Pumpkin Soap 2015 & Recipe

 

It's become a bit of a tradition that I make Pumpkin soap every fall. This year I kept the recipe fairly simple, no coffee, cinnamon oil or other super heaters.  I left most of the soap un-coloured and added some Titanium Dioxide to the lighter portion.

I used a hanger to make the swirl. After filling the mold a little over half full with the un-coloured soap I poured a thin layer of the light coloured soap keeping it off to one side. The light coloured soap was not a complete layer, it went from end to end but not all the way across. Then I poured the rest of the un-coloured soap and topped it off with a full layer of the lighter soap. Once all the soap was poured I inserted my hanger and swirled it. I had no idea how the swirl was going to turn out!

To finish the soap I added some texture to the top with a spoon and then sprinkled on a little cinnamon spice. The pumpkins were really last minute. I made them a few days ago using some melt & pour soap and didn't think they were orange enough. By the time  decided to put them in the soap I was worried the top was starting to firm up so I stuck them in without measuring. You can see in the picture below they aren't even but I did manage to get a pumpkin on every cut bar.

Here's the recipe:

340 grams  Coconut Oil

298 grams Palm Oil

75 grams Coco Butter

370 grams Olive Oil

 

156 grams Lye

340 grams Distilled Water

 

50 grams of Pumpkin Puree

15 grams Cream

 

Mix the Pumpkin & Cream together and set aside. Once you have the lye solution and your oils ready, at around 90 degrees, warm the Pumpkin/Cream in the microwave gently - around 15 seconds should do. Add the lye solution to the oils and then the pumpkin mixture. Bring to a light trace and then fragrance as desired. Do not insulate this soap.

 

I fragranced my soap with Clove Essential Oil and Pumpkin Crunch Cake Fragrance Oil, 1 tsp Clove & 3 tsp of the fragrance & then separated out some of the soap to add the Titanium Dioxide,  I didn`t measure, it was just a guess:) Another thing I did was put the soap in my fridge for 30 minutes. After it had been in the mold for an hour it really started to heat up. If you pour it in to bar sized molds this won`t happen but in a loaf it`s possible. I didn`t want my soap top to be ruined so  cooled the soap for half an hour. The soap still gelled but thankfully did not volcano.

 

I think that`s it,if you have any questions let me know.

PS I couldn`t resist photographing the end pieces, that`s how happy I am with this soap!