#coldprocesssoap

Been really wanting to get into making cold process soap recently, and I recently managed to get my hands on everything I needed. (I'm still waiting on some stuff in the mail but I couldn't wait to get started.) I wasn't sure if I should post this here, had quite a few mishaps, but I shouldn't be afraid to show my mistakes, it's all part of the process.

I didn't really wanna use palm oil so I substituted cocoa butter for it. (Tho I accidentally used too much, I think.)

So my recipe was kinda just thrown together by me, based on what I could get and what was relatively cheap. I could have and probably should have done a bit more research and planning but you know, hindsight is 20/20.

I'm not posting it here for anyone to follow, I just feel like I should so I (and maybe other people) can learn from it.

Recipe

30% Olive oil - 90g

30% Coconut oil - 90g

30% Cocoa butter - 90g

10% Almond oil - 30g

39-40% Lye solution - 40-41g for 101g water

20 drops of vanilla perfume oil

I had problems getting the lye out of the container (my spoon didn't fit), and I had to try my best to tip it slowly into the cap. My scale is also quite inaccurate, so for my next batch I have ordered a new, more accurate scale. I did get some on my arms, but as soon as I noticed any itching I immediately rinsed it as well as I could.

Please say hello to my wonderful setup:

I weighed everything out as best I could, microwaved the cocoa butter and coconut oil, and added it all to one big beaker.

Glass and Lye Safety Note:

This is borosilicate glass, so it's much more resistant that conventional glass. However, this doesn't mean that it is completely inert when put up against high concentrations of NaOH. I am going to switch to a Polyethylene container to mix everything in the future.

Anyway, I hand mixed everything for about an hour I believe. I probably could have stopped earlier, I was just paranoid about whether or not everything was incorporated. I am going to use a stick blender next time.

I actually made a little more than needed for the mold it turns out. I tried mixing in some pigment while it's in the mold, but that wasn't such a great idea, as it would turn out later.

The next day

I unmolded it two days later, I probably should've given it some more time, I'm not sure. Evidently, I immediately started messing around with one of them like play dough, forgot to take a pic before doing so tho.

I also need to get another container to mix the soap and the pigment, so that it isn't as uneven as it is here.

For some reason the backs were also really... crumbly, idk. Was it cause I forgot to take it out of direct sunlight? I read that you should take soap out of direct sunlight but nothing on the internet ever really said what direct sunlight would do. Or maybe it's cause of the large cocoa butter content?

I was unhappy with the green bar as well so I continued messing around with the two play dough bars, pressing them into the mold and just generally messing around with them. I tried adding pigment as well, to see how well it would incorporate.

This is where I'm leaving them now.(I cover them up to protect them from any sunlight, this is just to take a pic) I'm not sure what the discoloration in the bars is about, especially the one on the right, but oh well.

I'll post a final update in a couple weeks on how the soaps turned out. The soap that got onto my hand was honestly quite good, very bubbly and my hands didn't feel extremely dry afterward.

While researching what might've gone wrong I figured out that my 30% cocoa butter was too much and that it would prob make the soap brittle. I'll hold off final thoughts until its done curing though.