A Soap Making Day!

Orange Cream cooked soap in the moulds. It is a messy project and the soap is like mashed potatoes, so it does not pack like a poured soap.

Orange Cream unmoulded..smells heavenly!

Nope, not muffins! It is hot process soap in a silicone mould. In the old days, all soap was hot processed. Grandma would render the fats, add the lye and water and usually cook it on the stove top for a long time, an hour or two, until it looked like mashed potatoes. Then to test for doneness, it was common to taste the soap, that is put a little on the tongue tip. If it burned with a zap, the lye needed longer to incorporate into the soap. If nothing was felt, it was ready. 
The soap in the moulds was hot processed the old way, that is cooked in a large pot on the stove, then put into moulds. The advantages of this are several: the soap can be used the next day since it is cured by heat, scents and speciality oils are added after the soap is chemically balanced, after saponification, and the lye does not affect them. In cold process soap, the soap  is poured into moulds when it reaches simple incorporation of lye,oil and water, called trace. Then it is cured for 6-8 weeks in order to be useable. During that time, the essential oils are diminished greatly by the saponification process. 
The best way to make hot process soap is not to spend time cooking it though. It is to bring it to trace, or the point where all ingredients are mixed  to a pudding like consistency, then add essential oils and other ingredients and pour it into wooden moulds lined with waxed heavy paper (freezer paper works wonderfully) and put the soap into an oven set at 170. The oven is turned off after an hour leaving the soap to continue its saponification process overnight. The next day, the soap is removed from the moulds, cut and left to air cure for a week or 10 days, but it is useable immediately, since the saponification process is accelerated by the heat. 
This project resulted in 5 soaps from one recipe: Orange Cream, Pure, Rosy Geranium, Lavender, and Pink Grapefruit with Vanilla Specs.The Orange Cream smells so delicious, you may want to eat it!

This is the Orange Cream just before it was packed into the moulds. It hardens quickly so time is of the essence in this last process.

These soaps reached the trace stage, essential oils and mica for colour were added and then they were poured into waxed paper lined wooded moulds. The wood allows the soap to breathe so it does not bubble over, because the heat is generated from the saponification process from the centre, while the over provides a similar temperature from the outside.

These are the soaps, cut and air curing to improve hardness. Though they are ready to use as is, a harder bar is a longer lasting bar! On the left is the Pure, right back is Lavender, Centre is Geranium and right front is Pink Grapefruit and Vanilla Specs.