Pomace Olive Oil and Goat Milk

Right at this moment there is a batch of pomace olive oil with goat milk soap in the pot.  Because it's olive oil, it's coming to full trace very slowly.  I walked away from the pot because the stirring was creating a lot of air bubbles, and it's enough into the trace that I don't think it will separate out again.

It's going into a large pan filled with eucalyptus and spearmint soap shreds.  It will take several months to cure.  A batch I made nearly a month ago is mild enough to use, and while it leaves the skin soft and clean, it has yet to develop a lather.  Instead, as the soap is rubbed under running water, it develops into longs threads of a milky slime.  If you remember the movie Alien, and the stringy slime you saw every the monster opened it's mouth, it's like that, except milkier.  So it looks like it's from an Alien with candida.  Eventually it will develop into a lovely, soft lather.  For now, it's amusing to use it - like a kid's science project.

I stepped away from the machine just now and returned to the pot.  It was ready to pour, a smooth, pale yellow liquid with a custard like texture.  A few taps on the counter removed the last of the bubbles.  Now the work area is wiped up, the soap is in the in the oven where it will rest until it sets up.  There are pots in the sink to wash, and that's it.  I'll be done before noon.  This time, no lye burns, miscalculations, damaged equipment or other mishaps.

The best part is that my youngest son was able to get himself set up and ready to homeschool independently while I worked in the kitchen.  Now to go check his work.  Life is good.

Staples

For a while I was all about making unusual soaps, soaps for special occasions and holidays, seasonal soaps, and extra luxurious boutique soaps. Lately I've been falling in love with extremely useful, basic staples in the soaping formulary. These days, while I still enjoy being creative and trying new combinations, I've also been focused on coming up with simple, tried-and-true soap formulas that I will make again and again.

I remember that when I would chat with other soap makers about adding glycerin and 10% apricot kernel oil to a soap formula, other more experienced soap makers would ask, "Why are you doing that? Why not save those expensive emollients for lotions and creams?" Well, for one thing, I wasn't making lotions or creams yet. But now I am starting to make them.

When I first caught the soap bug, I wanted to believe that the mildest soap with a secret blend of essential oils and happy-skin plant additives could some how be a wrinkle fighting beauty weapon, even making moisturizers completely unnecessary. Truthfully, a soap formula does make a huge difference in how conditioned and comfortable the skin feels after using it, and different skin types will prefer different formulas. Now I see that even the best soap needs to be part of a happy-skin team. So I play with formulas for balms, salves, oil cleansers, and masks. I continue to learn about the properties of exotic oils - which ones are said to be best for the scalp, which are best for aging skin. But these won't necessarily go into soap. I'm still inexperienced at making body butters. I've given little jars away to good friends and have received positive reports, but I know that batches I've made and used myself could use a bit of improvement. So, I continue to work at it. There are oils rich in antioxidants, natural additives that can help block out sunlight, and all sorts of soothing ingredients to experiment with.

Now I see what those more experienced soap makers were trying to tell me. While I still plan to add ingredients like shea butter and happy skin oils to some of my soaps, some of these ingredients are more effective when they haven't been altered by sodium hydroxide. Yes, expensive ingredients can make a better soap - but soap is just part of optimal skincare. Of course there is so much more to optimal skincare than soap and other topical preparations, like nutrition, rest, exercise, water, stress, toxins, not to mention genetics etc., but that's an entirely different tangent.

