Joy's Handcrafted Soaps: Hot Process Soap

I work compacted work weeks. One week I work three-12 hour days and have four days off, the next week it’s the opposite. This week, however, I had to take two days off due to illness. I really didn’t want to use up any sick time this early in the year, unfortunately it couldn’t be helped. Working the compacted work weeks allows me time to concentrate on my soaps on my days off, I like that.

I was able to get a batch of Leslie’s Hippy Dippy Days Patchouli Soap done last night and this morning I made Amber’s Cedarlyptus Soap for my nephews wife. Both will be listed in my shop in a few weeks.I find soapmaking very interesting and I took the following pictures to share with you while making Amber’s soap.

I've added the hot oils, lye solution and apricot seed.

Basically I use the countertop hot process method. I soap with the oils at 200F-210F and the lye solution at 195F. Once I’m sure the oils and lye solution are mixed well I cover with plastic wrap and wait for the batter to go through several stages.

The soap batter is beginning to volcano.

Once the batter volcanoes I stir it down and then stick blend it for a minute to keep the batter moving. The soap batter is no longer on a heat source and is cooking itself. It usually heats up a bit more during this process.

Stick blending after the first volcano.

At this point I'm waiting for it to volcano again...gotta stay right by the pot so it doesn't volcano over the top. Sometimes it volcanoes a couple of times, sometimes even more. A few times I’ve had batches that didn’t volcano at all but went through all of the other stages. It will volcano until the lye is done reacting with the oils, or possibly if the batter cools down too much.

Second volcano, I have to admit I find this pretty interesting.

Once it’s done with the obvious volcanoes and it’s been blended well after each, I let it set to continue the process. I can tell this hasn’t finished “cooking” yet because there is still some white “mash potato” like areas in the batter.

Still some white streaks in the batter, it isn't done cooking yet.

At this point I either stir or stick-blend to get those white areas to finish processing. The last stage is the “Vaseline” stage. The soap batter gets shiny and translucent.

Vaseline stage, the cook is pretty much complete and saponification has taken place.

Once the soap has hit this stage I check it’s temperature and the temperature of the superfats I’m adding to be sure they’re pretty close, then add the superfats.

The superfats included annatto seed oil which gave this soap a beautiful orange color.

I’m really happy with the orange created by the annatto seed! After the superfats were completely mixed in I added very warm yogurt and coconut milk, mixed well and let it set for five minutes. The eucalyptus and cedarwood essential oils were added once the batter had cooled a bit more and then the batter was plopped into the mold.