I finally got around to making this and I used every single trick I could think of. First I melted my oils and made sure everything was cool. I even refrigerated a few oils so it would cool the room temp oil further. Then I mixed in my fragrance into my base oil. With it evenly dispursed before adding the lye water this seems to make things move slower. I also made sure my lye water was completly cool (I refrigerated it!) and I also did not use a water discount. I havent soaped at 100% full water since my very first batches of soap. I also kept my stick blender in the cupboard and stirred by hand. I also added my color into the oil rather than at trace. I stirred and stirred it seemed, trace didnt happen too fast at all! If I do this again I will do the same techinique only I will do a swirl, now that I know I can handle this oil with a few tricks! The color turned out spot of perfect, a nice bright cheery pink. I added a sparkley swirl on top of deep pink. It is still a bit soft but hardening up very nicely. The full water is why it is still soft, after about 3 weeks it could still be a little soft but eventually it will be rock hard like my other soaps. Im very happy with how this turned out!
I usually order sampler sizes in the more expensive fragrance oils so I dont get stuck with a very expensive bottle of something I find revolting but for some reason I ordered a full size of Vanilla Pear it sounded great and when I got it I was very pleased. I think this could be a very good seller. This fragrance oil discolors brown like most other vanilla containing oils. That was a major drawback for me. I didnt want brown soap that smelled like pear. I wanted green and yellow soap that smelled like Pears!! So I went very very heavey on the titanium dioxide for 2/3s of the batch and only scented that part. I took the other third of the batch and split it in two and colored them in green and yellow. Im a week into the discoloration and as it stands the uncolored/fragraced portion has discolored to a light tan, it looks GREAT with the yellow and green swirls in it. I have to admit I am over the scent already though, I made this at the tail end of my first trimester in pregnancy and the scent just got to be too much for me. I do think its a very pleasant scent though, very light, summery and fresh!
I’m having a soap making weekend! This weekend I am going to be putting to use all three of my wooden molds and one of my plastic molds. This weekend I plan on making cold process Pink Sugar scented soap. This fragrance is a bit of a pain. It has a high vanilla content and turns dark brown when used in cold process soap. I separate the batch into two portions one third I don’t put any fragrance oil into and I add red coloring to make pink, the other portion I add a little titanium dioxide to bring the dark brown to a slightly lighter brown. The fragrance doing discolor right away, I’m always a little disappointed when my beautiful pink and cream colored swirly soap starts to turn dark brown and pink. The Pink Sugar fragrance oil I use is extremely strong and this is one of my all time best sellers, even though its brown! I also add a shimmery silver swirl to the top of my batches of Pink Sugar. I plan on making 17 bars, which means Ill be using my biggest mold. I debated with myself if I should do this in a slab mold like I did last time, that would yield me 12 perfect bars and then I would use a second plastic mold to get a few more. But I don’t think I’m going to fuss with the slab mold and second mold this weekend. I have other plans for the slab mold!
Finding a supplier can be tricky. For little odds and ends that I want to play with Ill go to eBay if my regular couple of suppliers don’t have what I want to play with. Unfortunately eBay isn’t always a super fantastic place to purchase from. At first finding a supplier can be a lot of trial and error. If you have a friend who makes soap or body products they are a great person to ask for information. Many professional soapers will not give up their suppliers, rightly so, it probably took lots of hard work to find the perfect supplier. But they can tell you where NOT to buy from. You can also check soaping or bath and body message boards for supplier reviews or just Google the business name. If anything fishy comes up go on to the next supplier, saving a couple of dollars is not worth the hassle of having a bad supplier. The first place I ever purchased anything from was 1 pound of citric acid, 2 ounces of cotton candy fragrance oil and half a pound of cocoa butter. I purchased it from Coastal Scents. I have been purchasing from this company for years now and have never ever had a problem. Unfortunately for me they have gone more into mineral make up supply so I don’t often order from them these days.
If you are looking for an all natural soap it can be a little tricky to find if you aren’t sure what you are looking for. Its probably easiest to look on the label and start from the last ingredient and work your way up. Most likely you are going to find the synthetic ingredients near the end. Watch for ‘fragrance’ that’s a synthetic version of essential oil. Next look for the method of coloring. If the soap is vividly colored that doesn’t mean its not a natural colorant. Mica’s, clays, ultra marines etc are all naturally occurring and can make very vivid colored soap. If you are in doubt ask the soap maker! Its their job to know whats in the soap they make. If they cant answer your questions go to the next soap maker, keep looking until you find one you feel good about buying from. There are tons of people out there who make soap and each person does it slightly different so if its natural soap you are after its definitely out there but you are going to have to look. I personally only have one natural soap. It is simply saponified oils, water and peppermint essential oil.