Macadamia Soap

I wasn't terribly happy with my last batch of soap in which I used madder root for the first time so I thought I would try another new to me recipe using macadamia oil which I hadn't used before. I knew there was rain on the way but didn't realise we would have 99% humidity for days on end which isn't good for soapmaking so thankfully I had decided to only make a small batch.

Well the rain started and didn't stop for a few days although it wasn't heavy rain like areas to the north of us received and I heard on the news tonight that some had been flooded after downpours which added up to 500mm. Incredible totals considering that three weeks ago everything was as dry as a bone and we were in the grip of a heatwave at the beginning of spring. Strange weather we are all having!

I knew that the soap was going to be soft with such high humidity around so I left it for two days but in the end couldn't stand it any longer so took one out of the mould for a look-see and that is the one in the middle in the above photo. Hmmm, obviously I was too impatient.

So the following day I took another one out and it was still too soft as you can see by the middle one in the above photo. Each day I would take another one or two out of the mould but I knew they weren't going to dry out so in desperation I put the soap into a styrofoam box with a lid that I use in winter to help my sourdough to rise and added a container of DampRid to get absorb some of the moisture :-) The rain has cleared up pretty well here now but is to return on Saturday so hopefully by then the soap will have started hardening up. I have decided I don't like a couple of the flowers in the 6 cavity mould I bought recently as they don't come out of the mould very well. They are the bottom two in the photo.

I do love these sunflower moulds though. You wouldn't believe it but I used pink clay to colour the soap above and used a heaped teaspoon in half the batter as the last time I added it the soap didn't turn out pink at all. Obviously this time I used too much though and ended up with brown soap. Sigh! I used pansy mica in the other half of the batch but didn't mix it up enough by the looks of it and now have a lavender and white soap. Trial and error once again.  

Whenever we have days and days of rain and high humidity I have noticed that my soap just drips with moisture and finally it twigged that the laundry was much too moist an area for it during a rain event as I put some of my soap in another room for a few hours and it started drying out. The laundry wasn't built very well and let's say it is very 'airy' for want of a better word.

I had cabin fever this morning so took myself off to a shopping centre and had a look for around for something I could store my soap on which was transportable when it is raining and found a 3-Tier Trolley in KMart which should be just the solution. I will just wheel it into the lounge room or bedroom so it can stay dry unless I get some complaints from the residents. LOL!

I also made some Goat's Milk Shampoo Bars based on this recipe in Jan Berry's new book Simple Natural Soapmaking .....

....but this is really, really soft so most of it won't be coming out of the moulds until Friday or so when it has dried out a bit more. I have a sneaking suspicion as to why this soap is so soft and think that when I was rendering the lard, which is in this batch, some water from the condensation on the lid of the crockpot got into the lard. Last time I rendered lard I had the crockpot on low but thought I would speed up the process this time and turned it onto the high setting.  When it was rendered I noticed that it wasn't as white as my first batch and it also had an odour and I was wondering what I had done wrong. So I did a few searches online and found  'How to Render Lard the Right Way..Snow White and Odorless' and realised that the 'low' setting was preferable. Another lesson learned. 

I had better write down the recipe for the macadamia soap for future reference otherwise I will forget how I made it. I used to have Print Friendly on my blog which was handy for printing parts of a blog post off but it has disappeared. If anyone wants it put back on just let me know. I have no idea why it disappeared.

Macadamia Soap

225g Coconut Oil

300g Olive Oil

175g Sustainable Palm Oil

45g   Macadamia Oil

106g Caustic Soda

240g Water

23g   Peppermint Essential Oil + a blend of essential oils

1t      Pink Clay mixed in water added to half the batch

1t      Pansy Mica mixed in 2T oils added to other half of batch

I hope everyone in the flooded areas of Queensland are okay. I saw some houses on the news tonight that were under water which is terribly sad and some farmers who were almost due to harvest have lost their crops. If you live in our area, enjoy the sunshine before the rain returns. On Saturday we have our Sourdough Workshop which will be presented by Chris from Gully Grove. It should be a great workshop as Chris really knows her stuff and makes yummy loaves of sourdough.