I posted new photos to soap.

Lard soaps                                        non-lard Yuzu fo                               group shot
   

I have been playing around with melt and pour soap (also known as glycerin soap).  It's easy because I cut up chunks of already made soap base, melt it in the microwave, add fragrance and color, then pour into molds.  Once the soap is cooled and hard I can just pop them out of the mold and they are ready to use.  No need to wait weeks for curing/drying like in cold process or hot process soap making. 

I recently got some shot glass molds.  They are intended to make ice shot glasses, but I saw somewhere where they were used to make soap.  I thought I'd try.  I got 2 different kinds.  At Bed Bath and Beyond I got a 2 piece hard plastic molds, 12  molds in the pack.  These are really hard to unmold.  Because the plastic is hard it has no flexibility.  I had to bang and twist, put it in the freezer, bang and twist, bang and twist several times before I was able to pop them out of the mold.  The second mold I got is silicone.  After a couple of attempts to get it online, both times they were sold out after I made the purchase, I finally found it in a cooking supply store Santa Cruz.  This is so much easier to unmold.  It's a one piece mold with 4 cavities.  The glasses are a bigger than the hard plastic mold. 

Anyway I made shot glasses and the “shots” to go in them.  I left the soap clear for the “glasses” then colored the “liquid”.  I put fragrance in both clear and colored so the entire soap would have scent.   For the “liquid” in  the first shot in the hard plastic mold I used an opaque colorant so it's looks weird.  I don't know what kind of drink would be opaque burgundy color.  I fragranced it with Black Cherry, smells sort of like cough syrup.  The silicone shots I used Strawberry Jam fragrance and Bramble Berry's Non-Bleeding Red for the liquid.  Looked really cool.  But when I looked at the shot today, the red coloring had bled to the clear glass, so the entire soap has a red haze to it.  That's so disappointing.  If you look at the photos, the red shot used to look like the green and orange one.  Well, I went ahead and made a couple more today anyway.  I used Lime Mint fragrance with Emerald colorant and Grapefruit with Marigold colorant (it's actually meant for cold process, but I tried anyway).  The Marigold came out more orange, I probably should have used an orange fragrance instead of grapefruit.  Oh well.  

I'm sure these shots will bleed through as well.  I'm glad I got photos of them before that happens.  Colorants like oxides and micas won't bleed in melt and pour soaps, but they make the clear soap opaque, so it doesn't look like a translucent drink anymore. 

Oh, I tried the smaller shot and it lasted about 9 showers.

OK, not soaping related.  I just witnessed one of my cats, Pandora, throw up a couple of kibble bits.  When I came back with paper towels to clean up, she was eating them!  Eeeeeeeuuuuuu…  cats… at least she cleaned up after herself.

I soaped today.  4 batches and 3 had lard in them.  #1 had 70% lard, #2 50% lard, and 3# 25% lard.  I am curious to try them.  I purchased some Pop Mica colors from TKB trading in Oakland.  They sell micas, glitters, oxides, etc used in cosmetics and some of them work great in soap too!  Their Pop Micas are bright and shimmery, really nice.  I guess I could make my own eye shadows if I wanted to. 

I used the Staples boxes and a Pringles can. I did not secure the bottom of the Pringles can as well as last time so there was LEAKAGE!  I'll have to clean up the oven tomorrow.  At least it will be soap tomorrow!  The heart shaped cupcake mold I used to collect any tiny left overs from the lard batches.  I don't know what I'll do with it, but I collected it. 

The tiny boxes I used for unfragranced uncolored samples of the lard.  I forgot to get sample from #1, but I got them for #2 and #3.  It's unfortunate, because I really wanted to know if the 70% lard batch would smell piggy without any fragrance.  I have read that some people can smell the lard.  I didn't really smell anything in the lard to begin with.  I bought it at the super market and it's been rendered and filtered and it white and smelled faintly oily, but not too piggy.  I really made sure I didn't overheat the lard when I melted it.  I hear that overheating will cause the fat to smell.  Well I'll see tomorrow. 

Lard soaps                                     non-lard Yuzu FO, Pringles can leakage!

So the soaps from 3/25/10. 

I LOVE how the cupcakes came out with their whipped soap topping!  The multicolored jojoba beads just completes the look!  Even though my whipped soap went a little flat it still looks delicious!  The remaining whipped soap I put some color and fragrance and put into oval molds.  I wonder if I whipped it enough to make the soap float on water?  Air, that's what makes Ivory soap float.

The milk carton made a great rounded square shape when the sides bowed out.  I really like it.  Fits in the hand well. 

The eye shaped hair colorant packaging didn't fair as well.  It warped in the heat and some of the packaging ink came off onto the soap.  So I had to shave off some of the outer sides of the soap to take the inked soap off.  I still got an eye shape, although a little warped. 

The pomegranate and black currant soap is weeping oil.  I have read that sometimes the oil will absorbe back into the soap.  So I'll wait and see in a few weeks.  The swirl color with the burgundy and purple came out nice.

The rice flower and shea fragranced soap is an example of how colors can morph in the heat and high pH.  I used violet oxide which looks like a wonderful purple violet color, but when it hits the soap batter it turns grey.  So I heard that if you mix in some blue oxide it will become a nice slate grey.  Well,  I got sort of a dark brown black.  Also when I added the fo and colorant I got an ammonia burning smell.  Maybe something happened to the fo?

The 100% coconut oil soap I swirled with a light sky blue.  Came out real pretty.  But it too is a bit oily to the touch.  I did do a 20% superfat though, so maybe that's expected. 

Superfat is the amount of oil you put in on top of what gets used up by the lye.  0% superfat is just the amount of oil that will use up all of the lye to make soap.  If you put more oils in than that it will not saponify and have more moisturizing qualities as more oils are left in the soap.  I usually superfat at 6%, so 20% was a huge departure for me. 

The smallest of the Staples boxes produced a blockish bar that seems a bit awkward in the hand.  If I cut it in half it would make a nice guest soap size.