Lemon Pie Soap

I made a batch of soap on Friday.  I have been drinking lemon water, fresh sliced lemon smelled so good, I thought I would make some lemon scented soap.  I thought it would be cool to add the zest to try and get some of the lemon freshness I was experiencing.  I picked the basic recipe from the Natural Soapmaker.  I mix the lye first, to let it cool, then I melt the hard waxes.  It was after I had weighed these ingredients that I noticed that I didn’t have enough olive oil.  I know, you’re supposed to gather all your ingredients first, but I was excited to try out this soap.  I added Sunflower oil to make up for the olive oil I was missing.  I tried to work out the SAP values, but since everything else was already fixed, it was hard to reverse engineer the recipe. 

 I split the batch in two, added Lemon Essential oil, the lemon zest, and yellow oxide for colour to one and Sugar cookie scent, no colour to the other.  I’m going for Lemon Meringue scent.  I poured each into a juice jug and poured at the same time into an orange juice can.

I learned some new techniques at the Soap conference, one of which was things still go OK if you pour into the molds at the first sign of trace.  I had always thought that one had to mix longer, I usually mixed until my soap was like pudding, but it can get thicker so fast that it causes air pockets that are difficult to get out.  I have tried this technique, poring two soaps from opposite sides of the can, once before with the Lime Coconut soap.  I had waited until the Lime Coconut  soap was thinker so I got different results.  This soap was very liquid, the two colours mixed with each other more, rather than stay on one side. 

I thought using orange juice cans was a good way to get a nice size, the circle fits nicely in your hand.  It’s a way of recycling and it’s easy to get the soap out as opposed to other methods.  This way, you just peel off the can.  

Then I cut it into 1.25” sections with a soap cutter.   

Then I put the finished soap in the soap rack to dry.  It will stay there until it gets hard, about 4 weeks. 

This soap has started off softer than I’m sued too, I’m sure it’s the combination of the sunflower oil and the pouring at light trace.  I left it in the molds for 2 days, usually I only leave it for one, I thought this would have some effect, but it didn’t.  All in all, I think it turned out OK, I will see how long it takes to harden on the rack.