Susanne's Crafty
Corner: Cosmetics
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Petitgrain
Cupcake Soap
This soap has been made with
olive oil and a bit of soap from a previous batch, I used the alternate method to make it. After
that it has been rebatched with some milk, sweet almond oil for
superfatting, petitgrain essential oil for scent and turmeric for
the golden yellow color. The two pieces in front also have a bit of bran
added for scrubbing. I think I'll use a bit less of that in the future,
though. The soap from a larger and flatter mould broke after a couple of
times of use due to this amount. |
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Base soap batch 1
This base soap is made with 350 g palm oil, 875 g soybean oil, 100 g
olive oil, 175 g lye and 440 g of water. Due to the palm oil this base
soap has a rather yellow color. Therefore I think I will use it for
soaps with a scent that'll combine well with it. Orange and coriander
might be nice.
Update:
The soybean oil appears to be not
a hard oil: the soap is terribly mushy! On the Handcrafted Soap Net
forum I was told to look here
to find out what other peoples experiences are when using liquid soybean
oil as base oil. That's my soap they're describing there! No more
soybean oil for me. |
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Peppermint soap with green swirl
This is the first tallow based and traditional DBHP soap I've made, and
also the first in which I used coconut and castor for better lathering.
Lather is really great compared with my previous all-olive soaps. The
recipe I used was: Olive 250 g, Castor 30 g, Coconut 100 g,
Tallow 500 g, Hazelnut 100 g. I scented it with peppermint oil. The bars
turned out nice and hard with the swirl through and through. The first
day I smelled a very faint tallow scent but that wore off. Quite pleased
with this one so I think I'll be making this recipe more often.
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Rosemary
soap
This soap (DBHP) I made for Mother's Day with this recipe; 390 g beef
tallow, 100 g of coconut, hazelnut and olive oil, 90 g sunflower seed
oil, 30 g of castor oil, 112 g lye (4 % discount) and 270 g water. After
boil I added 50 g of warm coconut milk for more superfatting and creamy
feeling. The marble effect was done with a bit of turmeric. I really
like the feel and lather of this soap, even better then the peppermint
soap! Next time I should use more EO, though: the rosemary is so faint
it is hardly noticeable. Too bad with a soap that's otherwise so nice!
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Camomille Castille
Soap
I HP'd this castille with 92% olive oil and 8% castor oil, at 7% lye
discount. I used chamomille infused olive oil for it and strong
chamomille tea to mix with the lye. I didn't add any coloring or scent,
just a bit of grounded chamomille for tiny flecks in the soap. My
sister-in-law has quite severe eczema outbreaks once in a while and I
hope this soap works better for her then commercial soaps. Although I
must say that when I used the soap this morning, it had a tiny bit more
"squeek" then with the tallow soaps I made previously. I guess I'll just
have to wait for her to test some. |
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Cream Vanilla Fudge Soap
This soap has an almost translucent warm brown color and smells like,
well cream vanilla fudge! I'm afraid I can't tell you the recipe since
this actually is a "rescue batch". I tried to make shampoo bars the
other day with 150 g olive, 150 g coconut, 100
g castor and 60 g jasmine oil (the cheap kind). It behaved so strange!
It had trace before I could turn on the stickblender and gel (DBHP) only
2 minutes after that. And it hardly lathered! I think it turned out a
bit oil-heavy.
So, I made a new batch of soap with only 300 g sunflower seed oil at 0%
lye discount. Then I added the grated "shampoo bars" and all the other
bits and pieces of soap I had lying around. I used a bit of sodium
citrate to see if it would really work to reduce the "bath tub ring" and
I also added coconut milk and whipping cream. The cream probably gave it
the nice color. For scent I used vanilin powder. This soap is so yummie!
Not bad for a rescue batch.
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Avocado Citrus Soap
I was wondering whether I could use something "fresh" in the soap and I
had a ripe avacado... In this recipe I also tried out beef shortening
instead of regular tallow because the package said it was 100% beef fat.
I used 650 g (62.5%) of the beef shortening, 150 g (14.4%) coconut oil,
100 g (9.6%) soybean oil, 100 g (9.6%) sunflower seed oil, and 40 g (3.8%) cacao butter. At 7% lye
discount I had 141.5 g lye and 347 g water.
Somewhere between rolling boil and gel I added 100 g (about 8.5 % of
oils) of mashed avocado. This made the mixture brownish and it went
further into separation. That made me think of putting the stick blender
to it again: this made it go into gel immediately! At that point I added
some dried lemon peel, a bit of lemon oil and petitgrain EO. I tested some new sand moulds I got from the toy
store. Not using them again: The size and shape is nice but the plastic
so damn thick it pretty hard to get the soap out in 1 piece. They are
all more or les damaged...
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Infused Oil Facial Soap
This was really a weird behaving batch: I infused olive oil with
ginger, chamomile and a bit of thyme with the method described here.
The recipe consisted of 600 g infused olive oil, 200 g hazelnut oil,
130 g tallow and 70 g castor oil. I combined this with 130 g lye (5%
discount) and 333 g lemongrass tea.
I hbegan
with perfect trace, put down the blender and when I looked at the pot
again, the soap tried to get out! I stirred it back in and put the pan
in the larger one on the stove. It stayed there for over 2 hours it just
wouldn't get out of separation and into gel! Even did it direct heat for
about 20 minutes without any change. It
was only after I added a bit of milk that the stuff went into gel, then
I added 2 T of clay mixed with 30 g of hazelnut oil for superfatting and
purifying. I really hope all the goodies from the herbs I used aren't
gone because of the long cooking, the scent didn't make it through
though.
After I unmoulded the soap it turned out to be terribly soft, this did
enable me to push in some lemongrass on the top, which makes the
appearance a lot better. Guess I'll just have to let it dry a bit more
and then it'll be a lovely soap. For the half I couldn't get it out of
the mould in one piece (impatient me!), just read on below.
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Orange Coffee Kitchen Soap
I decided to remelt the soap I couldn't unmould in one piece, this way
I could perhaps get rid of some of the excess fluids. This rebatching
didn't go very eventfull, I just melted the stuff into gell, added 1 T
of orange oil and 2 T of finely ground espresso coffee. Coffee in soap
is said to wash away smells like garlic and onions on your hands;
perfect for in the kitchen!
Upon unmoulding this soap was also still very soft, so up the closet it
went to dry out. Just forget it's there for a couple of weeks and then
take a peek. Looks and smells lovely though.
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Cream Coconut
Banana Pie Soap
I
wanted to make another batch of "food soap", this time with banana,
coconut milk and a bit of vanilla. Problem was that I didn't have banana
scent... I did find a never used bottle of banana flavouring which
smelled quite strong. So I decided to give this a try.
I used beef tallow
61,9%, coconut 14,3%, castor 4,8% sunflower 19,0%, lye at 5 %
discount and the advised amount of water according to my calculator.
During separation I added (warmed) coconut milk at 30%
off the amount of water. It took a while to go into gel so I took the
stickblender to it and it was soap immediately after that. Split batch.
To larger amount I added warmed mashed bananas at 10% off oils, and
colored it with a bit of turmeric. Then I let it cool a bit and added
the banana flavouring. To the other part I added vanilline crystals.
First poured banana part, then the
uncolored part on top to resemble whipped cream.
As you see the turmeric turned brownish on me again instead of yellow,
but for the rest: it smells like banana and vanilla! (Doing the happy
soaper dance)
Update:
Too bad but after a couple of weeks sitting the part with the vanilla in
it turned brown after all... It seems to be that most vanilla's as well
as FO blends with vanilla in them turn soap brown.
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