Monday, March 19, 2012

Grumpy's Cedar Hand Soap [Updated]

UPDATED Again:  At 5pm the soap has hardened again and is a beautiful sage green.  Unfortunately the cedar sprigs that I put on have cooked to an ugly black.  I'll just shave them off.  Lesson learned.  Tomorrow morning I'll unpeel and cut into bars.  Anxious to see what it looks at by then.


UPDATED: 2 hours later....soap has turned clear dark green, still very hot. Has softened some...I'm worried.....

Second batch of soap today.  This one is a semi-castille soap, because it has olive oil in it.  It went well, although the soap that I tried right after it "cooked" from the pan was oily and didn't suds up.  I've read that olive oil soap is harder and soapy, so let's hope it sets up that way.
The block is hotter than "hell" right now, and the cedar that I ground up in it is turning brown (not what I envisioned, I had hoped for a greenish soap) but I think that's due to the hot chemical reaction that's going on.  And, it may just be my eyes, so I'm going to wait it out and see how it goes.
It's pretty, so far.
Tomorrow it should be nice and cool and I'll cut it into bars and test it again.



2 comments:

  1. interesting... dark green isn't so bad?? Hope it works out! :) If at first you don't succeed...try again!

    How did you get the cedar in there?

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    1. I put some of our cedar in my coffee grinder, then let it sit out for a couple of days to dry. Real small little pieces of cedar. Too bad they didn't stay green...could be I didn't let them dry enough so they cooked in the chemical reaction with the lye. I'll dry them more next time or even re-chop them into more of a powder. Wonder if that would work?

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