Our First Bath Bombs
0
Soapy Finds - Scoring At Meijer and Bath Bomb Molds
I headed into Meijer to do some last minute shopping with my son and guess what we found on clearance...
Aren't these great!?! They are both ice cube molds made of silicone so I figured they would be really cute for making some happy soaps as well as little squares that I could use for extra batter or even Minecraft block soap. The eyes and smile in the happy face mold are indented which will allow me to really make them show through - so excited!
I have also decided to start trying to make bath bombs. I have two nieces which we will be seeing in June on a vacation together so I wanted to make some fun things for them to use in the tub. I've been reading a lot about how to make bombs and even got a couple of 3oz bath bomb molds from Northwoods Fragrance and Supply. Here they are:
I'm pretty excited to give them a try! Another score from my Meijer trip would have to be citric acid. I want to try making bath bombs, but I don't want to have to purchase tons of supplies in bulk. So, this critic acid used for canning is going to work out great for me!
Perfecting the recipe - quest for a base batch
I mixed my lye water outside the house and left it there until I was ready to incorporate that into the oils. My eyes feel SOoooo much better! It actually turned out nicely because the breeze outside seemed to cool off the lye pretty quickly.
I melted my coconut oil and lard and then added my cocoa butter and mango butter to melt. Once melted it was time to add the liquid oils: sweet almond oil and castor oil. I poured in the goat milk and gave it a quick blast with the stick blender to incorporate both together.
I added the lye and mixed until everything was incorporated and then added about 1t. of rose kaolin clay. This turned the batter to this:
Interesting! It's somewhere between a deep rose color and a ruddy red. It will be interesting to see what happens when I unmold this tomorrow! But for now, I sprayed it with rubbing alcohol and put it into the flat cereal box so it can do it's soapy thing.
I'll add some pictures to this post tomorrow to show you how they turned out.
UPDATE:
Here is a picture of the soap unmolded. Thankfully, the color lightened up to a nice dusty rose color. I have to admit, I took the smallest piece and tried it - the feeling it leaves on your hands is difficult to describe! It's soft and makes your hands feel like glass. What I mean it they are smooth which is kind of strange, but I have to admit that I like it!
Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge Entry: Spin Swirls
 |
Fire and Ice |
This is my entry for the Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge: Spin Swirls
I have to tell you, I am really nervous sharing this with you all! This is only my 7th ever batch of soap and I wanted to make something that I could be proud of and that represented the challenge objective. I'm hoping that this entry does that.
This is actually my 3rd attempt doing the challenge swirl. My 1st attempt wasn't bad, but the batter traced a little fast so I couldn't get those deep swirls like you do when the batter is more liquid. My 2nd attempt was a DISASTER. I decided to add sugar and salt to the batch and I must have done something wrong because it crumbled as soon as it was cut. This batch was grated down and balled into embeds I plan to use in the future.
Onward to my 3rd and final attempt...
I used the recipe provided by Amy on the challenge board with one change. I didn't have the rice bran oil and Amy said that I could substitute the sweet almond oil for it because it's what I have. My soap recipe consists of: Lard, Olive Oil, Sweet Almond Oil and Coconut Oil. I did 33% water and super-fatted to 5%.
First thing I did was mix my lye water. I have learned that mixing this outside on the patio is the best option for me. My husband, kids and puppy all appreciate not breathing in the noxious fumes. Plus, I don't know about you, but even after it's fully incorporated I find that my eyes are stinging while I wait for it to cool off.
Then, I melted all my hard oils in a pot on the stove and added my liquid oils. Now this was the hard part for me. I needed to wait until my oils and lye were both at about 90 degrees. When we were just about at that temperature, it was time to mix my micas. I took some of the oils and put them into paper coffee cups. Then, I used about a teaspoon or so of 3 different mica colors from Nurture Soaps: iris purple, raspberry red and teal green. For the 4th color I used to natural color of the batter. Here are my micas mixed and ready to go into the batters:
For scent I used Drakkar Noir fragrance oil from WSP. Drakkar is my husband's scent and I absolutely LOVE it! I have to say that this FO is true to scent (for the time being), so I'm thrilled! The FO is in the little square container in the above picture.
