Sunday, May 19, 2013

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!

Thursday, May 2, 2013

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.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

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 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!