Last year I made pumpkin soap and everyone loved it. It was my favorite scent. This year I wanted to make it again. I wanted to do something different, but it wouldn’t have taken much since last year I had a disaster with using bee’s wax and the soap setting up real fast. I had to re-melt the soap to get it into the molds. Even though it was a disaster in the making, it turned out wonderful! Who would have thunk? This year, I decided to tell you my thought process and give you my recipe. Now you can understand how I make the what I consider art soap. It is artistic and very usable. I like to add extra things for visual effects, but also for skin conditioning. When making soap, I tend to make quite a mess and it takes a lot of clean up. I always drop some of the soap as I am scooping it out of the pail and sometimes I drop other things too. Not always is it feasible to stop and clean up your mess since there is a limited window of opportunity as the soap sets up . If you take the time to clean up as you go, you lost the opportunity to do some of the decorative elements in the art soap.
Recipe:
Read all directions and make sure you have what is required to make the recipe.
Prepare your surface and try to protect it as best as you can from the dyes and the lye. Newspapers and plastic cutting boards work great.
Measure out all of the ingredients, except for the lye. Once you measure the lye and start the actual soap making, make sure you put on safety glasses, gloves, respirator, and an apron. Some people put on lab jackets. I understand since I look like the mad scientist making soap. LOL
Mix 3 ounces coconut milk powder and10 ounces water. Set this aside and make sure to strain it or you will get little white specks in the soap. This can be a decorative element though.
For the center of the soap I will add left over soap balls which have been rolled in mica and oxide. The balls I have are left from the gingerbread with lemon sauce soap. Roll the balls in l teaspoon plum oxide from Herbal Accents and 1.5 tablespoon raspberry pop mica from TKB Trading Company. These two ingredients were placed in a large plastic bag, along with soap balls. They were tossed around and thoroughly coated on the outside. This should give it a tiny darker ring in the soap on the outside. This gives the soap visual interest, but also keeps the gingerbread from looking like poop balls. LOL Set these aside until you are ready for them.
Measure the lye and add the water. Add the coconut milk, the oils/fats, the ROE, and the palm stearic acid. Mix well. ((60 ounces water (10 ounces is already in the coconut milk) 26.30 ounces lye, 90 ounces coconut oil, 55 ounces tallow, 19.6 sunflower oil,11.5 ounces shea butter,2.2 ounces ROE, 3.5 ounces palm stearic powder))
Add the coloring, the sunflower petals, the fragrance, and the pumpkin powder. Mix well. ((10.6 ounces pumpkin spice fragrance from Bramble Berry,1 ounce pumpkin powder,.20 sunflower petals, coloring)) For the coloring, I used a liquid bright orange from Bramble Berry. It was especially made for cold process soap. I used quite a lot of the tiny bottle of coloring. I think it darkens over time, so it may be more feasible to use less.
Much of the ingredients sold for soap making is not made for cold process soap making, so prior to your purchases make sure you purchase the right kind of ingredients. You may also wish to label your purchases if you make melt and pour soap too. I recently used a lilac oxide and it turned grey in cold process soap since it was made for melt and pour soap. I did not realize that it was not made for cold process soap when I used it. The soap still looks great, but it was not what I expected.
Now it is time to get the party started. Place some of the soap mixture in the bottom of the molds. Add some of the balls at random intervals. Some soap will have 3 balls and some will have one. Of course, when you cut the soap, the complete ball will seldom be in one bar of soap. Pour more soap onto the top of the balls. Add more here and there if you are able to do so. I placed some on the soap in another container and I did not color it. This way I was able to use two colors in the soap for the first three loaves. Now this is where things changed. I had plans, but………… For the fourth loaf mold, I did not quite have enough soap. I used a larger mold than intended and if I had not mounded up the first three molds, I would have had enough. Isn’t that the way it goes. LOL I like the tops of the mold to look similar to pumpkin bread, so I mounded up the soap. So on the the fifth loaf, I added some green oxide to the last 2 cups of soap mixture. I somewhat swirled the soap, but mostly spooned it in the molds.
The first soap mixture gelled very fast. It looked like 3 loaves of sweet potatoes.
Since the the 4th loaf mold ingredients were a little low from the top, I decided to add a topper. I followed the above example and measured the ingredients, added the water to the lye, the oil to that mixture once it was dissolved, added the titanium dioxide to keep the topping white, and then the pumpkin pie spice. I whipped this a little stiff so it would top the soap and look like whipped cream. ((30 ounces coconut oil, 22 ounces tallow, 7.9 ounces lye,19.76 ounces water,1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice,1 ounce titanium dioxide))
Place the topping on the soap. Add the little pumpkins if possible. Sprinkle with cosmetic grade glitter. I used 3 colors of orange. Cosmetic grade glitter is very fine and does not scratch your skin. The tiny pumpkins were made from left over pumpkin soap from last year.
Now I can’t wait to see how everything turns out. It takes most of one day to plan, measure, mix, and clean up a large batch of soap. It also costs a considerable amount to make the soap since we do not have access to purchase much of our items locally and shipping can be expense, even when you buy bulk. I like to add things such as pumpkin powder and pumpkin pie spice, coconut milk, and glitter. My soap is a little unique and I like it to be different than the rest. It also tends to be a little flashy and that is what I am going for.
If you are able to salvage a little left over soap mixture, make tiny pumpkins for next time, or add a little green oxide to it and make vines for the pumpkins on the top.
I hope you are able to understand what I have written. It has been a long day and I think I am going to sleep and dream of pumpkins, maybe count them on my way to sleep....... Thank you for viewing my blog. You should have an award for making it this far. Blessings to you and yours!
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