Making

  

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I’m a soap maker.  Well, truthfully, in the past couple years I haven’t made much.  Reason?  Well, we did have a plague plus I did have to move – a long arduous process.  And, then I have few outlets for handmade soap these days. 

A small batch can make about 3 pounds of soap or maybe 15 bars.  Really – that’s a lot.  I have one recipe that makes somewhere between 25-30 bars.  I don’t make that unless I have an outlet. 

Recently I came across a recipe for Dandelion Honey Soap.  Cold process method.  Cool!  I had a yard filled with blooming dandelions.  Okay!  I can do this!

Just a quick overview of soap making for anyone not familiar...  There’s cold process, hot process, or melt and pour.  With both cold and hot process, you have to prepare the oils, lye, and liquid, and mix them together.  Similarities end there.  With cold you then stir until the soap reaches trace (a pudding like consistency), then pour into molds.  Cover until cool.  Demold and allow it to air cure for 4-6 weeks.  With hot process, you mix it all together in a crock pot and then “cook” it for an hour.  Scoop into a mold and allow it to cool 24-36 hours, Demold and it’s ready to use.  Melt and pour is simplest.  You buy a premade soap base, melt it in a microwave oven or double boiler, add a scent, pour into molds.  It’s ready to use as soon as it’s cool enough to demold.

Be It Known
 Honey Dandelion Soap
 is a royal pain in the patootie to make !

First of all – you have to go out and pick dandelions.  And, you need a bunch of them.  Flowers, leaves, roots.  Then, you make dandelion tea (stuff a quart canning jar full, add boiling water, let sit for 24 hours) and dandelion oil (stuff a pint canning jar full, add olive oil, let sit 4 weeks). 

OK.  Well, obviously the tea was ready long before the oil so I poured the dandelion tea into ice cube trays and froze it. 

Yesterday, I got everything together to make soap.  Thawed out the dandelion tea, drained the dandelion oil.  All progressing as it should, tea and oil both being a delightful shade of yellow, which, I hoped, would make a pretty shade of yellow in the soap.  Then I mixed oils with lye water and got ready to stir.  Gave it two, three quick stirs and it traced.  No no no no.  Nope, nope this happened too soon.  But trace it was and so thick I couldn’t pour it into the mold; had to scoop it out of the bowl. 

Arrrrrggghhh

So I scooped it into the mold, covered it well so it wouldn’t cool too quickly, and set it aside.  Then I went to the all-knowing oracle – THE INTERNET.  What??  Why??  How?? 

Well, the oracle said, it may have had too much fatty oil (like shea butter – okay I did use shea butter but not much) or oils and lye water may have been too hot when  were they mixed or it may have been an error in the oil to lye ratio or it may have been something unknown. 

Number One question – is it soap? or, is it trash?  No answers on that question.  Today, I demolded the soap (thinking positive here).  It didn’t lose its saponification (separate back to oil and liquid lye).  That’s good.  The honey, added at the trace stage, didn’t melt during the process and was just sitting there.  So, it just got wiped off.  The color isn’t bad but the pale yellow is now a darker version with brown streaks.  I cut bars and have them in the curing rack.

Any soap makers out there have any advise of the why? and more specifically, is it soap?

 

 2 Jun 2021