Making Soap for Reals

I finally got the opportunity to make soap from scratch today.

I used:

250 grams Coconut Oil

500 grams animal oil (didn't specify what it was, I'm guessing beef or lamb, but it's just a guess)

500 grams rice bran oil (bought a 4 litre tin for $12.99!)

172 grams Caustic Soda (confirmed both by SoapCalc and the MMS calculator).

I used the room temperature process - I spent half an hour preparing the hard oils, although it left a lot to be desired. I had planned to grate them, but that was a pain in the neck, so I tried cutting them up small, and that was a pain in the neck. Next time I'll just pre-melt the damn things.

After that I mixed the lye. Then I got all paranoid that they weren't mixing at room temperature. Then when it turned out there was no suitable pot to use as a double boiler I toughed it out, and it was fine. Paranoid Iddy is paranoid. Then I blended in the rice bran oil, and it reached trace pretty much straight away. I decided that couldn't possibly be right and mixed it for longer, but nothing really changed. Then I added my fragrance, poured it into my mould (Devondale UHT milk carton - 2 litre), wrapped the mould in a towel, and put it away.

An hour and a half later Mr. Iddy observed that he could 'smell soap'. I informed him that he was insane, but looked at my soap anyway - because I'm the highly suggestible type like that, and yay! my soap had hit the gel stage, and my fragrance oil was evaporating! My colouring for M&P soaps didn't work (just like the interwebs warned me). So I expect to have a plain yellow, mostly unscented soap.

But soap, yay!

Rosehip Soap

Today I worked with more melt and pour soap.

303grams white melt & pour, 3 drops red colouring, contents of 1 rosehip/hibiscus tea bag, 8 drops of coconut scent. The last lot of coconut scented soap didn't have much scent.

I bought some lye yesterday (2kg Caustic Soda from Bunnings, made sure it was suitable for making soap). I also picked up some PVC for a mould. Hope it works okay - I also finally got some isopropyl alcohol, so was able to use it on today's melt and pour soap. About the only thing I'm lacking now are the oils. Hubby was asking me while I was playing with the soap if I was playing with Lye, I assured him I was not. I think he was a bit worried about my total lack of lye appropriate caution!

I've put today's soap in the fridge, I think I'll play with some clear melt and pour before the day is out. Maybe use the lemon scent with it.

Edit to add - the Rosehip tea settled! FAIL. The soap's scratchy!

Second Soap

Well my second attempt at soap seemed to go somewhat better.

300 grams white melt and pour base, 2 drops blue colour, 1 drop of red, 4 drops of coconut fragrance oil.

The colour turned out a kinda lilacy grey - the 2nd drop of blue was an accident - I think next time I aim for purple, I also add a second drop of red. See how it goes. I had intended to add more coconut oil but after last night I was all OMG paranoid about the soap going hard in the jug. We'll see how it goes. I'd prefer unscented soap to uber-scented soap, so there's that. Yesterdays seems a little strong, but of course - it's still very fresh.

I've decided I'm going with room temperature process soap for my first real attempt at making soap. I'm thinking 40% coconut oil, 60% rice bran oil, and using a PVC mould. I'm planning on going to Bunnings on the weekend to buy some PVC pipe, and check out the Caustic Soda. Probably won't get to work on it until the following weekend though.

Soap

I resurrected this blog to track my soap making endeavours. I'm starting with melt and pour because I'm lazy like that, but have grand plans of playing with Lye etc.

First effort - Melt & Pour - white, 255 grams. 3 drops of blue colouring, two short 'pours' of jasmine fragrance. Time in microwave = 45 seconds x 2, 25 seconds x1, plus a reheat of 30 seconds for the second bar.

Happy with the colour, will have to wait and see about the fragrance. There's bubbles in it - it came out of the microwave with bubbles - not sure what to do about that. I guess I could always by the rubbing alcohol recommended.

I took too long to put the colours and fragrance in and mess around with the moulds - so I had to reheat it to pour the second bar.

