石鹸作り No. 3

Third try, this time with fairprice house brand macadamia nut oil. Determined to succeed in development of an extra moisturising soap recipe without the need to buy expensive oils like apricot kernel oil, shea butter or cocoa butter.

Recipe III – Earl Grey Milk Tea

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil 120g
• Fractionated Coconut Oil 60g
• Macadamia Nut Oil Oil 120g
• Lye 41g
• Earl Grey Tea 75ml
• Coconut Milk 50ml
• Thai Bergamot Essential Oil 30 drops
• Peppermint Essential Oil 60 drops
• Lemon Essential Oil 20 drops
• Earl Grey Tea Leaves, Brewed

The coconut milk was mixed in after all the lye pellets had dissolved in the earl grey tea while the container was immersed in cold water. Stirred the lumps out but the mixture stilled formed a dirty brown suspension of lye-tea and coagulated milk bits.

After combining the lye-tea-milk with the oils, which by then had formed a dirty brown mixture of lye-tea-milk-oils, I had to whisk like there was no tomorrow. Almost thought it won’t trace and I had just wasted 41g of lye (which is worth its weight in gold around here), but eventually it did and I could pour it into the mold.

Since trace took awhile to arrive and, being the dumbass I was, I misjudged trace and poured in the essential oils and tea leaves too early. Most of the essential oils have probably dissipated in the hot mixture which explains why this batch was not as fragrant as the second batch. Despite this it did retain its smell of tea, which I hope will stick around.
Unmolded them the next day to find the soap had lightened in color somewhat to a nice milk chocolate color. The soaps are also softer and more crumbly as compared to the last recipe, probably due to the use of macadamia nut oil. Sadly, I couldn’t achieve perfect square shaped bars yet again, but I have 2 more tries left.

Earl Grey Milk Tea Soaps

出来上がりそう

Wrapped the oatmeal soaps today in tempura paper with mt tapes.

Technically, the traditional cure time of 8 weeks hasn’t passed, but since I had done a large water discount and the soaps had passed the skin test done on myself.. Should be okay la hor. For some strange reason the oatmeal soaps were sweating today, which I pray is due to the humidity in the air after all that rain this morning and not due to some recipe design flaw.

Kudos to that little soap shop in malacca which gave me the idea of using soap mesh bags which completely revolutionized the way I look at soap bars. Was wondering why the soap mesh bag hasn’t quite caught on, especially when most people, when questioned, would list ‘lack of lather’ as one of the reasons as to why they do not use solid soaps. Soap mesh bags would probably help to produce decent foaming action even with the slimiest of castile (pure olive oil) soaps.

I guess everyone just didn’t bother after detergent was invented.

思い知った as to how useful mt tapes are