JuliaNegusuk
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2017
- Messages
- 170
- Reaction score
- 200
I find mixing silk into lye takes ages however small I cut it, and I always need to push the resulting goo through a sieve to ensure I don't get bits of undissolved (and possibly lye rich) silk in my soaps. I was making my lavender and tussah silk soap today and swearing at the unmixable silk when I decided to try blitzing it with the stick blender before adding the lye (I always soak the silk in the liquid - in this case madder tea - before adding the lye and then adding to the oils). The gooey mess that resulted didn't inspire me with confidence but I added the lye and hey presto, a quick stir and the silk just vanished. No goo, no strands of thread, no clumpiness. I sieved as usual and it poured straight through, no residual clumps of undissolved silk to try and massage through the sieve. Brill!
Caught up in my own brilliance I then mixed it all up and poured it into my moulds, scraping it all off neatly and reached for my cornflower sprinkles, only to spot the container with my lavender oil sitting alongside it unused. I had to scrape out all of the soap batter out of the single cell moulds back into the jug to quickly blitz in the lavender oil. Luckily the batter wasn't too thick so it poured back alright. And it was all going so well!
Anyway, I am sure many of you have worked out how to best add silk to your lye yourselves, but for those who haven't try this method. It seemed to work amazingly well.
Caught up in my own brilliance I then mixed it all up and poured it into my moulds, scraping it all off neatly and reached for my cornflower sprinkles, only to spot the container with my lavender oil sitting alongside it unused. I had to scrape out all of the soap batter out of the single cell moulds back into the jug to quickly blitz in the lavender oil. Luckily the batter wasn't too thick so it poured back alright. And it was all going so well!
Anyway, I am sure many of you have worked out how to best add silk to your lye yourselves, but for those who haven't try this method. It seemed to work amazingly well.