Your advice?

I need your advice.  I screwed up a recipe.

It was originally:

• Avocado Oil 18.2%
• Coconut Oil 18.2%
• Sunflower Oil 27.3%
• Sweet Almond 27.3%
• Palm 9.1%

It’s made with Goat’s Milk (in place of water) and fresh pumpkin puree.

Well, I screwed up and instead of adding the coconut I added palm twice.  So the new recipe was:

• Avocado Oil 18.2%
• Sunflower Oil 27.3%
• Sweet Almond 27.3%
• Palm 27.3%.

Ran it thru the lye calculator and the lye/water is the same as my original recipe.  So it’s not lye heavy and still usable.  My question.  With the extra palm and no coconut how do you think the properties of the bar will be?  It’s super hard and I know I’ll lack some lather…but I think with the other oils in it it shouldn’t be too drying and should still be ok.  Your thoughts.

Soap Challenge #11: Natural Ingredients

Last challenge!  I think I might have withdrawals next week when I have nothing new to try!  Anyway, for this challenge I wanted to use seaweed powder…I still plan to make a batch using it, but it didn’t happen for this challenge.  I just ran out of time to get to it by the time it arrive (Thursday later afternoon) here.

What I did do was another sort of landscape soap. I know I’m slightly obsessed.  Actually this one I saw someone else had created a beach scape and I loved it.  It was gorgeous!  I’ve had this fragrance Pineapple-Cilantro for a couple weeks that I’ve wanted to use in a soap but couldn’t come up with a design for the loaf.  When I saw the beach it just screamed perfect fit.  Oh man the soap smells AMAZING and looks pretty cool too.

Okay, on to the natural ingredients.  I used tussah silk in the batch.  Can’t wait to see how this changed the properties of the bar!  And then I experimented with Apricot kernel powder and strawberry seeds to make the sandy beach.  I have to say I was really pleased with the effect.  Wasn’t sure how it would come out but it looks like sand to me!

So, now I have a silky bar that part of it will also act as an exfoliant.  I’m cool with that :)

Almond Milk

The same recipe that called for silk also called for almond milk.  With soap you don’t want to use anything that has sugar or preservatives added to it.  That meant I needed to make my own almond milk.  It was actually a very easy process.

I used 1/2 cup of whole fresh raw almonds.  Soaked them in 1 1/2 cups of distilled water for about an hour and then blended them in the blender.

Almonds soaking in water.

Once they were pretty much pulverized I then dumped them into a strainer.

Nice and mixed!

After getting all the liquid out I was left with a lot of “mush” wish I’d know what I could do with it cause I hated throwing it out.

Draining the milk from the almond mush.

From there what I was left with was pure fresh almond milk, ready to be used in my soap!

And I have almond milk!

Silk!

When one of my soap newsletters had a recipe with silk in it I was intrigued!  So of course I had to order some and make it.  It really is actually SILK in the soap.  You dissolve it in water and it adds a silkiness to the soap.

It comes packaged like this and I use only about 1/4 of a cotton ball size of it for a 2lb recipe.

I've torn the silk up into small pieces and added it to the water. I'll mix it up a bit and it'll eventually dissolve.

Foot Balm

This was so much fun to make!  And it’s pure heaven on the feet!  What went into the foot balm you ask?  A bunch of luxurious ingredients! That’s what.

Ingredients:  Shea Butter, Beeswax, Jojoba Oil, Fragrance Oil (optional Dry Flo AF)

Note: This balm is oily and heavy (it’s meant to nourish your feet!).  I’d suggest putting socks on after using this because you will “slide” a bit.  If you don’t like the thick oily feel Dry Flo AF can be added to this recipe to reduce the oily-ness and impart a drier powdery feel.

Dry Flo AF is a modified corn starch.

The balm took a little bit more work to make.  First we had to weight out the solid ingredients then melt them.

Once they were melted we then added the other liquid ingredients.  The cool liquids going into the warm oils creates a cool solid effect.

