Sunday, September 27, 2009

Bitten by the bug 2.







As I sit here typing I am waiting for my lye water to cool. Mistake #1. I meant for the water to be coffee in place of water. Oops.


This time I am ready though. I have my mold (I'm using a cardboard box as a log mold) lined and big enough. I have my coffee grounds set aside and my coffee butter and essential oil premeasured and ready to go. I have the thermometer ready (wish I could find my infrared one though, Sam apparently took it and cannot remember where she put it!). My colourant is ready. Now I just need to wait for the perfect numbers on the thermometer.

45 minutes later:

Well, the time came and I started to drizzle the lye water into the oils. As I turned on the stick blender something was definitely wrong. Sputter sputter, cough choke.. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! So I am stirring the liquid with one hand and trying to fix the blender with the other (took skill). I get it to work for 5 more seconds... I stir again, I get it to work again for a couple seconds... OH NO!!! MY SOAP!!!!!!!! Then when I didn't think it could get any worse I hear Logan crying... screaming... he wants his mommy, daddy doesn't cut it. CRAP! Not only is my soap going to fail because I cannot get my blander to work, my child is going to help the process. So I drop the soap idea, it's making me mad anyway. I run to Logan... settle him down... resign myself to the fact my wonderful Coffee Cocoa butter soap is a disaster. Logan goes back to sleep.

Back to the kitchen. I look in my bucket. I have liquid... nothing more. I grab my stick blender... might as well try and see what happens. I press the button. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ... hey? It's working... It runs for about 1 minute and 30 secs.... trace starts to appear... YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I dump in my butter and coffee grounds... blend it up for a few more seconds. Take out some of the soap batter, toss in my essential oil and colourant... stir it up. Give the soap in the bucket another quick buzz to thicken it a bit more. Pour it into my cardboard mold. I then pour the colored soap into the mold from a height and swirl a bit. It isn't the colour I planned (too black), but oh well... it traced, I don't care!

I wrap it in a towel... and I got smart this time (with the help of some seasoned soap makers), I preheated the oven to 170 and turned it off. I'm hoping it will help the soap gel fully this time.

So... do I have soap? I think so... is it pretty? Probably not... do I care? No... IT TRACED PEOPLE!!!!

I'll post pics when I unmold it tomorrow (or the next day).

2 comments:

  1. Ha, reminds me of the last time I made soap, my stick-blender crapped out on me too! Lucky it was hot process liquid soap, so it didn't REALLY matter....
    The color of the soap shold be fine. The color you pour into the mold is hardly ever the color you get out of the mold after the lye reacts with it.
    I did however get BLACK soap when I made it with the rosin!

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  2. Nope it's black, I used the wrong colourant lol

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