Lotion!!!

I made lotion for the first time!  I used a simple recipe of almond, shea butter and jojoba oil.  My emulsifying wax was the conditioning e-wax Behentrimonium Methosulfate (and) Cetearyl Alcohol found here.  It's also known as BTMS.  Many love to use beeswax but I've read about it being difficult to hold the emulsion and I wanted my first time making a lotion to be successful.  I may try out other waxes that can be used for emulsions but for now I'm happy with the result.

I used a paraben free preservative, Optiphen (Phenoxyethanol and Caprylyl Glycol).  From all my research I've decided that preservatives are a necessary thing in lotion.  If you want "all natural" that will potentially include bacteria and fungi and the habit of keeping your lotion in the fridge and tossing it after about a week.  Yuck.  No thank you.  I think the tiny amount of preservative is much better than spreading a fungal or bacterial infection across my skin.

I've had 8 oz blue PET bottles in my soap making area for years.  The silver caps are so classy (though the silver part seems to pop off easily so future orders will be standard white disk caps).  I don't know what I feared with making lotion.  All it is is mixing ingredients.  

Well that and sanitizing everything that may touch your ingredients.  I used the recommended 70% isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) to sanitize everything.  No residue is left with rubbing alcohol that could irritate the skin like some other disinfectants.  I soaked the counters, all my tools and the bottles.  Once all was dry I melted my oils, e-wax and stearic acid in the pot.  I heated distilled water in a Pyrex pitcher.  Once the water and oils were both around the same temperature 150 or so, I combined them and stick blended the mixture.  I added more heat to help the combination and prevent cooling and oil solidification.  Getting the oil and water emulsified was really quick.

Once the mixture lowered to the right temperature for Optiphen to be added I poured/mixed the preservative into my lotion and then I incorporated my essential oil, Lavender.  Optiphen needs to be added at temperatures below 176 F to stay effective.  I for some reason thought 140 F was the temperature, which was still fine, the lotion was very liquid and so I was able to pour from my heating and mixing pot into my bottle via the funnel.  I hadn't realized how much lotion the recipe would make.  I filled three of the 8 oz bottles and had to run for another little container as well.

The lotion is thick and absorbs quickly leaving a protective layer; not greasy or waxy at all.  I can't believe the few grams of Lavender essential oil has made this lotion smell so lovely.  I used only 3 grams of EO; for soap I use 60 grams and sometimes have issues smelling the scent.  

I'm excited to try out new combinations of oil and come up with some base lotion recipes that I like.  I want something nice and thick, perhaps with lanolin, for my feet and perhaps when I have chapped skin.  Something light and something medium in weight.  I can combine different e-waxes to different effects and reduce or increase the stearic acid for thickness as well.  For now I won't do too much different from known recipes until I get a better feel for this new aspect of the hobby.

Alkanet and Ylang Ylang

I haven't done Alkanet root coloring in a while.  I made a simple soap with lard and lanolin with the scent of Ylang Ylang and Palmarosa essential oils.

You can see a big difference in color from first pour to full gel.  It usually takes a few days until the purple really shows through, it's all based on pH.  I may have to make a new infusion of alkanet since the one I had been around for a little while in my fridge.  Here's hoping.  If not.....try, try again!

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!

Could Be Worse.....

My first attempts after a long dry spell have yielded a couple odd soaps.  The first was simple, no colors and just Anise essential oil.  I poured at a nice medium trace with no issues.

My peppermint goats milk traced quickly and I had issue with my swirling attempts to make it look like a peppermint patty. 

I'm still having issues with the slab mold I use for goats milk soaps when I cut the bars out.  I lop off chunks of soap.  I have a cheese wire I'll try next time to see if it helps and of course my new oval individual molds will be used now too.  Still beveling works wonders and then as above with the Anise soap, so does packaging!

At least for now they are mine or gifts to friends and family who aren't judgy....

Salts n' Scents

Epsom salts are a favorite quick product I enjoy making.  A touch of fragrance or essential oils, a bit of coloring and Voila!  A perfect bath treat for sore muscles!

Since I made my father's favorite soap I wanted to make something special for my mother as well.  I had enough of the wonderful Lilac fragrance oil to make some bath salts and a scent oil roll-on.  Easy! Of course I wrapped them for Christmas before I even thought of taking a picture.  Oh well, here is the unlabeled bag of the salt I made using oxide colorant.

