I started to make some more soaps recently. And I also made a new wooden soap mold too. This one is attached together and folds up to form the mold. The only thing I didn’t add to this picture is the wooden lid.

This size suits me best since I make very small batches. The small size also makes it easier to store and pack away.

It’s a really cool design that allows me to release the soaps easily. Even with one hand. This is for a 1 pound batch which yields about 6 bars.

Wood working is kind of like sewing with all the measure, cut, and assembly. But much more of a work out to saw most of the wood myself. Unlike fabrics which are really light and easy to work with. But I did have plenty help on the tricky parts.

Note: This is the formula to figure out how much oil (volume) you need for your mold.
V = L x W x H

Ever since I heard about the benefits of neem I wanted to make my own neem soap. I’ve tried many other neem soaps made with neem oil, but the scent was just too strong to use on a daily basis.

It’s been known that all parts of the plant has medicinal qualities, I decided to use the more pleasant smelling neem leaf.

My neem soap is made with some really great ingredients. Besides the neem leaf powder, I’ve included licorice powder for it’s skin brightening qualities. Other ingredients include extra virgin coconut oil, which I consider to be the most premium of all vegetable oils. Not only is it a healthy oil, but it’s a great ingredient for skincare, from lotion to soaps.

Even though this soap is unscented, it does have a very herbal and grassy scent.

The white ashy part on top is a natural occurrence of handmade soap. It will just wash off after the first use.

It’s a good size bar weighing about 3.5 to 4 oz bar. The herbal powders provide a mild exfoliation. It would be okay to use daily as body soap but once a week as facial soap.

Pukka Herbs note, “The roots, bark, leaves and seeds all have medicinal properties and are used for a multitude of purposes; in Sanskrit it is known as sarva roga nivarini, which means ‘the curer of all ailments.”

Since I just love the creaminess of milk soap, I decided to make another goat milk soap, but this time adding wine. I was inspired by the wine soaps of Napa County.

Instead of California wine, I used sangria. This was a bottled sangria from Spain. I also added sweet orange essential oil to enhance the citrus factor of the sangria.

Photo: My handmade sangria wine soaps posing along with two pretty snapdragon blossoms. The little speckles are from beet root powder. It’s another ingredient to add to the antioxidant mix.

Before adding the wine, many soap maker would recommend cooking out the alcohol part of the wine. But I just pour the wine and let it sit for a while.

The steps are like making regular CP soap. But near the end, I added 2 oz of wine. The mixture started heating up really fast. Even after I poured into the wooden mold, it stayed warm for some time. Because of this, you don’t have to insulate the soap mold. Just let in sit (in the closet) undisturbed for 24 hours.

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This is from my notebook on soapmaking. I forgot to write down who suggested it, otherwise I would give them credit.  But I guess this type of information can also be found here too.

In soapmaking, once you get comfortable with the properties of each oil, you can always start to come up with your own recipe. It’s personal preferences as well.

This is the sunflower oil I use for soapmaking.  I like that it’s high in vitamin E - as that helps protect against going rancid.  But I’ve made soap without this oil and there are no signs of rancidity either.  But extra vitamin E is extra good anyway.

Properties of Oil:

Palm, Tallow, and Lard gives a hard, stable, and long lasting bar of soap.

Coconut, castor, and palm kernal oil lends lathering (lots of good bubbles).

Olive oil, canola, sunflower, and soybean are moisturizing and conditioning.

Cocoa butter, shea butter, almond oil, hemp oil, jojoba oil, avocado oil, sweet almond kernal oil: These are considered to be the luxury super moisturizing oils. It’s best to use 1 oz per 1 lb batch at trace. This is called “superfatted” soap. The extra oils will not saponify, but will add extra moisturizing ability and more.

A good soap recipe usually consist of these percentages of oils:

25 % Palm oil, 25 % coconut oil, 25 % olive oil, 15 % canola oil, and 10% sunflower.

