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Put a
small glass in the refrigerator, later on this will be used to test the
clarity of the soap
Use a stick blender to mix the
oils and lye. Make sure the temperatures of oils and lye solutions are
about the same.The traced soap will be very thick and a bit
pudding-like. For this tutorial I used a recipe with 50% olive, 31.5%
coconut, 15% castor and 3.5% stearic acid. Normally I wouldn't think of
using such a high percentage of coconut oil and I don't know how my skin
will react to it. Only one way to find out, aye?!
Despite the high amount of olive oil the mixture traced after only 20
seconds with the stick blender. Then added the molten stearic acid at
which it almost instantly turned to pudding.
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Next, cook
the soap with the preferred method of HP. You could use crock-pot,
double boiler etc. I prefer to put the soap in the oven. When done test
the soap for zap. If it zaps stir in a small amount of water (talking
teaspoons here) and cook the soap a bit longer. if it still zaps after
that add a tiny bit of oils and let cook again for a few minutes. Repeat
until your mixture is completely soap.
To recognise whether the soap
is ready I refer to this DBHP tutorial
when you don’t have any HP experience yet. In the pic at the left you
can see how this batch looked when ready.This soap was fast! I went to stir it after 11
minutes in the oven and it was done!
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When the soap is done, remove it from the source of heat and
add the half of the alcohol & the full amount of glycerin. Scrape
the sides of the pot well, but don’t stir too much as this causes the
alcohol to evaporate.
I my case I put the soap in a bigger pot before adding the glycerin and
alcohol since only the small pot fits in my oven.
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Some people put up a “tent” over the pot to prevent the
alcohol from evaporating. I think this is too much of a hassle and
prefer to add additional alcohol when needed. Just use a tight fitting
lid with a towel draped over it and don’t peek when it isn’t necessary.
Because some alcohol is bound to evaporate, it isn’t advised to do this
near open fire, for example from you gas stove. Use an electric stove
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Place the pot in another pot (DB) on the burner and turn it
on. Begin stick blending off and on for about 3 minutes.
Don’t let the temperature get too high, as the water in the lower pot
of the double boiler will splash.You can stir
with a spoon, spatula or whisk instead of a stick blender, but you'll
have to do lots more stirring and for longer. The stick blender is much
easier. |
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Cover the
put with the lid when you aren't stirring. Drape the folded towel over
it to prevent leakage between pot and lid.
By keeping the pot covered, you
prevent the alcohol from evaporating too quickly. You don't want to let
the alcohol evaporate because this will cause your soap to be cloudy.
To dissolve the soap completely about 15 to 30 minutes is needed with
intermittent stick blending. After about 10 minutes add the remaining
alcohol. Once the soap is completely dissolved, let the soap sit
unstirred in the double boiler for 15 minutes. This way the foam you've
created with your stick blender can disappear. |
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In the meantime you can make the sugar solution by mixing it
with just enough hot water to get it dissolved. Add this to the soap
while gently stirring. You don’t want it to foam up again! |
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Get the well-chilled glass from the refrigerator. Drizzle a
small amount of soap mixture onto the bottom of the glass. The soap
turns solid almost instantly so you can see whether your soap is clear
or cloudy.
Looks like this one is clear as the glass itself!
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When the
test is successful you can proceed with the next step. If not, cook it a
bit longer with some more alcohol or glycerin. You can also let it cool
down and firm up. The next day you can melt it again on low fire without
adding anything. This should take only about 10-15 minutes. This way
excess water in the soap is evaporated and because it’s the water
content that makes the soap cloudy looking, the resulting soap will
likely be more transparent then was at first the case.
Ok, moving on! The soap mixture
is a clear amber liquid that will most likely have some "skin" on top.
Don't try to stir this in, as it will result in less transparent spots
in the finished soap.
Let the soap slightly cool down while you get ready any colours,
fragrances and molds you wish to use. When choosing fragrances for your
transparent soap, make sure the flash points are high enough for the
temperatures you are working at. It would be a shame to have them
evaporating on you. To lengthen your “playtime”, keep the soap pot on
low heat.
Even though the colour
of the molten soap is amber, it can be colored differently without a
problem. Don’t add too much or the soap might end up looking more opaque
instead of transparent.
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Let the soap harden up in the molds undisturbed. If the back
isn’t very smooth, finish with for example a cheese slicer. In the pic you see the finished soap. You can use a
vegetable peeler to bevel the edges, if you like.
At the
sides and bottom of your pot you may find whitish soap. You can melt
these down for more opaque but still very pretty soap. The faster the
cool down, the better! This way the bars will turn out more
transparent. Use a thin plastic mold if possible; wooden molds
tend to insulate.
Give the soap about two weeks
to dry and become even more transparent and longer lasting.
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A side note is on it' place here... This tutorial was made
while making my first ever batch of transparent glycerin soap. Remember
me saying that the cook went so terribly fast? Well, that didn't do any
good. The soap stayed sticky for quite a long time because of the excess
fluid and probably also because of the high olive content of this
recipe. At a certain point I decided to melt down the soap to evaporate
the excess water a bit faster. This worked like a charm and the soap
finally hardened. As you can see it didn't turn out very transparent,
but hey perhaps next time I'll do better!
Anyway, I hope this soaping experience can help you.
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