Apple Cider soap

During the HMSG conference, I took a class on using alternative liquids to water in soap making.  Traditionally, water is mixed with the lye flakes, the mixture heats up, I wait for it to cool, then mix it with the oils.  The class presented the option that the lye flakes don't have to be mixed with water, it can be any liquid, like beer, wine, anything.  We went to the Manotick farmers market and bought some apple cider, I thought i would try making a batch of soap with that.  

I kept the cider in the fridge, the mixed it with the lye.  

The cider-lye mixture got darker as I added more lye, and it started to heat up. 

It got darker still.  

I used a simple oil mixture, Coconut, Palm and olive oil, then mixed the two together.  

The colour got lighter.  For extra applyness, I added Apple Pie fragrance oil.  

Through the whole process, I was surprised at the colour changes.  I thought with the lye mixture being so dark, it would make the whole batch a dark brown, but it didn't at all.  I poured the soap into orange juice cans.  

I just made a small batch, I wasn't sure how it would turn out.  the next day I peeled off the can, the soap was still a lighter colour than I expected.  

I cut the logs into 1" thick circles.

I have set them out on the curing rack, I'm curious to see if they change colour. 

Peach soap, wasn't so peachy

Last weekend I decided to try out my new mold from Bramble berry.  

This is the 36 bar birch mold with plastic dividers.  I also bought the plastic bottom, I thought it would be a good idea.  This mold would hold a lot of soap, I had to make sure the recipe I used would fill it.  I picked a recipe that had apricot kernel, canola, olive, palm and coconut oil.  I doubled it and off I went.  I am trying to make all the recipes that I have all the supplies for, but never get around to making.  I love all the swirling techniques Brambel Berry does in this mold, so I decided I would make a peach scented soap with yellow and pink swirls.

  

I added the lye to the oils and mixed with the electric stick blender.  The soap is a liquid consistency at this point.  

I mixed the soap some more, the mixture got thicker.  You can see the ridges forming along the sides of the pot, also known as light trace.  

More mixing, now it's thick enough, I am now at full trace.  When the soap is dragged across the top of the soap, a line forms that doesn't immediately sink back into the soap.   

Since I wanted to swirl, I didn't want the soap to trace too much, its much harder to swirl when the soap is a thick pudding consistency.  I put some of the soap into 2 measuring cups and mixed in the colour.  Sometimes adding colour will speed up the trace, or slow it down, so I had to move quickly.  

I pored the rest of the pot into the mold.  The I poured the colours over top.  As you can see, the soap got too thick.  Very hard to drizzle and swirl soap that is thicker than pudding.  

I tried my best to swirl it, I ran my spatula from side to side, then up and down, without taking the spatula out of the soap.  

Another problem with the soap being to thick, the colour wouldn't reach down to the bottom of the soap, so all the colour would stay on top.  You can see the divots the spatual made, the soap was so thick it didn't shift back into place and stayed bumpy.  I then put in the dividers.  

The next day, I couldn't get the dividers out, the soap was too soft.  So I left it for another day, the soap was still too soft, the soap wasn't coming away from the dividers, I was cutting it out of each space.  This was leaving marks on the soap. 

So I put the whole tray in the fridge.  My trick for getting the soap to release from the molds is to put it in the freezer for a few hours, but this tray was way too big for the freezer.  I figured in the fridge for an evening would help.  This did help, it made the soap harder, it still took me forever to undo all the soap. 

The colours didn't turn out the way I wanted,  I wanted a soft pink and yellow, like a peach.   I'm hoping they will mellow as the soap cures.  If not, I have 36 bars of this.  

I then had to clean all the soap off the dividers. 

The soap stuck to the bottom as well.  I can see why using the bottom is an option, if I had just used freezer paper to line the mold, I could just tear off the paper, rather than slide off each soap from the plastic.  

This is a lesson learned, I think many things can be improved on.  I need a recipe that makes a harder bar, I need to grease the dividers so they come out more easily, and not wait that long to pour the soap so I can get a better swirl.  All things to try next time.  

Dentist

My dentist retired recently.  I have had the same dentist, working out of the same office, my whole life.  I was trying to figure out how old my dentist must be, if I started seeing him when I was 5 years old, and I’m 36 now…How old are you when you graduate dental school?   He must have had patients before me, I can’t have been his first one…  It’s crazy when you think about how long my dentist has been a dentist.  I remember playing with the toys in the waiting room, talking though the little window, waiting for my name to get called. 

I chose a new dentist closer to home, the office is so nice and modern!  There was a window in the exam room!  I was asked what would I like to watch?  The TV was hung from the ceiling, I watched Friends as the dental hygienist gave me my cleaning.  My old dentist only had an airplane mobile.  Sometimes the radio. 

She tool digital x-rays and pulled them up on her computer in the exam room and showed them to me.  Very cool!  Then, she gave me the bad news.  I had a cavity.  My very first cavity.  I had never had any major teeth issues, no braces, nothing like that.  I thought it would go on forever, me not having a cavity, but alas, I booked an appointment to get it filled.  They had had a cancelation, so I got an appointment 2 days later to get the cavity filled.  This was great!  I didn’t have time to think about it, or have people tell me horror stories for months and months and scare me. 

My dentist was a riot!  She was very sorry that it was her that had to give me my first filling, but the whole process was so painless, I wasn’t upset at all.  Again, I got to pick a movie, but the dentist made jokes the whole time, so I didn’t really watch it.  I just laughed the whole time, as much as you can when people have their hands in your mouth.  Everything was numbed up, then she drilled it and filled it, and I was done!  She explained each part as if I was a kid, so that was funny.  She put on the sleepy juice, then the rain coat, the she collected the sugar bugs.  All very painless.  Since I was such a good patient, I got to pick something from the toy chest. 

I will definitely try to be more diligent with flossing so I don’t get more cavities, but all in all, the experience was great!  Not bad for my first cavity.