The Color Purple

The color purple, naturally, is a difficult thing to get in Cold process soap.  At least for me it is.  In the past I was able to get a pretty dark purple.  This time I worked with 8% of my oils being alkanet root infused olive oil.  I think in a future post I will have to try alkanet again and compare this result to my next try. 

In some lights my freshly cut soap looks a little bit mauve but still has a purple tinge.  It's pretty but I'm wanting to find the perfect percentage and usage of alkanet root powder for the purple I desire for a lavender soap.  This soap was Ylang Ylang with some Palmarosa to cut the overly sweet scent.

It smells fantastic.  It will look awesome too once I trim and bevel the bars.  I'm really not a rustic look kind of soaper.  I like a bar that even at first use I can swirl it between my hands and it doesn't cut.  When I first started soaping I never beveled the edges.  Ouch!!!

My Ylang Ylang/Palmarosa soap above sits on top of my Lemongrass/Patchouli goats milks soap.  This purple color you see is more close to the actual color I see in the soap under most lighting situations.  The lemongrass soap turned out lovely.  I had a nice pour that was still pretty thin so the bars came out with no lumps or issues.

Some bars had some marring at the ends since I tweaked the silicone mold a little too much.  I just have to be careful how I remove it.  The soap stayed in the mold at least 48 hours before removal.  Additional time would be fine too, hardening the bars a bit may help with the marring issue.

Also note the dark yellow spots.  I just tossed my yellow oxide in the oils and stirred.  Lazy bum!  I really should have incorporated my yellow oxide into a small portion of the oils first then added to the rest.  The color is a bit dark too.  I should have used just one 1.25 cc scoop of the oxide.  Oh well.  I still think it looks nice and it smells amazing!

I'm trying to use up most of the fragrance and essential oils I have left before I order more.  There are favorite scents I'm dying to recreate but they will have to wait.  This weekend I intend to try another lotion; a smaller batch and perhaps just slightly less thick and finally get some bath bombs made.  Also if my order arrives in time I can try my hand at making my lip balms have a tint!  It's so much fun to get back into this hobby; but as the weather gets nicer I think I'll have less time for soap and more time for the pony.....such are my priorities!

Second Try at Individual Oval Molds

This past weekend I got around to finally trying out my oval soap mold once more.  I tried a goats milk soap again, with two cc scoops of a yellow oxide, and a lemongrass/patchouli essential oil mix.  It's mostly a lemongrass scent but the patchouli cuts it a bit and holds it better in the soap I think.

My mold has been cleaned many times and scrubbed.  The mica I placed into the mold before pouring the soap has stayed in some areas.  Never again will I try to add the mica into a mold first, I'll only mix it in the soap or oils.

I was worried the darker essential oil would make my yellow invisible so I added the two scoops instead of my original idea of one.  We'll soon see the result.

The goats milk was frozen in cubes and then lye slowly mixed into the slush.  I placed the container in a sink of ice water to assist in keeping the temperatures low.  Lower temperatures mean that the soap will stay cool and will most likely reveal the colors I intend.

My oils contained the yellow oxide since I wasn't planning on a trying a swirl this time.  Since they were above 80 degrees F, I placed the pot int he sink as well to cool it down.  I try to get my goats milk soap to 80 degrees, meaning the lye mixture is 80 and so are the oils.

After combining the lye and oils I stick blended until there was a very light trace.  I can't tell you how awesome stick blenders are!  When the soap was ready I poured it into each little cavity.  Only the last three started getting thicker but still very pourable.  I have to adjust my recipe size for this mold since I had extra soap that I quickly poured into a leftover container.

Since my pot is rather large for pouring I tried out this silicone pour spout.  At a thin trace it worked wonderfully and aimed the soap perfectly into each little cavity.  I was very pleased!