November 3, 1998

I got to try some new goodies today. First off, I decided to try to make some plain castile-type soap with no scent, color, etc. I also wanted to make some fun soap. So, I made two batches!

Keep in mind that I started out at about 9:30 at night with getting my stuff all together. I calculated my recipes (I think I'm in love with the MMS calculator) and set out to make mondo soap.

First off, I mixed up my lye-water for both batches. It was the same amount of water and lye for each so that part was easy. Mixed one batch up in the pitcher, poured it into a glass measuring cup, then mixed the other in the pitcher, and left both batches on the porch to cool.

For the oils, first I melted the oils for my castile. I decided to use 75% olive and 25% coconut (for hardness and lather). So I got that all melted up, put it into my 8 qt. mixing bowl on the back of the stove to stay warm. Then I started melting my 2nd batch of oils, which had beeswax, olive, and coconut, so while the beeswax was melting down I prepared my molds. I used one 2.5" length of gutter (lined with saran wrap) and two pyrex dishes lined with saran wrap for molds. I also have two plastic round tubes that I found at a surplus store, which I lined with freezer paper, but I ended up not using them.

I finally figured out how to get the coconut oil out of the container without breaking my spoon trying to dig it out, too. Just put the entire tub in a sink full of hot water! It melts right up, then I can just scoop or pour the oil out.

So when I got the oils for the second batch mostly melted, I turned off the heat and let it sit to melt the rest of the wax, and retrieved one of my batches of lye-water. I mixed the lye-water into the mixing bowl gently with my wooden spoon (which is starting to look a little thinner than it used to), then grabbed my new stick blender that I got for $10 at Wally World this past weekend. IT TRACED WITHIN MINUTES! I was shocked. I was sitting there with the blender, la la la, when I lifted my spoon to make sure all of the stuff was integrated, and it had traced! Whoa. I thought olive oil-based soaps were supposed to take forever to trace, and in the past they have taken a long time for me, but this stuff was literally traced within about five minutes. So I poured that all into the gutter mold, covered it with some more saran wrap, and put it out on the porch wrapped in a towel to stay warm.

Then I moved on to the second batch. I poured the oils out of the stock pot into my new 13-qt. mixing bowl (which is HUGE!) and then slowly integrated the remaining lye-water solution with my faithful wooden spoon. Then I grabbed the stick blender again and went at it. Again, it traced within minutes! I was shocked again. I knew the stick blenders were good but I didn't know they were *that* good. I'll never go back to my hand mixer again :) So it traced within minutes, and that kind of worried me because I wanted to use a vanilla fragrance oil (and FOs can seize soaps up). It was thick pudding trace too, not even light trace. So I mixed some sweet almond oil (my superfatting agent) up with the FO and stuck it in the microwave for 20 seconds, just enough to warm it up. Then I mixed that in with the wooden spoon, which took a little more effort but I think it was worth it because my soap didn't seize. I also added white mica to the mix -- about a teaspoonful, sprinkled in a bit at a time to avoid lumps. I got that all blended up nicely, then scooped several spoonfuls into a glass measuring cup to reserve, and split the rest into the two pyrex dishes. Then I took the reserved stuff, dumped it back into the mixing bowl (where I should have just left it in the first place), and started mixing in copper mica until I got a nice browny color with lots of sparkle. I took the coppery soap and dropped blobs of it on top of the stuff in the pyrex dishes and started to swirl it. Initially I was swirling with my wooden spoon but that started to stir it in instead of swirl it in, so I switched to using a wooden chopstick (which worked really well). Then I smoothed out the tops, covered them with saran wrap, stacked one on top of the other (using an old cracked nylon cutting board in-between) and put them out on the porch all wrapped in a towel.

I started cleaning up (and it's kind of a mess after two separate 3-lb batches of soaps!) and was totally done by 10:30 and in bed by a quarter to eleven! That stick blender sure saved me a ton of time!

So now I'm just waiting to see how the swirls turn out... hopefully it'll be interesting. If nothing else it'll be sparkly soap. :)