Love buds!
I can't even describe the fun I'm having creating yumminess in my soap lab!
I decided to try out a few things other than cold process soap. Most of us use handmade soap because we are looking to use more natural products. The level of adherence to the natural ingredients runs the gamut and each person feels. Personally, I definitely want to live a healthier life and minimize my carbon footprint, but I consider products on a product by product basis, if it looks interesting, I'm not bound to a code that would make me not use a product just because it is not 100% natural. I do know that some ingredients cause irritation for me and those I do try to avoid.
That was a ramble for what, I think I'll get back around to it...I go off topic often.
In bringing Bathy Taffy to fruition, I wanted to create a new lather experience for myself. Most liquid, cream or other types of soaps irritate my skin. Many have quite a bit of proplyene glycol which I am pretty sure is the culprit. It is hard to find natural liquid or other forms of non-bar soaps mainly because they do not lather well. When you add things to a soap that are non-lathering (extra glycerin or butter or other moisturizing additive) it greatly affects the lather. Proplyene does not, so it is added as a humectant to many of these products. For product makers who chose not to use it, the result is good soap but not great lather.
Recently, as I have gotten back into creating soap, the desire for a different soap texture arose again. My attempt was to create a kind of cream soap and I tried by making a butter and adding liquid soap first, but I never achieved the lather I wanted and still had some level of skin irritation.With some research, I found that adding sugar to your lye water really boosts lather in the final soap product. Seasoned soapers know that dodium hydroxide is used to create bar soap and potassium hydroxide is used to create liquid soap. When I combined the two with my process, an elasticy soap was the result, even when fully diluted!
Bathy Taffy Recipe
I apologize, I did not take pictures of this process, I wasn't sure it would work out. I am really trying to do better at that!
If you are unfamiliar with cold and hot process soapmaking, please do not proceed. Find a local soapmaking class or find some video tutorials. Working with lye can be hazardous if you are unfamiliar with how to maintain safety while doing so.
TOOLS:
Crockpot (Some people make hot process soap on the stove or in the oven, if so, you will need the essential tools for heating your soap via that method. I used a crockpot)
Stirring utensils
Stickblender
Safety googles
long rubber gloves
apron
thermometer
Stainless steel pot (to heat glycerin and lye up)
INGREDIENTS:
I will share my ingredients by percentage of batch. I did a 16 oz batch with a 10% superfat. The key to this is the use of glycerin instead of water to create the lye bath.
Use a soap calculator to figure the amounts of lye, lye bath glycerin and dilution liquid amounts.
You will need:
LYE WATER
.87 oz Sodium Hydroxide (40% of calculated lye amount)
1.84 oz Potassium Hydroxide (60% of calculated lye amount)
5.75 Glycerin (36% of the weight of oils)
2 TBSP Sugar
OILS
2 oz Castor Oil (12.5% of oils)
2 oz Olive Oil (12.5% of oils)
4 oz Coconut Oil (25% of oils)
4 oz Palm Oil (25% of oils)
2 oz Rice Bran Oil (12.5% of oils)
2 oz Shea Butter (12.5% of oils)
DILUTION
2 oz of additional Glycerin for dilution bath
11 oz of liquid for lye bath (I used coconut milk w/aloe vera)
2 oz of additional butter (shea or mango) I used shea for after dilution
DIRECTIONS
Warm oils in crockpot on high. In the stainless steel pan, add glycerin and dissolve sugar in it. Once completely dissolved add Potassium and Sodium hydroxide. Continue to warm until all lye is dissolved. Solution may be cloudy, no need to warm until clear.
Once oils and lye are within 20 degrees of each other (between 130 and 160 degrees), add glycerin/lye to oil (never add oils to lye) and stick blend to a heavy trace. Turn the crockpot down to warm. Let sit about 10 minutes and stick blend again. Repeat until you can no longer stick blend and then continue to cook batter until translucent, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes. Once translucent, test via your chosen method to ensure it is fully neutralized.
Add 2 oz of additional butter and stir in until melted. The batter should start to have a taffy-like consistency.
Add dilution water to batter and gently stir to incorporate. Try to ensure all of the batter is covered with solution and let it warm for 4 to 6 hours stirring occasionally.
Once all of the batter is incorporated, it will have the consistency of thick shower gel and may develop a layer of foam. At this point turn off the crockpot. Let set at lest 24 hours. It will then take on a taffy consistency again, just stir in the foam and it is ready to use.
Carefully add the fragrance oil of your choice. You could probably do this with the dilution bath.
I am considering adding a little color to make it look a little more palatable.
If you try this, tell me how you like it. I took a shower with it last night and my skin felt great, though the lather is not as great as bar soap, I felt it was a bit more than most handmade cream soap options.
Until next time Love Buds,
Peace, Love and lots of gooey, bathy taffy Bubbles!
A.