Once everything was mixed (and melted) all together we added the fragrance oil.  I chose to do the same fragrance as  the foot scrub (White Citrus) but Audry used Vanilla Verbena and I have to say that fragrance is awesome too!  And it pairs with White Citrus REALLY well!  Once the oils are all mixed it’s time to pour it into our container.  I used a nice glass jar.

Then once you let it cool, it’s all ready to use!

I added pretty labels after it cooled to make my scrub and balm look like a set!

Lanolin

What is Lanolin: Lanolin is a refined derivative of the unctuous fat-like sebaceous secretion of sheep. It is obtained from the wax found on sheep’s wool; refined and purified to cosmetic specifications. It is widely used in cosmetic and skin treatment products including lip and body balms, lotions, skin creams, baby products.

What are its properties: Lanolin is a natural moisturizer with powerful emollient and protective properties. Lanolin helps prevent drying and chapping of the skin.

My thoughts:
When I first got my lanolin I looked at it and went okay…I’m going to put this in soap?  It just didn’t look all “yummy” and soap-material like.  When I opened the jar and got a whiff of it I had even more doubts.  It has a distinct odor…but I went ahead with using it.  My recipe only called for a small amount–it only made up about 5% of the recipe’s ingredients…and once it melted with the other oils the odor wasn’t so bad.  I added a bit extra fragrance oil, just to be on the safe side.  The bar has cured nicely so far.  It doesn’t smell like the lanolin either.  I am curious to see if the odor comes through at all when it’s wet.

I am really interested to see the characteristics this bar has too.  Everyone raves about it’s moisturizing properties and that it’s such a great emollient, so I hope it lives up to the high praise!

Arrowroot Powder

My parents went on a cruise recently and they were at some island in the Caribbean (no I can’t remember which one, I’m awful with names!) known for its spices. My mom sent me a text asking if I wanted any spices. “Um, heck yeah!” I love to bake. I enjoy cooking well enough and the thought of fresh spices to bake/cook with! Then not two seconds after that thought my mind goes to…can’t you guess? SOAP!!!

I started typing a return text with a list of all the spices I wanted, wracking my brain for all the spices I could remember off the top of my head that I wanted for soap making (my list was at home and at the time I was at work.) I vaguely remember reading something about arrowroot powder so I put it down…figured I could figure out exactly what it could be used for later.

When my parents returned home and gave me my spices it included this HUGE bottle of arrowroot powder! (See picture) Apparently my wonderful dad went into pharmacies and stores looking for it when they couldn’t find it in the spice market for me! Awwww. Thanks Dad! I figured since he went to all that effort to find me the powder I needed to figure out how I was going to use it!

Lots of Arrowroot!

So, out came the soap books…my fingers got busy searching the web and I found a fair amount of useful information! Questions I asked and found answers to:

What is Arrowroot Powder?

Arrowroot Powder: A natural powdered root starch that is white in color and very light in weight from the genus of plant Maranta arundinacea. Arrowroot powder is used as a thickening and stabilizing agent in food preparations, as a base for some of your body care formulations, and it is the main foundation for most body powders.

How can it be used in soap?

Arrowroot powder can be used for soap making as well as as one of the ingredients in your bath & body powders or all by itself as a soothing body & bath powder. Just add your own scent or leave unscented, and use as is.

I found this piece of information on a chat board (someone was writing about her experience) and I just thought it really interesting and I think I might try it next time I make a shaving soap!

I have horribly sensitive skin. Whenever I shave my legs, I get a rash. I added it to my base when I stumbled upon a soap recipe from a supplier. I never thought to add something like this to base. I have only used it in powders. Anyway, I sifted the arrowroot powder into my base. This is the same base that I have always used. No more rashes of any kind happened to me. I tried without it again to see if it was a fluke and it was not. I have used the same brand of razors too. I cannot explain why it helped me. It just did. My guess is that it is soothing, the same way that it is in a powder I guess. Perhaps it is just me, but I love the feel and the fact that for whatever reason, I have no rashes on my legs. Oatmeal never worked for me or other soothing agents for that matter. I noticed no difference in the lather or the razor glide. It is all about the apparent soothing affect that it has on my skin.

And lastly I found this recipe (which isn’t a soap bar…but I’m still really tempted to try!)