Milky Way Soap Recipe (Blueberry)

 

Included in my recent order from Milky Way Molds was a soap recipe that  Catherine Failor (the owner of Milky Way) recommends for easy release. I gave it a try and 26 hours later took the soap out of the mold with no problems, and no putting it in the freezer. This recipe was really different for me and I got a little scared when I saw how thick it was in the pot. Here a couple of pictures, I'll put the recipe below and on the recipe page of the blog.

I used the new Blueberry fragrance and was happy to say it behaved in cold process soap really well. The thickening all happened before I added the fragrance. For this batch I used 4 teaspoons of fragrance at trace and stirred it in really well by hand.

Below you can see how thick it was in the pot, yikes! Once I put it in to the mold I tapped the mold on the counter to get the soap in to the little ridges of the mold and also to level it.

 

Recipe:

22 oz palm oil or tallow

3 oz coconut oil

2 oz olive or canola oil

4 oz sodium hydroxide

8.5 oz distilled water

 

Heat oils to 115-120 degrees F then add 115-120 degree lye solution. Stir until the soap traces.

If the temperature drops below 115 degrees, reheat. This recipe makes 2.5 pounds of soap.

 

You can see my colourant in the background of the soap in the pot. I used about 1/4 tsp of  powdered blue ultramarine mixed with a little water. I added the colour at trace and then stirred in the 4tsp of Blueberry fragrance. This soap smells really good!

Blueberry Soap

Playing around with Blueberry fragrance so I made some blue coloured soap (and white:) I used blue ultramarine powder as my colourant in some clear soap. Since it was a powder, I added a little water to make it into a liquid colourant. Just take about a 1/4 tsp of the powder and add 1tablespoon of water, I find they mixed together really easily just by swishing my container a little. I got a really bright blue soap  so I added a little white mica to tone it down. These smell really good!

And yes, I am using coffee filters again (below) on the flower shaped soaps. I just "happened" to have these white filters in my kitchen since I bought the wrong kind about two years ago! The soap pops will go in to cello bags.

Tripple Berry Bath Bombs

I haven't made ball shaped bath bombs in a long, long time but thought the shape would go well with a berry blend fragrance. I put 1/2 of the dry ingredients in to 2 separate bowls and added a small pinch of powdered pink colourant to one bowl and blue to the other bowl. Then I mixed really well with my hands to get nice even looking coloured powders in both bowls. Its easiest  to do this  before  you add any wet ingredients. Heads up here, you'll need a third empty  bowl.

What I did next: In the pink mixture I added 1/2 tsp each of  Raspberry & Strawberry fragrance and 1/2 tsp of Almond Oil. Again, by hand, I mixed this up real quick and then gave it about 8 sprays of witch hazel. Then "quickly" I did the same in the blue bowl using 1 tsp of Blueberry fragrance. To get the 2  coloured balls, load a big mountain of the pink mixture in to one side of the mold and the same of the blue into the other side of the mold- you can see my mold below. Hold this over the empty bowl and press together really hard letting the excess fall in to the bowl. Carefully remove from the ball shaped mold and continue. I got  4 ball shapes and made a heart shaped bath bomb with  what was collected in the 3rd  bowl. You can see I mixed the two colours together to get a  bit of a Lavender coloured heart. Recipe is at the bottom of this post.

 

I bought some 2 part clear  plastic molds at Christmas time years ago. They used to be in all the stores at that time of year. Now I think you'd have to go to a craft store. I've also seen these metal ones on ebay. I'll have to wait and see how these plastic ones hold up if I start using them a lot.

 

Tripple Berry  Bath Bombs

2 1/4 cups of Baking Soda

1 cup of Powdered Citric Acid

1 small pinch each of pink & blue powdered colourant (optional)

1 Tsp Sweet Almond Oil

1 Tsp Blueberry Fragrance

1/2 Tsp each of Raspberry & Strawberry Fragrance

Witch Hazel in a fine mist sprayer

 

Mix 1st four ingredients. If you want 2 colours you'll put 1 1/8 cups of baking soda and 1/2  cup of citric acid in to each bowl. Once all the dry ingredients are  mixed really well, add the almond oil and fragrance. Mix some more and them spray with the witch hazel to slightly dampen. Pack in to molds.

