Silver Angel Soap

I can only say that my soap will “cleanse you”, but…

I know I can only tout that my soap will get you clean, but the ingredients incorporated into this soap are very medicinal! Let me break it down for you.

The recipe is as follows: 45% olive, 25% coconut, 30% palm oil, 5% lye discount. After running through a lye calculator, the water requirement for a 32 ounce batch was 10.56 ounces. I used just enough rainwater to make a strong lye solution, the rest I would add as silver after mixing oils and lye solution. My oils/lye temperature was 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

The silver I used was not colloidal nor nano (way too expensive), but rather ionized silver electronically combined in fulvic acid. This combination enhances tissue bioavailability, so says the literature. Silver is an incredible antimicrobial. Hippocrates wrote about the healing properties of this wonderful metal.

I used Red Palm Oil for its healing powers. It was so valued as a healing oil that Pharaohs were entombed with it. Literature today tells us that this oil has all the components of vitamin E, essential fatty acids, vitamin A, carotenes, which makes it yellow, and so many other nutrients that you can explore on the Net. With all that Red Palm Oil has to offer, it’s little wonder that it’s an antioxidant.

Rose Geranium was added, not for its fragrance, which is quite pleasant, but because it actually helps the skin. As an astringent it detoxifies and regenerates and has been used to treat eczema, broken skin capillaries and dermatitis.

Both olive and coconut oil have healing properties as well but they make up the base oil of most soaps.

It was a relative easy soap to make and went to trace quickly after adding the Rose Geranium oil. After drying, we’ll see if it “cleans” as well as any other bar of soap. 😀

Opus Shampoo Bar…sort of.

August 16th, 2015 made shampoo following the Opus Shampoo Bar recipe I found on greatcakessoapworks.com site. I lacked a few of the ingredients so I used regular olive oil instead of pomace, hempseed oil instead of rice bran oil and mango butter instead of Shea and cocoa butter. Geez, I guess it’s not Opus anymore…

I started out by boiling the beer, on low for about 10 minutes to decrease volume and remove the CO2. I also froze the aloe juice but later melted it because I didn’t want room temperature lye water. The liquid percentage was 50/50.

I also used some of the Rosemary soaked olive oil I had left from a previous batch. It wasn’t much, only an ounce or two but what the heck. Rosemary is supposed to be good for the hair.

2% avocado, 5% castor, 27% coconut, 7% hempseed, 24% lard, 5% mango butter, 29% olive, 1% or actually 0.77% stearic acid.

Since it’s a shampoo bar, I also added 7 grams citric acid per pound of oil to help lower the pH and 4.5 grams of DL panthenol per pound of oil to add nourishment.

Yes, I recycle everything for my soaping; even chicken liver containers! (The chicken livers were for my dog, Panini) So, after adding the dry lye to the frozen beer, I then added the aloe and the temperature increased. Into ice bath it went.

After mixing the oils and lye water together at 127 degrees, it seemed to reach trace, but I wasn’t going to be fooled by false trace. So, I continued to stick blend until pudding stage.

This recipe molded up nicely and the next day I was able to cut. No stickiness and firm enough to handle without denting. The smell is lovely and I can’t wait to use this bar.

Definitely not what I had in mind!

“Best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.” 

Yes, this is weird, like a blue crab or Picasso on drugs, or how the primordial sea must have looked. Sometimes I try too many different things during the same soaping session and this is what you get!

So I wanted to use four oils, 34% olive, 30% coconut, 30% tallow and 6% castor. I used 39%rainwater and 61% aloe Vera juice and snuck in 0.73% stearic acid to harden up the bar. Oh, and a pinch of Tussah silk to rainwater just before adding the 6% lye, followed by the aloe Vera juice that I froze over night.

What went wrong? Well let’s see. I attempted five “natural” colors, using a teaspoon of olive oil soaked alkanet root, a tablespoon or so of rain water soaked alkanet root, gold mica, charcoal and a pinch of reduced indigo powder.

I mixed oils and lye water at around 110 degrees. Too low, maybe? Instead of pouring the added colors INTO the partitioned soap, I already had them in the containers so I lost control of how light or dark I wanted them. Then I totally forgot to dilute the reduced indigo in water first before adding it to the container. Next thing I know, heavy trace sets in! So I have to layer via spoonfuls into my mold and while I was rushing to do so, I forgot my fragrance oil! This actually turned out to be a good thing since I saved the fragrance for a more respectable soap.

After filling mold and pounding on the floor to remove pockets of air, I insulated with a towel and put to bed.

Next day I cut the soap and nearly lost my breakfast! What the heck happened here!

I sure hope this…thing, lathers up in 6 weeks or it is headed for the recycle bin. I have a heaping full recycle bin! If it has a nice lather, well then we’ll keep it all in the family…hidden, in a drawer along with other unmentionables…soap, that is.

To gel or not to gel…that is the question.

I always liked the look of the non gelled soap, but since I moved to Florida I’ve had a run of bad luck. Some really nice soaps ruined by partial gel. Bummer.

What I have learned is that the taller my soap, the greater the chance of center gel. I had placed this soap in the freezer overnight, removed in the morning and then let it rest for the day. On the third morning I cut the loaf and my heart sunk. Yes, I got lazy. I should have placed my mold in the freezer before hand, I should have filled my mold less and poured the extra soap in my standby single flower molds and probably left it in the freezer an extra day.