Commercial soap maker user 80-90% tallow or palm oil and 10-20 % coconut oil.  I think that makes it more drying as well.  Adding more soft oils give the soap a more creamy finish.  Btu soap looses it’s firmness as larger percentages of soft oils are used.

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I’ve heard of beeswax but never of floral waxes until now.  Floral wax is not beeswax, it is the solid, fragrant, creamy wax derived from flower petals.

Snowdrift Farms describes the process of obtaining floral wax by freshly picking and selecting flower heads which are then mixed with a solvent to produce a concrete.  When mixed with high proof alcohol and then chilled, the concrete separates into a fragrant liquid and a waxy solid.

Jasmine floral wax photo from Natural Sourcing

Floral waxes are usually produced from delicate flowers such as jasmine, lotus and tuberose.  Photo of this pretty and highly fragrant tuberose from from flickr.
Floral waxes are used to add color to creams, solid perfumes, lotions, soaps, and candles. It lends thickness and a beautiful aroma to your end product. These waxes hold many of the benefits of the botanical including the moisturizing phospholipids.  Recommended use rate is up to 10%.

Nature’s Gift Aromatherapy advises that adding to cold process soap yields a slightly harder bar. The deeply colored waxes will also add a hint of color to your soap base.  Of course fragrance too.

The retail for about $10 to $20 per ounce.  That sounds pricey to me, but I think a little goes a long way.  And they are considered less expensive than absolutes.

As for measuring, Nature’s Gift also suggest you need just a few grams for a recipe.  Just shave off a few curls with a potato peeler, add to your warming carrier oils.  That sounds simple enough.

I look forward to making sold perfumes, CP soaps, and candles with these floral waxes.  Jasmine sounds the best since tuberose is much too fragrant for me.

For the longest time I could not get myself to try M & P (melt & pour) soapmaking.  I think it’s because the idea seem too simple.  And the varieties of mold were so limiting.  And there just didn’t seem to be that anticipation of seeing your soap “cook” on it’s own like with CP soapmaking.

But after seeing all these neat and creative M&P soaps from Etsy, I now have a change of heart.

These mouth watering sushi soaps were made by BunnyBubbles, on sale at Etsy $15.  Check out the pickled ginger and wasabi too.

These cute looking cupcake soaps definitely looks good enough to eat!  This was made by SoapStore, on sale at Etsy for $4.50.

The world of soapmaking and crafts is only limited by the way you think.  And all these soaps are such an inspiration.

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To continue with my latest hot process soap post, I used an empty juice container for my soap mold. Now I have little bars cut out of my hot process soaps. I imprinted them lightly with a leaf, it’s suppose to be an “olive leaf”. I call this my “Olive Leaf Luxury” bar since I used a combination of 5 very moisturizing vegetable oils (and no palm oil). I am trying to experiment without palm oil and see how the bars hold up. The basic recipe usually calls for 3 combination of oils. This bar also has goat milk powder and olive leaf extract.

Total amount of oils is 32 oz for my 4 quart crock pot. This was recommended as you do not want it to boil over if it’s too much for the pot. Or burn the pot if the batch is too small. I cooked my soap in the crock pot for 1 hr. You can tell it’s ready when it starts to look like Vaseline. Take a tiny bit between your fingers and rub it together, if it’s grainy then it’s not done cooking. But if it’s smooth, then you are finish. Start washing you hands and you will find tiny little bubbles.

Healthy looking green olives are used to make olive oil and the leaves have many health benefits. Photo by Gaia Herbs.

This bar has a very silky lather with lots of bubbles and slightly nutty aroma, plus my hint of peppermint essential oil. It’s still very soft now, but it should harden up by a week.

Percentage used:
Avocado Oil 15.38
Grapeseed Oil 15.38
Rice Bran Oil 23.08
Soybean Oil 30.77
Sunflower Oil 15.38

Sorry I won’t be adding any instructions here as I think there are many resources available in print and online. Some great soapmaking books are listed under my Resources page. Great pictures and tutorial from Zen Soaps here.  Thanks. Read the rest of this entry »