Week 3 of the 365 Challenge

As my Soap A Day challenge keeps going, I will try to post an update every week or so. Some soaps take several days after being poured to be ready to unmold, so there is a slight delay between the making of and the blog shares. New experiment soaps I will update on how they perform in future posts after they have time to cure.

Soap 15: Dish Soap

This is my first soap not created for bath and body. Since it's intended to strip grease and dirt from dishes, it's formulated with only 0.5% Superfat. I also included citric acid as a chelating agent, and used a tea brewed from Soap Nuts for my lye solution to hopefully yeild extra suds and cleaning effects. Soap Nuts are the dried berries from a plant naturally containing a high amount of saponins, you can see the foamy bubbles in my jar of tea in the photo above. This is a 100% Coconut Oil soap, so very highly cleansing already, to which I added a blend of Sweet Orange, Sage, and Litsea essential oils. The orange color seen is purely from the essential oils. I'm super excited to test this out in my kitchen in a few weeks so you will be seeing this soap again in the future.

Soap 16: Chocolate Lavender Truffle Soap

With upcoming Valentine's Day in mind, I made this triple butter (meaning Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter, and Mango Butter) glycerin soap scented in creamy chocolate lavender and colored with real raw cacao powder. Topped with soap bonbons that I used a candy mold to make.

Soap 17: Nyctophilia

One of my favorite bath bomb fragrance blends has finally made its way into a soap batch.

I did try a cold process version of this years ago, but was really disappointed by how much the scent did not hold up through the saponification and curing process. Now that I'm working with more styles of soap making, it seemed like the perfect time to give this sensually sweet fragrance another chance.

Soap 18: Witches Brew

Always a favorite, this soap is hard to keep in stock. So here's another new batch! This time the swirl resulted in a little heart shape. We <3 you too Witches Brew.

Soap 19: A Black Pepper Soleseife Hybrid

I have been wanting to do a black pepper soleseife. When I ended up with a little charcoal black soap batter left over, I figured why not put it to use as an accent swirl to go with the black salt sprinkle on top of this soap. The main body of this soap is my favorite soleseife recipe, and the swirl is a very different formulation without salt and lower superfat percentage. Having never combined such different recipes into a single soap, I'm curious to see how it lathers and feels. The scent is black peppercorns with bergamot and smells amazing. No matter what, I know this is a scent I want to work with again!

Soap 20: Oatmeal Milk & Honey

A Goat's Milk Soap made with Colloidal Oats and Oatmeal Milk & Honey fragrance. This is an old customer favorite that I haven't made in a while. It's 100% goat's milk, hand milked from my own very spoiled goats that I keep stashed in the freezer to use for soap making. The 100% refers to how much of the fluid used to make the soap is milk instead of water. By freezing the milk and adding lye to it very slowly in an ice bath, I control the heat generated by the lye dissolving and prevent the milk from scorching. It takes more patience, but the results are worth it! A super creamy soap high in all the extra benefits found in Goat's Milk that stays a lovely milky color instead of turning brown. The Colloidal Oats add an additional boost to the lather and are great for sensitive skin. I love to finish this soap by topping it with a sprinkle of oats and drizzle of honey soap.

Soap 21: A Pink Grapefruit Salt Bar

This is a new Salt Bar recipe! A salt bar, also often called a Spa Bar, is different from a Solesife even though they both are made with salt. Solesifes are brine soaps with their sea salt content dissolved into the lye solution. Salt Bars have a higher percentage of salt that is added to the soap batter at trace. This batch is made with fine Pink Himalayan Salt, Rose Clay for a pink color swirl, and topped with coarse pink salt.

Have you ever wondered how many ways there are to create swirls in soaps? There might be more techniques that you think. This swirl was made using a common kitchen item- a spoon!