Brown Sugar & Fig Soaps

Making Yogurt Cold Process Soaps

BALANCE ACNE YOGURT BAR

PINK GRAPEFRUIT & PEPPERMINT YOGURT & SEA SALT BAR

NAG CHAMPA YOGURT BAR

PINK SUGAR YOGURT BAR

PUMPKIN PIE YOGURT BAR

BLUEBERRY YOGURT BAR

All the above bar soaps contain yogurt in them!

I have been super fatting my bar soaps for years now using yogurt, the addition of yogurt to your bar soaps is adds a much loved feel to your bar soaps. I used to make goats milk bar soaps, and then I started using yogurt just to see how it felt in a soap. Once I used yogurt I was hooked and haven't made a goats milk bar since!

The feel of a yogurt bar soap is, in my opinion, much much richer and creamier it leaves my skin feeling incredibly soft and smooth and it doesn't hamper the lather of my bar soaps.

Through much trial I have used many different kinds of yogurt in my bar soaps, I have found most recently that I like the Greek Yogurt in my soaps much more than regular yogurt. Greek Yogurt when you look at the labels has mor fat content in it, therefore adding that extra fatting to your soap. I loved it so much I even added it to one of my salt bars and have fallen in total love with the feel of the finished product. These bars each offer you a rich creamy lather that feels incredible on your skin.

Here is how I add yogurt to my soaps:

I use my basic soap recipe, and here is a recap of my basic soaping formula:

50oz of hard oils

25oz of soft oils

5oz castor oil

11oz lye

I give a decent sized water discount to my formula generally I use around 24oz -27oz of water for my formula.

When I use essential oils (depending on what kind of essential oils I use, some will accelerate your soap just like a fragrance oil will) I generally use 24oz of water in my formula.

When I use fragrance oils I usually use the full 27oz of water with my lye because fragrance oils will accelerate your soap slightly, some faster than others, and in a case when I know that a fragrance oil accelerates very rapidly in a soap I will up my water to 30oz and exclude the use of castor oil in my soap recipe all together.

I soap with lye and oils at room temperature, about 75deg.

When I am making a yogurt soap, I will let the yogurt set out to warm to room temperature. Before I even start soaping, I have forgotten to take it out before and used the yogurt cold and added it to my formula and it turned out just fine.

Now if you have ever made goats milk soaps you know that there are a few different ways you can go about adding milk to your soap formula, you can freeze it and add your lye to it, you can mix the lye with part of the water for a concentrated lye solution then add the goats milk to the lye right before you add the lye solution with the goats milk to the oils. Then there is the create a concentrated lye solution allow it to cool add the solution to the oils then add your goats milk.

I create a concentrated lye solution using 12-13.5oz, then adding the 11oz of lye to the water, allow it to set in a cool water bath to cool.

While my lye solution is cooling I slightly warm my oils to get them just to a semi liquid state, my soap kitchen tends to be a little on the cool side so my solid oils are rather cold, I put all the solid oils in a pot and set them on one of my burners on my stove on the warm setting, just until they are semi fluid, I then add my room temp soft oils to the semi fluid solid oils.

At this time I weigh out my yogurt to equal the remaining 12-13.5oz of 'liquid' that we took away from the water. Right before the lye is ready to be added to the oils, I will add my yogurt to my oils and whisk it all together, this helps to get rid of all the clumps of yogurt that will form in your soap mix. Then add your lye solution to the soap mixture, this really helps to break the yogurt down so you don't have the big lumps.

Yogurt bars will set up rathe quickly because of the extra fats in your soap formula. I suggest if your going to use fragrance oils when making yogurt bars, make sure you have everything set up and ready to go before you start to mix your soap together. Also if your going to use fragrance oils I add mine to my oils along with the yogurt to mix it with the oils before I add my lye solution to the oils, yogurt and fragrance oils. Doing this you will be able to see your soap thicken and you can stop stick blending your soap at the first sign of it starting to get thick.

I have made a lot of yogurt soaps with fragrance oils and only had to stick blend it for a few seconds before it was thick and ready for the mold.

Now just like any milk soap I do not insulate them, but this is a matter of personal preferance.

Yogurt soaps usually set up pretty quickly and are rather solid, and nice and firm within 12-24 hours after you pour them into the molds. I slice mine right away and allow them to cure. Because you use less water in this recipe they do cure rather quickly.

When slicing your yogurt bars you will notice the creaminess to these bars.

Just a quick note! When making any type of milk soap or yogurt soap there is an odor that you will notice both when mixing the milk in your soaps and right after slicing your soaps. To me it smells almost like what a perm smells like, this is totally normal, this smell will disipate within a few days to a week out of your soap.

Now it's time for you to try making yogurt soaps!

HAPPY SOAPING!!!!!!!!!!

Blueberry Soap with Yogurt

BLUEBERRY SOAPS WITH YOGURT

Blueberry Soaps ~ these smell heavenly!

I bought this fragrance oil from Cajun Candles, I originally was going to use this fragrance for candles, but I loved it SO much that I decided to make it into a soap. Cajun Candles blueberry fragrance oil is usable in all wax types including gel wax, and is able to be used in soaps and bath and body, making this an awesome fragrance to have and well worth the couple of extra dollars. I bought 2lbs of this fragrance so I could use it in all of my products, the price including shipping was approximately $43, and that is for 2lbs of fragrance oil, not bad considering I can use it in everything!

Blueberry fragrance oil works well in cold process soaps, I did not get any acceleration with it, when I initially added it to my oils they turned a light yellowish color, but that did not stay. Above you will see that that the white part is truly white, and the colors I added, blue ultramarine, did not change at all either.

