Caramel Fudge Soap

As our laundry is next on the list for a paint job, floor coverings and a few bits and pieces that the builder suggested last December when he finished the kitchen and bathroom, I thought I would start going through the 'stuff' that has been hiding out there for a while. Well, probably a lot more than 'a while'. Make that years! I came to my soap making supplies and was disappointed to find that I had let my 4 litre tin of rice bran oil go out of date and it was still half full. So I decided it was time to use up the oils etc. that I have before buying anything new this year.

I have lots of clays (that I am not fond of), several micas, ultramarine blue and annatto red to play around with plus a few fragrance oils that I have been given or have bought, some of which contain quite a lot of vanillin which discolours soap. Add to that a number of oils in my stash! Oh yes, I also bought some Titanium Dioxide powder which lightens soap to prevent discolouring.

So I decided to make a plain uncoloured batch for our son in individual moulds and use a loaf mould for the rest and try to do a sort of swirl :-)

After pouring a third of the batch into the individual moulds I poured the rest into two jugs and added Titanium Dioxide to one jug and the annatto red liquid to the other jug. As I had already added the fragrance oil to the whole batch I had to work quickly before it thickened up. 

I layered in small amounts from each jug at a time till the mould was full and then grabbed a chopstick and did some swirling of sorts. It didn't turn out too badly but unfortunately I had miscalculated with the Titanium Dioxide and forgot that it was only going into one jug instead of the whole mixture so basically added three times too much so I now have white specks though the soap. Oops! 

Here is the recipe if anyone is interested. I will need it myself in the future when I try to remember what on earth I added to the soap. It is going to take a while to get through some of the oils but I really need to take note of their use by date.

Caramel Fudge Soap

240g Carotino Oil

510g Coconut Oil

510g Olive Oil

100g Castor Oil

200g Cocoa Butter

223g Caustic Soda

593g Water

  48gPumpkin Spice Fragrance Oil 

Annatto Red for colouring 

3t Titanium Dioxide (should have been 1t)

I am sure that most Aussies have seen on the TV news the dreadful floods up in the north of our state of Queensland. On the Weatherzone site I just counted up a total so far of 28 inches of rain since Tuesday in Townsville and apparently the worst is still to come. Many suburbs have had to be evacuated. Those who are familiar with Jenny's beautiful blog Jenny of ELEFANTZ would know that she and her hubby have been pumping water out of their yard since the rain started in an effort to prevent the water from coming into their house.  She would appreciate your prayers at this time as it is a really worrying time for the residents of Townsville.

The rain has also arrived in the north west of the state and has been greeted with much jubilation as the Outback has been parched for some time. There is flash flooding in Mt.Isa which isn't unusual up there when it rains and many of the roads in the region have been cut. I daresay the highway to Townsville is also cut in places. Woolworths flew in emergency supplies to Mt.Isa today as the supermarket shelves were emptied when the rain started as some people were panic buying. That seems to happen everywhere for some reason. Obviously some people live from day to day with nothing put aside for emergencies.

I hope that all my readers are keeping safe from the cold in the Northern Hemisphere and from the flooding or bushfires in Australia. It certainly is a time of extreme weather.