Pumpkin Chai Soap

Fall 2012 Pumpkin Soap

Recipe

454 grams Coconut Oil

398 grams Palm Oil

595 grams Olive Oil

269 grams Distilled Water

100 grams Pumpkin Puree

169 grams Cream

206 grams Lye

1 Chai Tea Bag

3 tsp Chai Tea Fragransce

2 tsp Cardamom Essential Oil

1 tsp Cinnamon Essential Oil

Mix up your Sodium Hydroxide solution by adding the 206 grams of lye to the distilled water. Throw in the tea bag. While that is cooling, weigh out your other ingredients and melt your solid oils over low heat then add the olive oil. Stir the pumpkin puree and cream together in a measuring cup.

Let your sodium hydroxide solution cool to 90 degrees (F)& remove the tea bag. Gently warm the pumpkin/cream mixture to around the same temp and have your oils the same as well.

When everything is at or around 90 degrees, add the sodium hydroxide (the lye/chai tea mixture) solution to the oils and start stirring. Stir in the pumpkin/cream blend and continue or stir until traced. Once everything is mixed together you can also use a stick blender to reach trace.

Once traced, add the fragrance and essential oils. Mix them in really well. I have a lot of super-heaters in the recipe and it killed me to only use 1tsp of Cinnamon. Things looked like they were starting to separate a little but I just kept stirring and got all the fragrance and essential oils mixed in.

I poured the soap into tray molds because they aren't very deep and I wanted the soap to start cooling before it volcanoed on me. I left it uncovered and it gelled completely. Unmold after two days, cure for three weeks.

Vanilla Chai Tea With Cream Soap

 The night I sliced the soap there wasn't much colour difference on the sides.

The next night the Vanilla had started to discolour, the speckles should disappear as it darkens. The Chai scented soap on the left is discolouring as well. Hopefully it won't get as dark as the Vanilla.

Recipe (just over 2lbs) in grams
298 Olive Oil
227 Coconut
98  Palm
100 Cocoa Butter
169 Distilled Water
100 Cream or Half & Half
1 Chai Tea Bag
102 Lye
2 Tsp Vanilla Fragrance
2 Tsp Chai Tea Fragrance
12 inch long drawer organizer
light cardboard strip cut the length of the drawer organizer

You want the cardboard a few inches higher than the drawer organizer & I covered my cardboard with plastic wrap.
You'l also need someone to hold it in the centre of the mold while you pour the soap on either side.

Mix the lye into the water and set aside to cool. Get your oils ready. When the lye solution and the oils are at 100 degrees, warm the cream with the tea bag to about the same temp. Add the oils to the lye solution and start stirring, then add the cream. Bring to a trace and then split the batch. I took l pound of the soap and put it in a large measuring cup. To one half add the Vanilla fragrance and stir well. Get someone to hold the cardboard strip in the centre of the mold and pour the Vanilla scented soap to one side of the strip. The soap will push the cardboard strip over a bit, try not to let it move to much. Scent the rest of the soap with the Chai Tea fragrance and pour that on the other side of the coardboard. You will have a little soap left over that can go into an individual mold.

Carefully remove the cardboard. To swirl the top, take a wooden scewer and go back and forth across the top of the soap in whatever pattern you like. Be carfeful when you cover it, you don't want to mess up your swirled pattern. I covered mine with some more light cardboard that I had bent into an arc and then a light towel. Unmold after two days, you can slice it a couple of days after that. Cure for 3 weeks.