I faithfully measured out how much the moulds would hold, and weighed out that amount of base, but it only made 1 and 2/3rds bars. I'm blaming this on a couple of things - first of all I still don't actually believe that Soap Base & Water = The same weight for volume. I was skeptical from the start. Also, I forgot to put glad wrap over it the first two bursts in the microwave. I'm pretty sure that didn't do me any favours.

Overall I'm a little disappointed. If only there had of been some way to predict I would be the best soap enhancer eva at my first attempt!

March 2008

Well, it's been forever since I've blogged. Unfortunately as disappointed as I am in myself, I'm not terribly surprised.

Things that have happened in my life since November: Started back working in my region, with the program area and manager of my choice. I had been looking at job ads elsewhere, but it's really hard to be miffed when you are given exactly what you want. The upside of that is that I'm loving work. Fortunately, my manager and I work well together. We'd worked on the same project before, but never really together. Whereas I've never worked as closely with a manager as I do my current one. Fortunately it appears our strengths compliment each other, and I feel we're doing really good work. As the stress increases as we get closer to the end of the financial year, we'll see how optomistic I remain!

On the knitting front, I got the shawl I wanted for the air conditioned office knitted, and I love it. It's soft and purple - sock yarn purchased from Moseley Park Store. Maybe in a later update I'll share a photo, but for now I am lazy!

Also, I've gotten back in touch with my eldest sister. We had been out of touch for years. This means I instantly have another big sister, another brother-in-law, and their 18 and 16 year old children back in my life. Given the children are essentially all grown up now, and each was still a child when I last seen them, I'm feeling very neglectful! The eldest has even left home already!

A rare post

I was supposed to go to a BBQ tonight. But it's wet, and cold. I got an email assuring me that it's undercover and dry. But it's cold. And I'd get wet walking from my car. And anyone who's had to put up with me for 2 consecutive minutes during winter probably has an idea of how well I get along with the cold. One of these days I'll work out why I feel the need to move further and further into Victoria when I don't do winter. Until then I just complain and try and make everyone else around me as miserable as I am. It's a tough gig, but somebody's gotta do it.

Meanwhile I've been knitting socks lately. I've decided it's what I do. I can get a pair done in 4 days (because I'm using 3.25mm needles and 8 ply yarn) and I've decided what I really need to do is upgrade my sock drawer to LindaMade socks. After that I can work on finer work. Oh, and there's two of each sock of course, but as the mates are identical I couldn't be bothered changing 2 socks each time.

Yay! Socks!

What can I say, I'm lazy. That's my excuse for not blogging. It's my excuse for most things. It works for me.



First of all, the socks. No photos yet. See the excuse for why I'm not blogging more often if you're curious as to why... I've got a WIP photo on ravelry, but nothing since. The socks are made from Tasmanian Merino that I spun myself. They're a lovely dark grey colour, and are incredibly soft. So much so I hate to part with them :p. Meanwhile as they sat there for over a fortnight waiting for me to get around to learning kitchener stitch I suppose my mother has waited just about long enough.



On a different note, I mowed my lawn today. It was the first time in ages, so of course that made the task an absolute bitch. The front lawn now looks like all the other lawns on the street, not something you need a machete to hack through. As for the back lawn? Well I spent 20 minutes out there after i finished the front and reclaimed about 3 square metres of it. Then on one of the downhill slopes I landed on my arse and decided that was enough. I figure if I leave it for long enough I'll discover some lost species there. It's not laziness, it's sharing with nature...



Working in Melbourne's going well, and I'm loving the commute, I'm getting so much knitting done. I'm less enthusiastic about the very early mornings, and the fact that I have maybe 3 hours of fully functioning free time at home for the entire day, but I'm geting a lot of knitting done! The weekends are good and lazy. I get some of the sleep I miss out on during the week, get my washing done, and try to get some of the housework out of the way. I'm also on a no-caffine on the weekend bent. I figure save the caffine for when I need it, and make every effort not to become hooked again. Anyway, I've got a swatch to knit up to work out how many stitches I need for the socks I plan to work on tomorrow... Hopefully I'll have a new pair of socks by the end of the week!