Bourbon & Fig Bar

[Jenn Lee]

Morning All!

I wanted to share a picture of some CP soap I made last weekend. I really like how the colors turned out and, currently, it smells great.

I wanted to try a soap with no Olive Oil (OO) so I subbed Rice Bran Oil and put in a lot of butters to try and make a hard, creamy bar (bubbles be damned!). I wasn't sure how it would go with an almost 50/50 unsaturated to saturated fat ratio. Usually, it traces too quickly for me to do anything but smoosh it into a mold. Knowing this was a possibility, and I hadn't used the FOs before, I hand whisked this one before pouring it into my mold.

I don't have the original recipe in front of me, but it was something like this in order of most to least oils:
Rice Bran Oil, Red Palm Butter, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Lard, Neem Seed Oil, Castor Oil

I only put the Lard in there because it needed to be finished off. It traced quickly, but I was still able to pour it into my mold fast enough. The FOs didn't seem to accelerate much at all, and since I added Australian Red clay and Yellow Brazilian clay for my colorants - I was worried this would really turn into fudge fast. So that part went well. Smells great! I like the colors, had a bit extra so I made sample soaps too. I did mess up the top of my loaf, I know. lol

Only thing is that the Red Palm butter stained all of my molds yellow. Kinda annoying. I didn't know it would do this as it was my first time using it. I try to stay away from Palm stuff for the most part.

Anyway, just wanted to share and see if anyone has anything similar or suggestions for more soap without OO.

Cheers all!

 

[earlene]

Pretty top on your loaf, Jenn. I really like it how it looks.

Yeah, red palm oil does stain silicone. And it produces orange-ish lather in soap when used a high percentages, so be prepared for that, too. I don't like it for those two reasons, but mostly the latter. I bought it on sale once, and boy did I not like it in soap! I also thought it smelled funny. Maybe it's the carotenoids or something else; it is packed full of nutrients. If I hadn't disliked the odor so much, I probably would have tried it on toast since it is touted as highly nutritious.

 

[Jenn Lee]

Ha, guess I should have done a little more reading before I put so much in. Although, I bought this at the grocery store on a whim and when I opened it, I didn't notice much of a smell. My Neem Seed Oil smelled a lot more. I kind of like the gentle nutty smell of the Neem, myself. I guess I'll be using a lot of orange-lathering soap myself in a while then!

I finally got around to cutting them, here's the curing batch.

 

[SunRiseArts]

I love the red palm, in my experience the stain will go away with use. I have a trick to clean then too, PM if interested.

I love your soap, and those are my type of scents!