Cajun Candles shipped my order out quickly, I had my order in about 4 days after ordering it. This is my 2nd time ordering from them and they have shipped rather quickly both times, my items came packaged nicely and padded well. I will admit that their website is a little confusing to order from, but once you get to the point of knowing it, it's rather easy to navigate yourself around in.

2 Thumbs up for Cajun Candles so far!

I used my standard recipe for my soapmaking.

80oz total of combined oils: 50oz of hard oils and 30oz of soft oils, with 5oz of the soft oils being castor oil.

I did add yogurt to this batch of soaps, I used 12oz of yogurt, which I took away from my water amount, the amount of water I used was 12oz to create a concentrated lye solution, which I cooled to room temperature along with my oils being at room temp when I combined them all.

I have found that adding yogurt to the oils and whisking it together better emulsifies the yogurt before you add your lye solution works much better than trying to add it to the already combined oil and lye solution. You get no clumps of yogurt in the mixture when you add it to the room temperature oil prior to adding the lye.

I have to say I have gotten in the habit of adding my fragrance oil to my oils also when I make my soaps, that way I can watch for the soap to start to accelerate and know how fast I am going to have to work with it.

Whenever making cold process soaps make sure you have all your colorants setting out and ready to go, when working with goats milk and yogurt in a soap formula, the addition of the fats in them will make your soaps start to set up a little faster, then when you are using fragrance oils these usually accelerate soapmaking more than when using essential oils (depending on the essential oils you use).  

I will post a blog just about making yogurt & goats milk soaps seperately!



Candle Science's Plumberry Fragrance Oil

This is my 'Sugar Plum Fairy' Bar Soap

It's scented with Candle Science's Plumberry Fragrance oil.

Okay I know, doesn't look that bad!

However, I love this fragrance, it is such a sweet tart combination of plums and berries, such a yummy combination.

Candle Science does not offer much information on their fragrance oils, only that you are able to use them for soaps & candles. I must tell you, I had to race with this fragrance oil! When I soap, I usually make my soaps at room temperature, that means my oils and lye is at room temperature, I make 6lb batches of soap at a time, my oils are a total of 80oz, 50oz are solid oil, while the remaining 30oz of oils are soft oils. I do use a water deduction of about 20% of the total weight of oils. (Just so you have a slight idea of the type of cold process soap formula I am working with)

When I added the fragrance oil to this batch, yes I had my colors already set up ahead of time, I hardly had time to mix all the colors! I was dashing to spoon each of the colors into the mold, the soaps were setting up on me faster than I could spoon the soap into the mold. I kept spooning and smooshing the soap into the mold and this is what I came up with at the end.

I do love the end result to this soap, I really like the layered look of the colors in this soap. However fast I had to work at it.

I did go back over my soap recipe and adjusted my water amount to it, and removed the castor oil from my formula, knowing that this fragrance accelerated my soap formula, I had a little more play time with my soap. I was able to swirl 2 different colors into the soap, and spoon it into 8 different molds.

I would say as far a solution to this fragrance working well, would be using no water discount in your soap formulas for this fragrance oil, and eliminating all accelterants in your formula, like castor oil. This should give you enough time to work with your soap. However just to stay on the safe side, never forget that this fragrance WILL ACCELERATE the soapmaking process on you, be sure to have all your equipment and mold near by when using this fragrance..

Now that we have got down the fragrance and how it's going to react in your soap, on to how well your going to love the scent of this fragrance oil! This one is defiantely a keeper! I think this one is good enough to keep year around, and I am VERY happy that I did purchase this fragrance!

An additional Word

I just want to add to this that I work for NO COMPANY, I buy my own fragrance oils, ingredients and essential oils. I am not 'sponsored' or 'endorsed' by ANY COMPANY.

I am simply my own buisness owner who is sharing her soapmaking experience with you, because I personally feel there should be an honest open oppinioned soapmaker giving you real information on ingredients that we use every day.

I will always give you my honest oppinion of the products I am writing about, you will see the finished product with my review of it, so you can see how it looks when it is finished. If there are changes to the soap over a 6 week period I will post more information about it, complete with the finished product so you are not surprised and left wondering if you did something wrong, if you make the same product.

I want to see everyone succeed in their soapmaking journey, and that is why I am do this for you. I wish I had this information when I had started making soap, and I probably wouldn't of tossed so many batches of soap! 

What this blog is about!

My Christmas Tree Cold Process Soap



Hello, I am writing this blog so that others can read it and become inspired about cold process soapmaking. Here I will offer advise about soapmaking, give ideas, post pictures of finished soaps, and give you information on the different fragrance oils, essential oils, and various 'choice' ingredients that are offered to the fellow soapmaker.

I have been making soaps for about 13 years now, I own my own soapmaking business and shop both online and a real live shop in Algoma WI. My name is Michele Collins and I am creating this blog to help other soapmakers with some of the common problems that we as soapmakers have. I would like to share with you some new ideas in soapmaking, how certain ingredients work in cold process soap, and to give you a place to check out how certain fragrance oils and essential oils react with cold process soap. My intent is to give you the information before you purchase certain fragrance oils and essential oils and they react with your soap where you may end up with soap on a stick.

Soapmaking is a fun process and adictive one too. Whether your an experienced soapmaker or beginner this information is to help you out, I believe deep down inside that regardless of our experience there is always something new to learn in the soapmaking world. So through technique and some of the information that I will offer you, I hope you will find this venture fun, creative, inventive, and informative.

I am no expert at soapmaking nor do I claim to be, I am simply giving my exerience and trial and error. Everyone makes soap differently, and not all of my results will end up like your's, please make a note of this. Depending on the various oils you use, the temperature you soap at, and the amount of water you use (whether you discount your water or not), is all going to depend on the results of your soap.

I hope to be able to offer you a reliable, informative and fun blog for you to enjoy and be able to help you along the way!