Let me know if you have an questions!

 



Cherry Soap

I had mentioned in this tutorial that pink soap with cherry fragrance was a best seller, so I thought I would snap a photo before I wrapped this soap up. I filled a 2lb soap tray and a few individual molds.

I think my flash went off, its a rainy Saturday here.



Make Your Own Flower Water

 

 

 

So what is a flower water? A flower water is similar to a hydrosol, they both are distilled waters that contain essential oils. With a hydrosol, the water collected in the bottom of the still during the distillation of plants (this is how most essential oils are made) is collected and sold as a hydrosol. This water contains some of the oil that is distilled from the plant or petals and the oil is all through the water. You don't have to shake the hydrosol to mix the oil in every time you use it.

 

 

With a flower water, essential oil is added to distilled water. Commercial flower waters often contain other ingredients to emulsify the oil and water but we're taking home made today so the only other ingredient will be muscle power.

 

 

I generally like to buy a 4 litre jug of distilled water and pour a little bit out of the jug to create some  empty space, you need about 3 or 4 inches of empty space at the top of the jug.  Add 3 teaspoons (15ml) of essential oil, put the cap on the jug, and shake really hard for a minute or two. Once it settles, the oil is going to float back up to the top, so you need to shake it again every day for a month. If you use an essential  oil that has a colour, you'll see less and less oil floating on top of the water as time goes by. Once your flower water is ready, you can use it the way you would a hydrosol. Some ideas are as a toner, a natural linen spray or in a handmade cream or lotion. Of course not all flower waters are floral. Peppermint, Grapefruit, Orange  and Rosemary also make great Flower Waters - its just a common name and will mean not a hydrosol. If you want to keep if floral,  Lavender, Geranium and Ylang Ylang are good economical choices and, Rose is really nice but pricey.  You can bottle your water up in little spray bottles for a great gift, you'll have lots, or make a few different kinds with friends and trade. I hope you try it!



Goat Milk & Coloured Glycerin Soap

I get a lot of people in the store asking how I make this soap. I usually have a few different fragrances and colours at the counter, this green with Green Apple fragrance has been really popular. So has purple with Dewberry or Blackberry, pink with Cherry or Cotton Candy and red with Strawberry. I may have posted this tutorial before but I'm going to add a page (it will be on the right side of the blog), so folks don't have to go digging for it.

Gardener's Exfoliating Soap with Coffee

Melt & Pour Soap with added coffee grounds is nothing new, but I came  across a really cute tutorial on Pinterest here that makes use of empty soda cans for the molds. Cans cut really easily  using sharp tipped scissors, you have to poke a hole in the can to start cutting. I cut mine about 1/2 way down. She also used scissors to cut the can away from the soap once it hardened. I kind of peeled the can away from the soap once it was hard but was left with the very bottom part of the can stuck on the soap. I had to put the soap in the fridge for a while then wiggle the last bit of the can off the bottom, I was to chicken to try cutting the leftover bit of can without gouging the soap.

These are all of the can bottoms that I had to pry off the soap. Below is an idea for wrapping the soaps using unbleached coffee filters.I bought the basket style filters and placed the side of the soap that was the bottom of the can (the side with the ridge around it) into the flat part of the filter and then just pleated the filter around the soap and taped it down, its really easy.

For five soaps I used 1lb of Goat Milk melt & pour, 3 tbsp of ground coffee and 1 tsp of coffee fragrance. The tutorial actually calls this Coffee Kitchen soap and calls for slightly different amounts. Check out her wrapping, its really pretty! Let me know if you try making  this soap!