Tales of a Lapsed Soap Maker Part 1

Soap making 101 - never make soap without following two rules:

Do not make soap when you are under the weather
Do not use unusual ingredients without referring back to your journal for the last time you made soap with them

I thought I was feeling a little better today - so I thought  had better make that batch of soap I've been meaning too for Christmas presents ....

Rosewood & Amber Soap
250gm lard
250gm Tallow
250gm Coconut Oil
235 gm Olive Oil
210gm water
140gm lye
15 gm Caster oil
20g gm Rosewood essential oil
10 gm amber fragrance oil
1 tablespoon of French Pink Clay

Melted the fats and oils together, mixed in the clay.  All looking good so far.  Left that to cool and mixed the lye and water.  Started to mix the scents.  Now I haven't touched these essential oils and fragrance oils for over a year as I haven't really been concentrating on this hobby.  And I have a head cold - I can't determine if these are OK or if they have lost their potency - or worse if the amber fragrance oil has "turned" and now smells crappy.

Oh well mix up the blend anyway - oh crap I forgot the amber fragrance oil is a dark dark syrupy brown.  Oh I hope it doesn't discolour the pink into some unappealing brown like the fragrance did to the green I chose last year!

OK mixed the lye solution into the fats and started stirring!  Brilliant!  Working perfectly !!!!  Came to trace nicely.  Has the consistency of a thin pouring custard - just perfect for the intricate moulds I had prepared!  Then I added the scent blend.

Technical tern "Ricing"
Ricing is when some combination during the soap making process acts as a catalyst and creates a hot of chemical energy in a short period of time which greatly speeds up the setting or saponification process.  Put simply the mixture goes from thin puring custard into lumpy mashed potatoes.

I managed to pour into three guest0-sized soap moulds before the whole pot seized.  Lumpy mashed potatoes?  I could replicate the mashed potato scene out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind !!!

Oh well mooshed the stuff into the rest of the moulds as best I could.  Covered with glad wrap , wrapped the lot in a towel and hoped for the best.

4 hours later:  Paul walks in and says - what is that sublime smell!  Oh that is gorgeous!  Do you have some already made I could use right now !!!!!

OK I know there was nothing wrong with the fragrance oils and the ricing didn't adversely affect the scent either!  Phew!

18 hours later:  Soaps have cooled and hardened, so time to put them them into the freezer to help pop them out of their moulds.  Still look mostly pink.  In fact the main concern from the ricing is that there are air bubbles everywhere - oh well.

Lessons for the lapsed soaper:
* Do not soap with a head cold
* Do not use fragrances without checking your notes from last time
* Always have a large box mould on hand and ready so next time it rices you can just moosh it into one large mould and cut it up and smooth it off later!