Yet I still had another lesson to learn.  Select shades are great colorants to use in cold process soap but not as reliable in bath salts I've discovered.  I had to tweak it a bit to get a lavender color for the salts.  Oh well, they smell perfect and will be a nice gift.  With the remaining Lilac oil I made some more salts to use myself.  I tried out coloring with Ultramarine Marine Violet Oxide, it turned out nicely with very little.  I'm not sure it's meant to be used with bath salts though....oh well, I'll be the guinea pig!

The scent oil is simply fracionated coconut oil and fragrance oil.  It's so simple!  Hopefully my mom will enjoy these until I can make her a special soap too! Until then enjoy the picture of a bag of four bars of soap for my dad.  Hopefully he'll be happily surprised!!!

Goats Milk and Individual Bars Mold

This was an interesting experiment.  I've always done cold process soap in a log mold or a slab mold, the slab mold for goats milk soaps to help keep the soap cool.

I just received this oval shaped mold from Brambleberry and was excited to use it.  Something about a rounded soap is intriguing to me; it's different from my norm.  I made a recipe using goats milk, lard, olive, coconut, lanolin, and castor oils and scented with a mix of Lavender essential oil and a touch of Clove essential oil....suggestion of the hubby.

I tried coloring with some left over wax chips I had from when I first started soaping (I'd actually made a nice purple soap once using these wax chips before moving to oxides and micas).  Since this is just for us I'm not worried about the colorant choice.  The purple color did not turn out even in the pot.  I had to grab a couple blue color chips to make it look alright and even then the color turned a gungy green as I blended.  

I wanted to swirl Copper mica in the soap too but the muddied color didn't turn out well though you can see some of the coppery colorant.  In prepping the mold I added a dusting of the copper to each mold so the sparkle would show at least on the top of each soap at least.  Cold process doesn't show sparkle like clear products which is fine....the dusting may be a good idea in the future, I can see the potential here.

My issue again....not adding colors and swirling early enough in the soaping process.  I waited too long to separate the soap to color so by the time I poured the soap it was at a reasonably thick trace, this is much harder to get into these individual molds!

I glopped the soap in as best I could, spread the soap out over the tops, banged the mold on the counter hoping to fill in all the gaps and then crossed my fingers.  It's ugly but it smells nice and will be a good recipe I hope.  Can't wait to try it out.

I feel like a beginner again!  I'm blending my soap to fast, getting it to trace quickly and then having issues with trying to swirl colors because of the thick trace.  I need to slow down and work with the thin trace in order to get the quality pours I've had in the past.

Candy Cane-Peppermint EO Goats Milk Soap

I sure had a fun afternoon of soap making!  I decided to make an old favorite, Peppermint Essential oil (EO) goats milk soap.  Around the time of Christmas it’s fun to make it a red and white swirl like a peppermint candy.

I used lard, Crisco and Palm Kernal oils for this soap and started melting them on the stove first and then began working on my goats milk lye mix.  I use 100% goats milk for my milk soaps.  The key to keep the colors true and not have the sugars in the milk caramelize is to keep the lye mixture cool and the whole batch cool (to include not letting it gel). 

I measured out my frozen goats milk cubes into the pitcher, and slowly added my lye crystals to the cubes as I stirred continuously and held the pitcher in a sink of ice water.  My solution never got above 70 degrees F.  My oils though took forever to heat up and were near 100 degrees.  I cooled them in the ice water but by the time the temperatures were right my lye mixture was really thick.

When I added my mixture to the oils it sank and didn't incorporate.  I was really concerned that this soap would not turn out at all but quickly placed the pot on the stove to add some heat.  Over a few minutes the oils were incorporated into the lye mixture and I began to see normal soap creation though it was a bit thick.  With more heat it thinned a bit but I knew I didn't want to add too much heat to ruin my color intentions.  It was finally time to take about 10 ladles of soap out of the pot into my glass measuring cup to color with Merlot Mica.

I mixed both, at times adding heat to each, then nearly forgot to add the peppermint!  Finally I was ready to pour in my slab mold.  The slab mold is the best for goats milk soap since the greater surface to volume ratio allows the soap to dissipate the heat produced and keep my goats milk soaps from turning the usual tan color.  I tried my best to swirl with the glops of off white and reddish soap but it was thickening up way to fast.  Oh well, smells great so I won’t worry about a perfect swirl this time.

I think the biggest issue was that the lye solution thickened up so fast since it stayed in contact longer solely with the goats milk.  I need to make sure my oils are nearly melted before beginning to make the lye solution. I also hate bumpy soap!  The swirl marks are still left on the top of the soap, we’ll see if I want to plane it smooth or just deal with it.

Pretty happy with the results considering!  I'll wait a couple days before cutting the bars.