Citrus/Hibuscus Tea Soap

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Flutter

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Hi everyone,

I haven't done much with soap in a while, but tonight I made a batch of CP soap.

I used brewed hibiscus tea and orange extract for the water part and added some dried tea and bergamot EO at trace.

I was surprised the orange smell pretty much masked the lye water smell.

Anyway; I will post pics when I unmold it.

I was playing around with oils I had on hand, so here is the recipe I came up with if anyone is interested ...

3.20 oz lye
8 oz water (or in this case orange/hibiscus tea)

1 oz beeswax
5 oz canola oil
5 oz coconut oil
8 oz olive oil
2 oz grapeseed oil
2 oz shea butter

.25 oz stearic acid

The batch made 8 bars in the mold I have, so it was a good small batch for me. If this one turns out, I will use the same basic recipe for other scents.

I think I used too much stearic acid ... I forget where I got the idea to add .25 oz to the batch, but I just read another tip to only use it as .5% of your product. So will using too much make the soap too hard or too harsh on your skin or something?

I unmolded them today ...

2usv234.jpg


They look nice and smell good still. I hope the batch is not ruined with too much stearic acid.
 
I think I used too much stearic acid ... I forget where I got the idea to add .25 oz to the batch, but I just read another tip to only use it as .5% of your product. So will using too much make the soap too hard or too harsh on your skin or something?


That is not a high amount of stearic acid. The risk is that you usually have to hot process using pure SA, it requires a much higher temp to stay melted, and almost instantly saponifies so can cause strange spots in the soap.

Your bees wax is about 4% - which many think is high, mostly for the same reasons - you have to soap hot and it can cause your soap to move really fast.

If you don't want to use lard, tallow or palm - I would drop the wax and the stearic and up your shea as your hard oil.
 
That is not a high amount of stearic acid. The risk is that you usually have to hot process using pure SA, it requires a much higher temp to stay melted, and almost instantly saponifies so can cause strange spots in the soap.

Your bees wax is about 4% - which many think is high, mostly for the same reasons - you have to soap hot and it can cause your soap to move really fast.

If you don't want to use lard, tallow or palm - I would drop the wax and the stearic and up your shea as your hard oil.
Thanks! I will see how this one turns out and add more shea next time :)
 
This soap is finally ready and I like it so far; it doesn't seem drying at all ... although, they don't smell anymore.
 
No scent at all? You should post an updated photo if they changed at all!
 
Yeah, not really much of any smell anymore, but they look the same.

0924171616 sm.jpg
 
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