Charcoal Facial Bar with Mango, Avocado and Babassu

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Amanda

I received an email recently about soaping without coconut oil. I have some recipes sans coconut oil but most are really high olive/bastille/castille type of recipes that don’t produce many bubbles. I wanted a bar that was nice and bubbly. I know that babassu is similar to coconut oil in its fatty acid makeup so I got some babassu to try.

I wanted to make a face bar with charcoal. I like to have at least one butter in every soap that I make and that butter is usually shea. I’m not a big fan personally of shea on my face…so I thought I would try mango in this recipe. I also love avocado oil in a facial bar…so included that as well.

Charcoal Facial Bar with Mango, Avocado and Babassu Recipe

Avocado oil – 4 oz
Babassu oil – 8 oz
Castor oil – 2 oz
Mango butter – 4 oz
Olive oil – 12 oz
Rice Bran oil – 2 oz
Water – 9 oz
Lye – 4.35 oz
1/2 Tablespoon Charcoal

If you are new to soapmaking…start here.

Melt the mango and babassu.

Add all of the other liquid oils to the melted oils. Add the charcoal to the mix as well.

Add the lye solution and mix to trace.

I added about .75 oz of tea tree oil. Then pour it into your mold. I prefer facial soap to be round. Facial soap and beer soap… I’ve always gone with round bars for those types of soaps. So I am using a mail tube with a liner (more info on the liners).

Unmold and cut after 24 hours. Let cure for at least four weeks.

So…the verdict. Its been several weeks since I made these and I have to say that I LOVE this recipe. Its bubbles amazingly well even though there isn’t any coconut oil. The charcoal helps suck up excess oil. When I use this soap I make a nice thick lather in my hands, put it onto my face and let it sit for a minute (almost like a mask) and then rinse it off.

If you give it a try…let me know what you think!

Happy Soaping!
-Amanda

ps…. Bramble Berry sent me a goody package with some exciting products to try out! They are running a promotion during the month of November called GIVEMBER! (Make sure you are on their email list for the newsletter!) And I get to be a part of the fun. I’ll share the details with you soon!

pss or is it pps?…. Check out the new pourable silicone from Bramble Berry! Guess who wrote the eZine that accompanies the kit! (MOI!)

Don’t forget SOAPMAKING CLASSES!

Ginger Soap – Using fresh ginger pulp in soap

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Amanda

Holly Port of Lotion Bar Cafe came down to visit a couple of weekends ago and help out with a class. Unfortunately she wasn’t feeling well so we decided to juice some fresh ginger to hopefully knock out whatever was getting her. As we got done juicing and started to clean up the juicer…we both kinda paused, looked at each other…and I think it was Holly that said…”let’s soap it!” And “soap it” we did!

I took some of the ginger pulp and laid it out on a cookie sheet to dry a bit more. Then I put it in a food processor shred it down some more. We used about 1/4 cup in our three pound recipe.

Ginger Soap Recipe:

Avocado oil – 2 oz
Coconut oil – 20 oz
Olive oil – 16 oz
Rice bran oil – 5 oz
Shea butter – 4 oz
Sunflower oil – 3 oz
Ground ginger pulp – 1/4 cup

Lye – 7.2 oz
Water – 12 oz

Make your lye solution. Weight out the solid oils and melt. Add the liquid oils to the melted oil.

Holly and I decided to add the ginger to the melted oils and stickblend to help break them up some more.

Add the lye solution and bring to trace. We wanted to do two bars…one scented and one unscented. So we divided our mixture at trace and scented one.

Then pour it into your mold! We used mail tubes with liners to make cute 3″ round soaps.

After 24 hours, cut your soap and cure for about 4 weeks.

I used one today for the first time. Its been curing about 2 weeks so I’ll let it keep curing a bit longer. I love this recipe. Its nice and hard (and palm free). The lather is great and it rinses nicely without any tacky/sticky feel. You can see some of the pulp in the soap so I was worried that it might be a bit scratchy like oatmeal. It wasn’t scratchy at all. You could feel it a bit if you really tried but it was really smooth. It turned out to be a great soap!

Happy Soaping!

-Amanda

ps – Do you want to purchase some of the liners used above? I sell them 25 for $10.00 (includes US shipping). Email me amanda@lovinsoap.com to order. See original liner post on how to use them.

1 7/8″ Round Soap Bags – Make cute guest size rounds or embeds

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Amanda

I’ve added another size to our soap liners and bags. These soap bags make round soaps that are 1 7/8″. They are perfect as guest size bars or for use as embeds! Here’s how the bags work…

Bring your soap to light trace.

Insert a funnel into the bag and pour in the soap leaving a couple of inches. You might want to have two people do this but I managed it on my own. Hold the funnel at the base along with the bag. Pour in your soap.

Remove the funnel, twist the bag of soap and secure tightly with a rubber band.

Then you’ll use a binder clip to secure it somewhere to hang. I have a microwave cart that I used in the kitchen. You could also use a clothes hanger in the closet or somewhere safe.

Give it a tug and make sure that it is secure. Be sure you let it sit somewhere where dogs or children won’t mess with it. Mine felt extremely secure but just to be on the safe side I put a pot underneath in case they fell or broke open. They never did…but I like to be extra cautious.

These soaps did end up gelling which suprised me a bit. But I prefer gelled soap so it was a good suprise. The bags hold up well to the high heat of gel phase.

Once cut they make 1 7/8″ round soaps. You do have a little waste at the top and the bottom but I just use those as my tester bars or cut up for embeds.