My next batch was a facial bar using 35% olive, 23% coconut, 18% avocado, 12% cocoa butter, 6% castor, 6% jojoba. I threw in 0.7% stearic acid. I used  tsp of Dead Sea mud, true mud not powder, added to my oils. My batch size was 34 ounces and I used 156 grams of frozen goats milk in cubes and 164 grams of rain water to dissolve my lye. Sorry for the switch in measurements but I’m really liking the grams. Seems so much more accurate. I round up or down for the fractions. I used a 6% lye discount. All my oils go in at once. The last time I saved a butter or exotic oil to add at trace, the soaps looked awful and seemed oily. It’s an art I’ve yet to perfect because soapers do it all the time with great success.

I don’t often add fragrance to my facial or shave soaps but I mixed together 9 grams of lavender, 9 grams of Rose geranium and 6 grams of tea tree. All essential oils. I soaped when lye and oils were around 120 degrees and when blended, after essential oils added and I could tell the oils would not separate, I poured a small amount into another container and added charcoal powder. It was strange that the charcoal seemed to stay soupy while the main batch reached light trace. I did an ITPS (in the pot swirl) and poured into my cardboard, parchment lined tube and the rest went into the flower molds.

I wrapped the tube loosely because I could feel the heat and I didn’t want it to volcano. The single molds I popped into the freezer.

Look at the difference! I love the creamy look of the dragon mold and the unmolded flowers below it compared to the upper round soaps. Am I wrong? I guess it’s all a matter of preference.

Just unmolded flowers and I really like their creamy look.

Dead Sea Mud Soap

Back in New England I was given a bag of Dead Sea Mud from a friend who had recently returned from Israel. The back instructions were written in English, German, Hebrew and Russian. When I stumbled on a recipe with this mud included, I had to try it out.

Okay so this mud is supposed to be rich in CA, Zn, Mg, K, S, P, Na, L, B, Br, Sr, and Mn. Come on…you remember the ol’ elemental table don’t you? Let’s just say this stuff is loaded. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth (wouldn’t that be sea level?) and its mud has 26 essential minerals 12 of which exist no where else on earth! No wonder my bones ache, my memory sucks, my eyes are foggy and my nose at times is runny for no reason what so ever, just like an Old Fogey! Or, maybe not…an Old Fogey is quite different than an old fart but I’d rather be the former.

So, my recipe was 40% olive, 25% coconut, 15% tallow, 7% unrefined Shea butter, 7% castor oil and 6% avocado oil, 6% lye S/F, I doubled my lye total to get my rain water total, 3 tablespoons mud, 0.5 oz Lavender E/O and approximately 0.2 oz spearmint E/O. I soaped at a cool 81-88 degrees F only because I mixed my lye/water solution yesterday. Soaping at that low temp gave me a false trace but I didn’t let it fool me. I kept sticking blending the stuff till it suddenly turned into soft mashed potatoes, yikes! Quickly poured off a cup or two for topping, added fragrance and a little water soluble indigo that a premixed with a tablespoon of water.

Well, as you would expect, it was like hot processed soap getting it into the mold! I pounded the mold on the floor, spooned the saved topping and put in my cardboard box with heating pad and towel wrap.

I forgot to turn the heating pad off before bed and at four A.M. I jumped out of bed and ran to cut the bars before they were too hard to pass through my wire cutter.

12 Essential Minerals that exist nowhere else on Earth! 26 total!

Results: loss of fragrance due to prolonged heating pad, air bubbles from thick trace and steep water discount but plan on making more!

 

Third Times a Charm!

“This soap’s too crumbly! This soap’s too mushy! This soap is just right!”

Who knew Olive Oil soap, aka, Castile, would be so difficult to make! However, when there is a will, there is a way, and I refused to give up. Now, my problem has always been that I can’t just stick to the recipe. I must tweak, add, alter, improve upon the tried and true recipes and most often with dire consequences.

On my first attempt, I had some left over maddar root infused olive oil so I thought that might add an interesting color. I think I even threw in some French Green Clay. The result was a chalky, half gelled bar that crumbles easily. The maddar root offered nothing and the clay most likely made it crumble. Since I didn’t write the addition down, duh, I don’t know how much I used…and sadly, even if I used it!

My next attempt had me using, 32 oz olive oil, 4.05 lye @ 6%, 12.15 oz rainwater, 0.7 oz Lavender E/O and some mongrel brand of Rosemary E/O at 0.3 oz. I mixed at 108 degrees F. Well two days later, still no trace…okay a gross exaggeration but you know what I mean. Finally, fearing stick blender burnout, I reached what looked like a thin trace and poured it into my silicone loaf mold and stuck it in the oven preheated to 170 degrees. Once in the oven, I turned it off and waited 15 minutes, looked for gel and turned the oven back on when gel not reached. This on again off again ordeal went on for about an hour when I finally gave up, took it out of the oven, wrapped it in a towel and went to bed. In the morning, it was a soft sticky loaf so I covered it back up and waited another day. Day two, no change. Disgusted, I carefully unmolded and sliced it. It was like slicing flan! Visually it looked like a lemon sponge cake with powdered sugar frosting and a not so smooth texture most likely from my mongrel Rosemary E/O ricing.

Third attempt was right on! I used 32 oz olive oil, some of which I had soaked calendula petals in, 4.15 oz lye at 4.5% SF, a mere 8.24 rainwater, 1.5 oz Lavender E/O and lastly, mixed at 122 degrees F. I put my bowl on top of a heating pad already set on low and stick blended until I reached a medium trace! Woo Hoo! I actually reached a trace without blender burn out! Poured into my log mold, wrapped in towels, placed on same heating pad and all went into a cardboard box. I turned off the heating about four hours before calling it a night. In the morning, nice firm loaf that was easy to unmold and cut. Success at last…