Homemade Soap

Angelina-M

EagerLearner wrote:

Hi Angelina_M, so would you say the instructions are:

- Melt cocoa butter
- Add chunk of solid shea butter (can't do a dollop like you said)
- Wait til shea butter melts in
- Add jojoba
- Pour all into a mixer
- Let cool

???

Yes thats the way. If you melt all the butters you would be whisking all night! The reason shea butter goes grainy is to do with melting it, so if you just let it soften in the cocoa butter, you wont get graininess.

You dont need to wait until shea butter melts, you can add the jojoba at the same time and proceed from there.

If you dont want whipped butter, just stir the above together and it will be nice thick body butter.

giftbouquets

Hi,
I made some soap a while ago. It was a disaster, very hard and crumbly. I would love to experiment and try it again, but found the ingredients very expensive. Does anyone know of any reasonably priced suppliers, for example of coconut oil, shea oil, etc. Also the recipes I had also said to use a few teaspoons (10mls) of essential oils, which was about a bottle! Seemed a lot, would love to know hoe much others put in.

EagerLearner

Thanks Angelina - sounds lovely and I may give it a go tomorrow! Do you know what kind of quantities of each thing at all? x

Angelina-M

Well I dont measure but what i'll do is add perhaps 2 tbsp shea, half to one of cocoa and a couple of jojoba. What im trying to do is get a butter that is still light without being too firm once it sets. Because cocoa butter is very hard, you wont need as much as that, however I never leave it out because it is so moisturising.

Giftboquets I dont know your problem with crumbly bars except to say it could be to do with what oils you used. For instance too much cocoa butter in a mix could make for brittle bars. But used at 10-15% it makes for a lovely hard bar with creamy lather.

I always use cocoa and shea in my soaps, then I add whatever oils I have in, usually olive oil and then fillers like sunflower oils which arent too expensive to buy and help keep the costs down. No point in going out and spending a fortune when you may not like the hobby - however the soap is fantastic!!

EagerLearner

Hmmm - that quantity means my blender won't be able to mix it (the blades won't reach the liquid!)- should I mix by hand? I really want it to be a 'whipped cream' texture though.

Might try increasing the quantities.

Angelina-M

EagerLearner wrote:

Hmmm - that quantity means my blender won't be able to mix it (the blades won't reach the liquid!)- should I mix by hand? I really want it to be a 'whipped cream' texture though.

Might try increasing the quantities.

No not at all, just increase the quantities. I do small amounts when im testing the feel etc. Also I like to change my essential oils all the time so I make butters little and often.

It does keep for rather a long time so you could make quite a bit and pop it in a jar. I would get fed up of using the same essential oils so this isnt an option for me

EagerLearner

Wow! I just made one and now that it has cooled I love it! For anyone else who is interested, the following amounts worked in my blender:

- 1 tablespoon cocoa
- 3 tablespoons shea butter
- 3 tablespoons jojoba oil

This made a 30ml pot of buttery lotion which is great, i still have more left of the raw ingredients. As I am putting together a hamper for my mother in laws birthday this month, I will make her a pot.

Mr EL likes it too as he has dry skin, so he's having the one I just made.

Can I make one for me just with jojoba and shea butter (ie: no cocoa butter) - would it still work?

Really keen on making a soap now - any recipes you'd recommend Angelina_M?

Angelina-M

I'm glad you like it!!

It may go more solid overnight. Its still gonna be great, but as I said before, if its too solid, just remelt and add more liquid oil. Whipped body butter is one of the main reasons I originally got my Kenwood Chef lol!

With soapmaking, I never follow a set recipe from a book or whatever. I look what oils I have in, then put some figures through a lye calculator http://soapcalc.com/calc/soapcalc.asp I usually do a 2000g one at a time as thats my mould size. This makes me approx twenty good size bars. I'll fish out my last recipe and try and put a picture up so you can get an idea. This may take me a while........I've never done a picture on here before!

EagerLearner

Yeah - sorry, I meant cocoa butter he he - although chocolate sounds nice, I am pretty sure it wouldn't be as good for my skin!

I made a 2nd pot, this one for me - this time I used:

- Half tablespoon of cocoa butter
- 3 tablespoons shea butter
- 2 tablespoons jojoba
- 1 tablespoon macademia nut oil

I think this one will only be an occasional cream as it's prob too heavy for daily use. How can I make one for daily use? A book I have says to melt beeswax (which I have) and add water (I have rosewater) - any ideas?

I let it set and like the 1st one, this is now solid-ish but nice and buttery - and am wondering if i should have kept stirring it until it cooled?

Still interested in the soap, but lye sounds complicated... mainly I want a soap for dry skin so it has to be very moisturising. I recently bought a shea butter soap on E-bay, but even that makes my skin 'squeaky' which I didn't want. Maybe they didn't really use that much shea butter, I don't know.

Angelina-M

Toxic_Lemon wrote:

Can you believe I never considered using the Kenwood for this? :T

TL :eek: Crikey you dont know what you are missing!

Right here's the recipe I used last week to make the swirly chocolate and orange soap. Sorry I cant find the lead for the camera but when I do i'll post a pic.

600g shea
400g cocoa
200g coconut oil
300g palm oil
100g castor oil
200g olive oil
100g Avocado oil
100g jojoba oil
760 g carrot juice (from fresh carrots)
253g lye

I held back some of the jojoba and avocado and added this at trace. This recipe is superfatted as are all my soaps so I get a milder bar.