Yesterday I continued my quest for the perfect formula of pomace olive oil and goat milk soap. I think that pomace is probably one of the gentlest oils for soap making, and everyone knows the benefits of goat milk. This soap has only three ingredients: pomace, goat milk, and lye. Yesterday's batch didn't quite fill the mold, so I stirred in some fragrant shreds of pink floral soap. My plan is to continue making batch after batch of this simple formula, possibly scenting some of them, adding soap shreds to others and leaving others plain, until I have found the perfect formula that pleases me the most. It's going to be a long process because when pomace is not combined with other soap making oils, it takes it a very long time to harden and develop its lather. Right now I'm guessing it will be six months but that is optimistic. Some people say it takes a year. Only time will tell. I'm guessing this is the reason you don't see a whole lot of commercial soaps made strictly with olive oil - even soaps that call themselves "castile" will contain other oils like coconut, palm, etc. This is because when olive oil is the only fat used to make the soap, the turn-around time is at least doubled. But I think that if I combine this with the best oil cleanser, lotion, body butter and masks, and I will be very satisfied.

A main staple in my arsenal of soap formulas is my tooth soap. I call it Mad Dog, because it makes people foam at the mouth. It's an acquired taste, but I've grown accustomed and it doesn't bother me. It's basically a very mild coconut oil soap, with added myrrh, spearmint, clove, salt and stevia. It can be used on skin, hair and scalp as well, so if I could take just one soap with me on a deserted island, it would have to be this one. For the next batch, I want to experiment with adding xylitol instead of the stevia. The weird thing is that I have become quite accustomed to using it. Now when I do use toothpaste, the experience seems odd and strangely unsatisfying - as if I haven't really brushed my teeth yet.

Another staple is, of course, my laundry and housecleaning soap. After years of refining the formula, the most effective formula for my low-suds washing machine is a blend of beef tallow and coconut oil. After it has fully cured, it is combined with sodium borate, sodium carbonate and water to make laundry soap. Sometimes essential oils and/or fragrance oils are added, depending on my mood.

Yet another one is is shaving soap. This is mainly castor oil, happy-skin oils, clay, and fragrance or essential oil. I still haven't found that perfect balance that creates good shaving bubbles, good slip, and emollients, so for now it's necessary to use a post- shave topical preparation to condition the skin. I have yet to figure out how to make it more skin conditioning without sacrificing that long-lasting shave foam.

Next are shampoo bars. These are quite simple - mostly coconut oil, with a touch of jojoba. There are a few essential oils that are optimal for hair and scalp. I've been reading about plant oils that are said to stimulate hair growth, but I suspect these should go into a topical scalp preparation. These days my hair regimen is simple. About once a month I apply henna. After each shampoo with my homemade shampoo bar, I spray on a mixture of white vinegar, jojoba and essential oils, and rinse immediately. The immediate rinse helps to dilute the vinegar right away on my head, because I do not like to add water to the bottle. Adding water increases the potential for microbes, and I don't need to mess with preservatives for this. I simply fill a 32 oz spray bottle with vinegar, add about 10 or so grams of jojoba oil, and a few drops of essential oils or fragrance oils of my choice. Shake, spray, tousle, rinse and towel dry. If the hair becomes a bit brittle or dry, I use a tiny amount of balm made with jojoba, shea butter and beeswax on the ends. If I used hair colorant other than henna, perms, or a blow dryer, I might need to use other products, but one reason I started using henna and stopped using chemical hair dye was so that I could stop using commercial shampoos and wash my hair only with my own soap. So far I've been quite pleased with the results - far happier than I was when constantly fighting the damage caused by commercial hair dye and always on the lookout for that expensive shampoo that would reduce color fade.

And finally, we must have plenty of salt bars on hand. Salt bars are fantastic in the summer because they fight body odor far better than plain soap. They have a high percentage of coconut oil, loads of happy-skin oil, and are well scented. I love to customize these for family members. I make it with low salt for the children because they tend to scrape their knees and elbows, and too much salt doesn't feel good on cuts. I can add their favorite fruity, bubble gum and chocolatey fragrances. For my husband, the soap is heavy on salt with a manly scent, and for me, heavy salt with a sumptuous riot of floral fragrances.