Okay, finally my oils and lye reached the temperature I wanted. I added the lye water to the oils and stick blended for about a minute or two until everything was incorporated. Let me tell you, it was hard to stop stick blending! I don't know about you but I find myself always wanting to give it just one more quick burst. Which for me turns into a 5 minute ordeal :)
It was time to mix the colors. I am so lucky that my husband is creative and helpful!!! He made me a 6 x 6 flat soap box that I used for this challenge and plan to use for future batches too. He also helped me mix in the micas and pour the batter.
The batter was between light and medium trace and moving quickly. The FO really accelerated the trace a LOT. So, we did a faux funnel pour smack dab in the center of the mold. We alternated colors in a pattern - me putting in the white and purple and he putting in the red and the teal. We found ourselves giggling the whole time - it was a ton of fun!
Now it was time to spin the box and swirl the colors. Thank God my husband was there holding his hands out, because at one point I about sent the box spinning off the counter top! My theory was the more centrifugal force I used, the more the batter would mix. I also used short, jerky turns too. I sprayed the top with alcohol and took this picture just before I put on the lid.
I am so in love with this soap at this point! I love how the micas have all those shiny flex and shimmer in the sunlight!
So...fast forward to the next day. I lifted the lid and felt the top. It was just right and ready to cut. So, as I began to unmold it, I noticed some brownish liquid oozing from the sides. I took a paper town and sopped that up. I was curious what this was...did I overheat the batch? So...I got a piece of freezer paper and turned the soap over to look at the bottom. Here's what I found:
GAHW!!! I was so worried that this batch was ruined! I don't know if these were lye pockets or what they were. No matter, I was going to cut this sucker and see what was inside. I wiped down the bottom of the soap and began cutting. Thankfully there were no lye pockets inside - just a fun, swirly design and a heavenly scent. Plus the bottom dots scraped right off. *phew* !
Here's a picture of almost all the soap. I was still cleaning up one of the pieces when my hubby took these. I have to say, I was very proud of how this turned out! Had it not been for this challenge, I probably wouldn't have given this a try for awhile. I plan on joining future challenges so I can learn all the different swirls and CP methods. This was a blast!
Spin Swirl Soaping - Challenge Attempt #2
SOAP FAIL….Famous last words…”this is so easy!”
After seeing how easy the first swirl was….I thought maybe it would be a good idea to try a second one with a more fluid batter so you can really see the swirls. But, I didn’t want to make another 5 pounds of soap (18 bars that will take me a long time to use up). So, the husband made me a new flat mold that is 6” x 6”. Again he put the hinges on it and made the other two sides removable. Works like a charm!
So this time I used the same recipe as before that Amy suggested but this time I wanted to try putting sugar and salt into the batter to harden the soap and give it more bubbles once it had a full cure. So, I put the sugar in the water before adding the lye and then put the salt in after the lye was incorporated and cooled a little. I went through the same process as before; mixing my oils and cooling both the lye water and oils to 90 degrees. I mixed this batch to what I thought was mixed…but looking back I’m not so sure…then added my FO: Crisp Cotton from Brambleberry. No acceleration which was good…a little TOO good…
I let the batter sit a minute until I got my colors mixed into the oils. I split the batch and the batter was still fluid. I was very excited! I was going to have amazing swirls this time! That was until I started pouring this and it just mushed all over the place. I tried to pour this one in a V pattern…yeah right…that didn’t work out too well. I spun the soap which didn’t look like much because the batter STILL hadn’t even reached a light trace yet. I put the cover on it and left it until morning. 20 minutes after pouring I realized I forgot to spray it down with rubbing alcohol. So I lifted the lid and sprayed it then put it back to bed.
Next morning this batch was REALLY soft, but I thought it was okay to cut. I unmolded it – it came out easily which was the good news. But with the first cut, the soap began to disintegrate right in front of me. It was literally crumbling as I tried cutting it. I was devastated…it was my first real soap fail. So, I did what I’d seen so many others do before me. I grated the pieces and made 1oz balls that I’m going to use as embeds in the future.
So every soap-fail has a silver lining.
