formulating a minneola soap

[green soap]

I must have a thousand pounds of these beauties, we are having a large crop this year. A minneola is a hybrid between a Dancy tangerine and a grapefruit. We sell them at our farmer's market, and besides mojitos, I thought I should also make some soap!

I have made a minneola soap in the past, but never using the juice. This time I want to use the juice to replace the water. I did a rough calculation to find out if I needed to add more lye, since the citric acid in the minneola juice will neutralize part of my NaOH. I wanted to share the calculation in case any of you have an abundance of citrus, that might make its way into your soaps....

Searching a while I found out that minneolas have on the average, 14 grams total acid in one liter of juice, most of it being citric acid. Also, depending on the form of the citric acid, it takes between 0.57 to 0.63 grams of NaOH to neutralize one gram of citric acid (I averaged to 0.6g). Since I use a little less than 1/3 of a liter of liquid per a 10 bar loaf, this gives me a total of 4.2 g total acid from the minneola juice, which will neutralize (or eat up) 2.5 grams of my lye and form sodium citrate. So if I want to keep the super fat the same, I need to add 2.5 grams more NaOH.

I used a fine zester to take the outer zest and froze it in a bag, along with the juice in ice cube trays. I will be using the juice frozen to prevent the sugar from overheating and discoloring. Not sure if I will incorporate the zest in the soap batter (for gentle exfoliation) or just sprinkle a bit on the loaf top. Or add some to half of the batter and swirl?

Now I am thinking what scents (essential oil blends) should I include, grapefruit, tangerine and orange being obvious ones. What else to blend with those? I will be using one of my regular soaping oil blends and soap at room temperature or a bit lower.

What look to give the soap? plain Jane or swirled? any suggestions or comments appreciated.

Another question. Any idea if sodium citrate will have an effect on the properties or qualities (or look, feel) of the soap? It should be only 6-7 grams, something like a teaspoon.

I will post pictures of the soap later (still in my mind only) but here are some minneolas, aren't they cute?

 

[green soap]

Here is the first minneola soap I made about 3 years ago, using OO infused with the fruit's zest. Partial gel looking like rinds. Not reproducible...

 

[LanaBanana]

This sounds like a fun project. I'm interested in hearing how it turns out. Swirls might be fun. Like orange, lemon, grapefruit scented soap could be orange, yellow and pink swirls. The fruits look delicious!

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[neeners]

I immediately want some sangria now.....

those are sooo cute! I am not a chemist (maybe super DeeAnna can help?). can't wait to see the soaps!

I think a swirl would be nice...

 

[Tienne]

Those colours in the partially gelled rounds look really nice!

Sandalwood goes well with citrussy smells and I think a spun honey kind of swirl with caramelly, creamy, cappuchino-ish colours would look nice with that.

Sodium citrate is used as an antioxidant in food and if you were lucky maybe that would go for soap, too. I've also read somewhere that Sodium Citrate (suggested use at 3% of oils) should boost the lather "noticeably", even more than sugar would (at 1 Tbsp ppo). (I don't know if that's true, but that's what I have scribbled down in my notes about it.)

 

[Obsidian]

What about something like this?
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2ire2MU3Is[/ame]

 

[DottieF.]

NDA has a 5fold tangerine--

http://www.newdirectionsaromatics.com/tangerine-essential-oil-5-fold-p-357.html

I'd give that a try in your blend. I make a citrusy soap (using an fo) and swirl it. I use a very small amount of red iron oxide to get a light peachy orange and chromium oxide green to get a leafy green. It's very pretty if I say so myself

 

[green soap]

Thanks for the great suggestions! the video is nice, very appropriate. Might be more work than I want to do but it looks like so much fun I might try it.

It looks like sodium citrate should not hurt and it might help.

I have not used these minneolas in sangria but I should!

 

[Susie]

Lemongrass EO is well behaved and gives a nice light lemon scent. I have successfully mixed it with some sweet orange EO, added it to my oils and gotten a nice "undefined but citrus for sure" scent that did not trace too fast for a solid color. I might be a tad hesitant to get fancy with the colors unless you were going to add the sweet orange at the last second to a topping or imbeds of some sort.

 

[green soap]

No soaping today but I got the federal portion of our taxes done. :clap::clap::clap::clap:

I can color the soap with infused annatto, which can give a very deep orange. I love what she did in the video, leaving the zest for the outer part.

I wanted to show how the partial gel rings cured in the minneola soap I made a couple of years ago. I was using a different mold, and this looks like standing waves to me.

 

[green soap]

Since I last posted I have used the minneola juice as a liquid for dissolving the NaOH in soap, but I would not call it a minneola soap. I am making wedding favors for a couple very dear to me, and they requested a soap I make that I call 'sangria'. The former version had a lot of wine and seized on me. This time, I used only 50g red wine (added to the lye liquid) with the remaining liquid being minneola juice. I added zest to half the batter, and rose clay for the other half. It accelerated but I managed to layer it some. Not as pretty as the video, but it was a good use of the juice. The color is sort of like sangria too.

I still have enough frozen minneola juice to make a minneola soap - I was thinking making it round on a pringle's can, but everybody here despises pringles....so the juice remains in the freezer. And lots lots more minneolas on the trees too.

 

[green soap]

http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/agriculture/issues/tar-04-28-4/tar-28-4-8-0310-2.pdf

I found the above reference useful for estimating acid content in minneolas. It also has this information for several other citrus fruits.

 

[AustinStraight]

If you use wine, boil it first! That way, there's no alcohol to make it seize If you planned on using a Pringles container for making round soaps, I've used tea cups before to make round soaps and it worked well :smile: Just put a tiny strip of parchment paper in the cup so you have handles to pull the soap out with. You could also try a wide piece of PVC, or perhaps just invest in a nice cylindrical silicon mold. As for swirling, I think an orange mantra swirl would look really nice And, I second the tangerine EO!

 

[neeners]

I second the PVC pipe, but line it so it's easier to get out. sounds like it's going to be amazing! can't wait for results!