colors, ending up with the violet color on the top.

This made a HUGE bar - it will be over 6 oz when cured!!  Here's another photo:

I also ordered the heart tube mold at WSP, because I was inspired by the adorable soaps that Jennifer has been making with the mold.  I have been really loving the Pinkberry Mimosa fragrance oil from WSP also, and I made this batch with pink kaolin clay for the bottom part (and the top) and BB's Gold Mica for the top portion.  I am so happy with how this turned out! 

I'm sure I say this after most of my soaps, but this may be my new favorite :) I even am loving the halo effect that the cocoa powder is creating around the heart and throughout the pencil line.

{When I was looking at these pictures with my chin in my hand, I swore I could smell the fragrance.  Then I realized I WAS smelling the fragrance - since I just finished photographing these soaps, the smell was still there...  Maybe it's time to call it a night!}

Hope you all enjoy the weekend!  It feels like it's been raining every day since it stopped snowing in May, but tomorrow afternoon is supposed to be gorgeous, so I plan to be outside, celebrating with friends!

~Chrissy

Soap Volcano!!

I took some time this holiday weekend to catch up on some soap ideas I have had drawn out but haven't had time to make.  My first three batches turned out just as I had wanted them to - I'll write a post later when I have time to clean them up and get some good light for photos.  

The troublemaker was the next batch I attempted to make.  My fourth (and last) batch of the night was a remake of a hot process lavender soap with alkanet root.  I make it in my BB vertical mold, because I like that it keeps all of the edges nice and smooth, even though it is hot process.

{warning - this may or may not be a boring post - I didn't think to take any photos of this process, so it's going to be a "pictures with words" post :) }

I had run out of bowls and equipment to infuse my soaping oils with the alkanet root, so I had the brilliant idea to just infuse the alkanet root using my crockpot while I was working on my other soaps.  The infusion went great, although I needed a second pair of hands to help me strain out the alkanet root powder (thanks Kris!).  The oils were super hot, and I put them back in the crock pot to stay warm.  I mixed my essential oil blend and put it the table next to the oils so I didn't forget to put it in the oils.  Two seconds later, I knocked the cup over, and the whole soaping area still smells like lavender.  I suppose it could be worse - it could smell like neem oil!

The oils were HOT, though - around 180 degrees!  Since the soap batter over 200 degrees while it's cooking, I had the brilliant idea to just mix the 170 degree lye mixture with my 180 degree oils to save myself some time.  Luckily, I stayed by the crock pot to clean up after I had stick-blended the lye and oils, because less than 10 minutes later, this mixture of blue-purple beads started to volcano out of the crock pot and spill EVERYWHERE!  So, I yelled for my husband, stirred the soap back down into the crock pot, and took a couple deep breaths.  I also turned the crock pot down to low.

Luckily, the soap in the crock pot kept cooking and went through the normal phases.  It eventually didn't zap, and I got it in the mold without a problem.  I guess all's well that ends well, eh?

I've never seen a soap volcano, though, and I've definitely learned a thing or two from that harrowing experience!  If only I'd had the presence of mind to grab my camera so I could record it for posterity.  Hopefully I don't have another volcano to record...

~Chrissy

Equality Soap!

I am not one to post political stuff on my blog, but I am proud that earlier this week, MN passed a law to legalize marriage equality!

George Takei even posted this pic on his FB page - she is a friend of my hubby.

So, to celebrate, and so that I could practice making layered soap, I decided to make a rainbow equality soap.  I had 2 2-lb loafs, so I figured even if I screwed one up, hopefully the other would still turn out.

I had bought some neons and oil-locking micas from WSP and also have some awesome neons from BB, and mixed my colors for the rainbow:  red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and some white for hearts on the top.

I haven't used the WSP colors yet, and to my dismay, the oil-locking green turned a gross brown when I mixed it in the soap batter, and when it saponified, it turned this weird light maroon color.  Not quite what I was going for, but now I know not to use this for a green going forward :)

Here are some pics of the soap I took on this cloudy day today:

I'm happy with how the hearts turned out - I was really worried with keeping the top layer at a light enough trace to do this.

The layer between the yellow and blue is supposed to be green.  Disappointing.

I broke through the layers on one loaf, so I made it a spoon swirled rainbow :)

It looks kind of tie-dyed with the way the swirl came out.  I kind of like it!

Way to go MN!  Have a great Saturday, everyone!

~Chrissy

Rosemary Oleoresin Extract (ROE)

I like to use some oils that are soft and have a shorter shelf-life in my recipes, like sunflower oil.  In the past, I have used a mixture of Vitamin E (.5-1%) and Vitamin C (.25-.5%) to help retard rancidity in my soaps.  I haven't had many issues with rancidity to date, which has been great!  Due to how quickly I've been using my oils lately, I just add the extract directly to my master batch when the master batches are prepared.

However, when I was digging around on the internet for something else unrelated, I stumbled across this interesting study which seems to indicate that while Vitamin E & C have many great skin benefits and can help defer rancidity in oils in general, Rosemary Oleoresin is a better performer to preserve shelf life of oils in soap.  The article is written by Kevin Dunn (author of Scientific Soapmaking) and is a very interesting read:  http://cavemanchemistry.com/HsmgDos2006.pdf.

Since the ROE rancidity effect appears in this one study (I am trying to find other studies which will confirm these results), I wanted to give it a shot in some soaps to test drive it a bit.

