What I Learned Today

[SueSoap]

I made a 2lb batch of bastille soap with 70% olive oil, 20% coconut oil, and 10% castor. In place of water I used frozen buttermilk.

The first thing I learned is that if you slam a frozen bag of buttermilk on the counter to break it up, the bag breaks and you then have frozen buttermilk blobs all over the kitchen. Note to self: next time - double-bag.

The next thing I learned is that after adding the lye to the frozen buttermilk veeeeeery slowly - the melted solution doesn't get very hot.

At light trace, I added 2T of honey powder. This was globby and took a long time to incorporate into the batter. Next time, I'll try dissolving it beforehand in some oil or glycerine.

I had some liquid colorant from BB, so I squired this into the batter after adding the fragrance. It didn't really do much. I should have practiced with it to see what it might do. I ended up just squirting it into the batter as I poured into the mold, and then swirled with a skewer.

I'm curious to see how this experiment will turn out. I'm hoping for a gentle, bubbly bar that smells good and looks okay. Will include pic after cutting.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Hazel]

Sounds like it was a great day for learning new things.

I'm sorry you had such problems but I think your soap sounds like it will be wonderful. I love buttermilk in batches. This is just a suggestion but I'd recommend dissolving the honey powder in a little water first and then add it to the batch. It will dissolve better and you can just deduct the water amount from the buttermilk amount.

 

[Pepsi Girl]

Whoa! Sue that sounds like something I would do. Here's my story: I frozen mine in shallow freezer container I thought I could use my pastry cutter it slice it ( like a knife and ice cream). But it was to hard so I zapped it in the mircowave just a soften it sightly. It still looked very frozen so I pushed down giving it all I had with the cutter . It wasn't as frozen as I thought and it squirted goat's milk all over.
But the soap was beautiful!!!