The Last Bar of Devil's Food Soap

Today, my youngest son was getting ready for a birthday party, and while pulling wrapping paper out of the closet, I found a lone bar of Devil's Food soap. It was from the first batch of chocolate soap I ever made, which had somehow fallen off the top shelf. This particular batch was made in December of 2009, with palm oil, cocoa butter, coconut oil, pomace olive oil, cocoa powder, vitamin E, sodium hydroxide, water and chocolate fragrance oil. Fragrance oil is needed in this formula because cocoa powder, coconut oil etc. do not add any scent to soap. When this batch was about one year old, I noticed that the delicious chocolate scent had faded. Now, there is no scent left at all, but the soap is mild and creamy with a low, lotion-like lather. It's so gentle that this morning I used it on my face. It cleans well without stripping.

I've since made subsequent batches of chocolate soap, replacing the water with coconut milk and adding a rich dark chocolate to the cocoa powder, but still the fragrance is gone by the time the soap is a year old. Shelf life for soap is tricky - the sweet spot for optimal hardness and mildness is about two years - but a lot can happen in two years. The oils used to make the soap can go rancid, or the scent components can fade. Often it's a trade off - do you want a strong beautiful scent or a luxurious, gentle lather and a harder bar? That's why I work so hard to make the formula gentle on the front end. My soaps are usually used up before they are two years old - unless they fall off a shelf and land behind the wrapping paper!

So now it's time to look for a longer lasting chocolate scent. My criteria for scent is:

*It should be phthalate-free
*It shouldn't be too tricky to work with
*The scent should last two years in the finished product
*It should be true

Phthalate-free: The use of phthalates is rather controversial. Some fragrances simply do not smell as good without them. Advocates argue that there are only trace amounts of phthalates in fragrance oils, and while massive amounts cause cancer in lab animals, human do not come into contact with that amount in their lifetime. The human body is like a filter: it keeps what it can use and filters out what it can't. Phthalates pass through the body harmlessly, and besides, they are within FDA guidelines.

My argument against their use is that we don't live in a controlled lab environment. We do not know how many phthalates we are already being subjected to in our daily lives. I prefer to avoid them when it's within my control, because there will always be some exposure that is not within my control. I rarely compromise on this unless I am making a soap specifically to someone's specifications, and they want a specific fragrance even if it contains trace amounts of phthalates. I've been in contact with many cancer survivors who make soap, and if they use fragrance, it's always phthalate-free. Nothing like cancer to influence someone to take their ingredients seriously. I'd rather take ingredients seriously now, before a wake-up call from illness.

(An edit to the above comment on pthalates: A couple of my friends have recently given me bottles of fragrance oil that they are no longer using. I don't know whether or not they contain pthalates. I'll try them anyway for use around the house because they smell gorgeous and I am too much of a frugality fanatic to let them go to waste. But when it comes to purchasing fragrance oils, the pthalate-free policy stands. If the manufacturer does not state that they are pthalate free, I will not purchase them unless someone specifically asks me to make them a soap with that fragrance oil.)

Not tricky to work with: Some fragrance oils and other scent components cause an acceleration of trace in the soap making process. Some can cause false trace, ricing and similar problems. Any of these complications can ruin a batch of soap if not dealt with effectively. There are things that can be done to work with a tricky fragrance oil, and I will put up with it if an oil is just too lovely. But if it's a beautiful scent and easy to work with, that's better.

Lasting scent: Some fade quickly, or change. I found a delectable, phthalate free bubble gum scent for one of my boys. I used it in a pure, mild olive oil soap, and the scent had morphed for delicious bubble gum into an odd rotten fruit smell before the soap had finished hardening. Not good. Some people are satisfied if the scent holds for six months. But in my opinion, two years is optimal.

True scent: Six different companies can create a fragrance with the exact same notes but a different bouquet. Some will smell more like the real thing than others. It depends on the nose too: Sometimes a scent advertized as one thing will smell like something else to a certain percentage of the population.

It's tough to find fragrance oils that meet all of the above criteria, but when we find one, it's a keeper!