Lavender Soap

I have had some lavender infused olive oil ready to be added to soap for a few weeks now so on Monday I told the menfolk not to come into the kitchen as I was making soap and they were banned from entering :-) I don't want any distractions when I am handling the lye so they made themselves scarce for a half an hour or so.

 I had bought some Australian clays and a couple of other colourants from Green Living Australia recently and was keen to give the Pansy Mica a try as I had never used micas before. I had rung up their office to ask if there were any natural mauve colourants and the girl who answered said she quite liked the Pansy Mica. The clays are much cheaper than the micas so I didn't want to waste it on a botched batch. I also bought some Titanium Dioxide as lots of soapmakers use it and, as I was having problems with the Fragrance Oils discolouring my soap I thought I would give it a try so as prevent that. I know it is a controversial subject so I did a bit of research about it and found a good article on The Soap Queen called Sunday Night Spotlight: Titanium Dioxide.

Eventually I will probably not worry about adding fragrance unless I am making soap as a gift which isn't very often as not everyone likes homemade soap so it is all just a bit of trial and error at the moment to give me an idea of how different additives work in soap. As you can see in the photo I bought some Annatto Red which needs to be kept in the fridge and as well as colouring soap it is also used to colour cheese. 

I made up a batch using 1000g oils and that made what you can see in the above photo. I was a bit disappointed at this stage as the colour looked like a light grey. I went a bit overboard with 'decorating' the bottom of the soaps in the moulds and was experimenting with using a fork. Don't ask me why. LOL! 

 I used my new heart shaped mould which I just love and tried really hard not to get any air bubbles as I poured the mixture in over a spatula as I had read to do that in one of the Soap Queen's tutorials.

 

 However, I still ended up with a few and also there were some odd flecks scattered throughout the soap which I can only presume is from the mica not being mixed well enough although I tried really hard to make sure it was. Anyway they are still pretty and the actual colour is what you can see in the photo above.

 On one setting on my camera they came out looking pink but I am just showing you this one so you know how much soap this recipe makes. The soaps on the right actually have a marbled look about them which I quite like.

I always try to remember to record my recipes as you wouldn't believe how many times I have to go searching for them down the track so here it is:

Lavender Soap

500g     Lavender infused olive oil

250g     Coconut Oil (I used copha)

250g     Rice Bran Oil

30g       Lavender and Mint Fragrance Oil

1t          Titanium dioxide mixed with 1T of the oils

2t          Pansy Mica mixed with 2T of the oils

140g     Caustic Soda

380g     Water

I couldn't find any information on Gavin's Little Green Workshops about how much vanillin was in the Fragrance Oil as that is what discolours the soap apparently so that is why I added the Titanium Dioxide to try and keep the soap a light colour. Time will tell as it cures whether that worked or not.

By the way if anyone is interested in buying one of those moulds on eBay you might want to get a move on as I heard on the news last night that Aussies might be blocked from eBay. You can read about it in this article 'Why Australians could be about to get blocked from eBay' .

Have a wonderful week everyone!