Spin Swirl Soaping - Challenge Attempt #1
I AM SO EXCITED! It’s time to do something I've never done before – make soap in a flat mold and use a fragrance oil on top of it.
I just got an order from WSP which included 5 different FO’s I wanted to try out. For this batch I’m going to use the Sweet Pea FO. I really like the scent straight out of the bottle, but it kind of gives me a little headache.
I’m using Amy’s slow-moving recipe but replacing the Rice Bran Oil with Sweet Almond Oil because it’s what I have available to work with. No biggie, Amy said it should be fine so that’s good enough for me. The first issue I came across was that I wasn't going to have a container large enough to mix the batter in. UGH!!! I’ve been making smaller batches for so long, a 5 pound batch wasn't something I was prepared for. Luckily I had a spare, clean bucket laying around as well as a helpful husband who washed it out for me just in case.
I mixed my lye water and put that off to the side to cool down. Then I melted my hard oils, mixed in my soft oils and let that mixture sit as well. Once both temperatures were around 100 degrees, I took some of the oils out of the pail and mixed up my micas: red, blue, green and white (titanium dioxide).
After just incorporating all the oils and lye water together (very light trace), I added the Sweet Pea FO and stick blended in a few short bursts to mix that in. Then it was time to split the batch and add the micas to color things up. It was then I noticed the batter began to accelerate – FAST – but it smelled awesome!
My husband took 2 colors and I took the other 2 colors. We did a pour in all 4 corners of the box – alternating colors. By the time we had poured the last of the batter, it had thickened up to a thick trace.
Now it was time to spin this sucker! I jerk-spun this about 10-15 times until I saw the top just starting to move around together. By that time the batter had thickened to the point where spinning wasn't going to move the batter very much and I was running the risk of making a huge mess. So, I took a bamboo skewer and decorated the top a little.
I covered the soap with the lid and put it on the counter to sit until the next day. Man…I’ll tell you what…the hardest part of soaping is the waiting between the pour and the cut!!! Let’s fast forward!! I unmolded the soap and it looked pretty cool. Then came the cuts – OH MY GOSH….AMAZING!!!
Here are some pictures showing you what it looked like after slicing it horizontally so you can see what the spinning did. So cool! I’m really proud of this soap because it is the first large batch of soap I have ever made and it turned out better than I could have imagined. Without this challenge I probably wouldn't have had the motivation to push forward and push outside my comfort zone to create something I’d never done before. Thanks Amy!
UPDATE: I had to come back and update this to tell you this is my first attempt at the spin swirl. I ended up doing 2 others as well.
A Challenge and My First Wood Mold
I was reading on soapmakingforum.com that there is a woman named Amy who runs a soap making challenge on her site Great Cakes Soapworks Co. So, I decided to go check it out.
For a small fee, you gain entry into the challenge as well as detailed instructions in written and video form as well as recipes you can use in order to complete the challenge. Oh, and did I mention the winner gets a $50 gift certificate to Mad Oils? YES! I’ve wanted to try their micas since I started researching how to make CP soap!
I looked at last month’s entries into the landscape challenge and oh my gosh…there are so many extremely talented soapers out there! I was so impressed with each and every entry that I saw…one was better than the next!
I decided to enter for the next 3 months. This month’s challenge is the spin swirl. You need a flat mold in order to do this challenge. I’m so lucky to have a hubby who is good with his hands – check out my new flat mold!!!
The molds inside dimensions are 10 ½” x 7 ¾” x 3 ½”. It holds about 5 pounds of soap so I’ll be able to use this for many years to come – feeling so blessed! He did a great job on it – the two longer sides have hinges so they are able to be pulled down easily. The remaining two sides join with a lock and are completely removable from the mold. YES!
Access to underneath the side walls of this mold are going to make lining a BREEZE! It is also going to make unmolding fast and easy. So excited!!!!
I plan on making my entry tomorrow. I have the recipe Amy provided and I’m going through my micas to pick some that will stand out against each other. I’m thinking something like green, blue, red and white. I think those should be pretty good, I’ll have to use a lot of mica to really get some deep colors. Oh…and how should I pour this??? So many questions J
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