I made a 2-loaf batch of a repeat of the soap I made for the mica swirled top challenge, and added the ROE to the oils at .5% of the oil weight.  However, while I was mixing the oils to trace, the ROE didn't mix in well with the rest of the soap batter.  There was a layer of reddish orange stuff floating on top of the batter, even as I stick-blended it through medium trace.  I didn't think to take a photo while this was going on.  Now that I've re-read the articles, I have definitely over-used the ROE in my soap batter (recommendation of .02-.1%, depending on where you're reading).  I also tried to soap cooler than normal - around 75 degrees, instead of my usual 110 degrees or so. Since these kind of challenges go in threes, I had also forgotten to put in the EO blend I had mixed up for this batch, so I'm going to make another batch tonight WITH the scent this time :)

What's interesting is that when the soap batter was poured, the top of the yellow layer looked pretty green.  However, when I went downstairs tonight to take pictures after it had set up for a couple days, the green layer on top has gone away. It must have re-absorbed into the soap?  Very strange.

Here you can see a very slight variation of color between the top and the side.  However, I had just unmolded the soap, so the color difference could be the more wet soap vs the drier top.

In this picture you can see the color a little, too, but the top doesn't look green like it did when it was soap batter.

Here's a picture of how they turned out cut.  I really like these colors for the scent, even though these ended up unscented :)

Another show-off picture

Here is a good blog post which looks at the anti-microbial claims of ROE and whether it can function as an effective general preservative:  http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/2012/01/essential-oils-rosemary-essential-oil_17.html  (in short- it is not a sufficient stand-alone preservative system).  For anyone interested in cosmetic chemistry knowledge, Susan's blog is a great resource, and has some excellent starting recipes for lotions, shampoos, etc.

I've been researching what happens if one uses too much ROE in soaps, but I'm not finding a ton of information.  This soap will be relegated to personal use until I can determine whether it is safe to use.

Also, I had a friend over a few weekends ago to help me take some pictures and show me how to use my little old point-and-shoot.  She took some amazing pictures with the natural sunlight, and she showed me some good ways to set up and use my camera, too.  I'm so happy with how the pictures turned out!

Some Chocolate Mint cupcakes - they look like edible cupcakes!

The Challenge #3 soap - mica swirled tops

Yuzu / Orange soap

Soap Challenge #2 - Elemental Swirl

This one I took myself :)  Rosemary Mint.  It looks similar to the ones my friend took with her SLR camera, even though you can tell hers are better.

Have a great Monday!

~Chrissy

Soap Challenge #3 - Mica Swirled Tops

I am a little behind on my challenges...  I'm really enjoying doing them, but as this is a pretty busy time, I haven't had as much time to play with these new techniques as I wanted.  Having said that, I was a little apprehensive about doing mica swirled tops.  I've seen blog posts by Emily at Sheih Design Studio with her amazing and creative mica tops, and I was a little intimidated to try myself.

I looked at what cool micas I had that would be good for a swirl, found that I had a beautiful gold mica from Brambleberry and built a recipe around that mica.  I had some lemongrass essential oil and wanted to try a blend with spearmint EO, and the colors that made the most sense to me were yellow and green.  I had some spearmint leaves for some texture in the soap, and I felt good to go.

I colored the bottom half yellow, used a cocoa powder pencil line, and made the top green so that I could use the super pearly white and gold micas for the swirl top.  I didn't have any pipettes, but luckily, I had given my husband a molecular mixology set for Christmas which had pipettes, so I repurposed a couple (shhh, don't tell him...)

Here's what the wet soap mica swirls looked like:

I was so pleased with how these turned out!  They kind of look like a tapestry, honestly.  I stuck them in the oven overnight to gel, and the house smelled so good.  The blend was lemongrass, spearmint, and frankincense EOs, but it smells kind of like lemon cake to me right now.

Here's what the soaps look like when cured:

Still looking good!

Some of the beauty of the swirls was lost when the bars were cut, but I really love the colors. If I had a better close up, you could see the spearmint leaves as added texture inside the bar.  Unfortunately, the light wasn't great this morning for pics.

I'm definitely doing this technique again.  I want to try it with textured tops, too.  It was easier than I thought, and it makes these soaps look so polished and fancy!

The only thing I noticed when unmolding, though, is that the mica on top was starting to rub off on my hands...  Has anyone who has tried this technique noticed the same thing? Did I use too much mica?  

~Chrissy

66 bars of soap on the table ... 66 bars of soap!

So, I worked pretty hard the other night, used up all the log molds I have, and made a bunch of honey oatmeal soap.  I have a palm- and coconut- free recipe for my sensitive skin friends, and I thought I would mass produce some honey soap.  I made 2 large batches - 33 bars each.

That's a whole lot of soap, you say.  Yes, I know, because I had to carry it all out to the garage to cool down, and then back inside once it was cool...

 Here are the first logs I cut into:

These are my 2-lb log molds.  I love them, but I haven't used them much lately.

I love how creamy this soap looks!

I had a 5-lb loaf, too, but I don't have pics of that one.  Interestingly, the freezer paper was all damp when I unmolded, and I had to peel a bunch of little paper bits off of the soap log.  I've never had that happen before.

Here they are after cutting.  The color will lighten in a few days.  I have them curing in their own room so that they do not pick up the scents of the other soaps, since this is an unscented, uncolored batch.

Unfortunately, these batches were not without their issues.  When I tried to unmold the SH mold, I really struggled getting the edge pieces away from the soap.  I should know by now that there's a reason they're difficult to get pulled off, but I just muscled through, and here's what happened when I twisted off one side...

Yep, soap was not ready to be unmolded.  The edge piece has a chunk of my soap attached now.

I will let these 3 logs just wait a little more.  I will unmold them when they're ready and not before :)

~Chrissy