SWEET ALMOND SHEA SOAP

Sweet Almond Oil and Shea Butter soap!

Sweet Almond (Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis) Oil is one of the most used oils in skincare and soap making. Moisturizing; softening; fast penetrating; rich in essential fatty acids & vitamins A & E. It is the perfect ingredient for stressed out sensitive skin.

When you talk about the quality of soap, composition of fatty acid in the oils comes first but also you can think of other components such as unsaponifiables. Generally, soap made with olive oil is very moisturizing. Yes, I agree if the soap is superfatted 8% or more. Washing face with Olive Oil Soap (5% superfat) is very refreshing, after rinse with water, no greasiness left on the skin. I actually recommend Olive Oil Soap to oily skin people.

How about Almond Oil Soap? It makes your skin very smooth and leaves really thin layer (of oil? I'm not sure what it is, but really good!) on the skin. There are definitely differences between Olive Oil Soap and Almond Oil Soap in feeling on the skin even their fatty acid compositions are very very similar.

I made this soap with Sweet Almond Oil and Shea Butter as main oil, adding Coconut Oil and Rice Bran Oil for hardness and bubble. Unscented, no options. This is moisturizing, soothing, very gentle, slightly smells like nuts!

Blended Oil and Lye Water

=RECIPE=
Sweet Almond Oil, Shea Butter, Rice Bran Oil, Coconut Oil, LYE, WATER

Soap Qualities (thanks to SoapCalc)
Hardness - 26
Cleansing - 7
Conditioning - 70
Bubbly - 7
Creamy - 19

Soap in Mold

=COLD PROCESS SOAP MAKING=

1. Melt Shea Butter and Coconut Oil with double boiler. (I do not like micro wave!)
2. Make Lye Solution. Always use caution.
3. Cool Oil and Lye Solution. (60-70℃)
4. Mix Oil and Lye slowly, do not make bubble in the Oil Mix.
5. Use stick blender until get light trace.
6. Pour into mold.
7. Cover with towel to keep warm.
8. Leave for half a day or until soap gets hard enough to take out of mold.
9. Cut soap and leave for a month to cure.

Soap at Gel Phase

=TIPS=

Do not be bothered to check temperature of Oil and Lye Solution. The recipe include more soft oil, you can add Lye Solution immediately after make it (when it is still quite hot). When I put more hard oil, Blend Oil is quite warm to melt all the oil so I just let Lye Solution get a bit cooler (about 60℃, when touch the container by hand, you feel a bit hot).

Use stick blender for few seconds and hand blend with stick blender, repeat this to avoid getting trace quickly which causes air hole in the soap!

Keep soap warm but not too hot. To go through saponification, soap needs to be warm but hot. Too hot soap will get crack on the surface.

#091114

DAILY BATH SOAP

I like this blue pattern!

My partner loves soaps using in the shower and he uses more than 2 soaps a month. Since I make soaps, I do not want to buy commercial soaps any more. I made cheaper soap for him because he uses a lot of them (and does not care so much about quality!) I used Grapeseed Oil and Canola Oil for base, Beeswax and Palm Oil for hardness.

After poured into mold, I did not keep the soap warm enough to complete saponification. After 24 hours, the soap was still wet and soft but my partner wanted to touch and cut soap, this soap was for him so I let him. It was cut alright but definitely not alright as a soap! I was not sure what to do but only one thing I could think of was cook soap in the oven. About 70 to 80 ℃ for 15 mins, turned off and left soaps in the oven a hour more.

Sweating a lot!!

During this cooking time, some soaps went gel phase. Some got softer and change its shape. When I open the oven, I just started laughing because all the soaps were so sweat!! It looked very funny for me.

It was about 12 or 13??

 I touched the sweat and I felt greasy or slippy on my fingers. I thought it might be high in alkaline so I tested. Yes, it was. I lost my finger print a bit but not burned at all.

After cure a couple of weeks, the soaps are getting pretty good. I made wave in the soap and I am very happy how it turns out!


<INGREDIENTS>
Grapeseed Oil
Canola Oil
Palm Oil
Beeswax
Yuzu Fragrance Oil
Ultramarine Blue

#311014

SOAP FAILURE - AIR HOLE AND UNEVEN SOAP -

In my very short soap making experience and gathered information from internet, I have found some tips to avoid soap making failure. I am showing my failed soaps and consideration on them.
日本語の記事はコチラ [ せっけん　失敗談　- 小さい穴と不均一なせっけん - ]

left and center have air hole and right one has uneven texture in the middle of the soap

+++ AIR HOLE +++

Another soaps with air hole

This happens because soap batter gets too thick to pour into mold. Then why it gets so thick? It is TEMPERATURE. I mixed blended oil (Olive, Coconut, Rice Bran, Palm, Castor) and lye solution in high temperature. If you do not put any options, it may be okay. You do not take time to pour when it gets trace but if you want to add color, herbs or making swirl, you have a trouble here. Saponification has to go not so fast.

I made two different soap from same soap batter, so it took time to pour the second one (picture above). The first one (picture on the right) I mixed shaved lemongrass soap to very thick soap batter and got many small air holes.



+++ UNEVEN SOAP +++
It was my laziness, I did not melt solid oil fully before mixed with lye solution. It is solved easy, DON'T BE LAZY!!

SOAP FAILURE - SODA ASH -

In my very short soap making experience and gathered information from internet, I have found some tips to avoid soap making failure. I am showing my failed soaps and consideration on them.
日本語の記事はコチラ [せっけん　失敗談　- ソーダ灰 -]

+++ SODA ASH +++
Soda ash is harmless and mostly happens on the surface of the cold process soaps.
I think controlling temperature during mixing lye and oil, through gel phase is the matter to avoid soda ash. It needs right temperature to saponify thoroughly then the soaps will be solid, smooth on the surface without soda ash.

Ash happened along pink swirl and surface

This soap is made with Olive oil 70%, Palm oil 20%, Coconut oil 10% and herbs (lemon peel and licorice etc.) and pink colorant.

To dissolve Palm oil and Coconut oil, blended oil was warmed up at 35℃ or over. And I did not let lye solution get cooler before mixing with blended oil. To make pink soap for swirl, mix pink ultramarine with small amount of blended oil and when soap batter got trace, mixed pink oil and the soap batter. It was like  thick pink oil rather than pink soap.
 Soap batter got very warm and trace quickly. Poured into mold and covered with towel, and left in the unheated oven.

Ash on surface and waved on the top (Alien Brain!)

This soap is made with Olive oil 75% Coconut oil 25% and herbs and fragrance. To dissolve Coconut oil, blended oil was warmed up and mixed with hot lye solution. It got trace within 10 mins, after poring into mold covered with towel and left in the unheated oven.


Both soaps are very solid and look good though, I want no ash and Alien Brain on my soap. Temperature Control is the key to avoid soda ash, I think.

MOISTURE SOAPS - ORANGE LEMONGRASS & LAVENDER

Soaps in the mold

I made two version of Moisturizing Soaps, scented with Orange Sweet and Lavender. As I use Rice Bran Oil for moisturize, color of soaps are golden.
When I poured into mold, I could not see violet color at all in Lavender Soap.

Moisture Soaps, Orange Lemongrass and Lavender

But after cut and cure, beautiful lavender color has appeared! I mixed Lemongrass soap into Orange Sweet one, it shows nice little orange grain in the soaps. I still need further TRAINING to cut soaps, don't I !?

#201014-OL

#201014-LV

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