This is the best, most realistic margarita scent ever. I absolutely love it. You can smell the Lime, Tequila and even the Salt! Very fresh and perfect for the summer.
Since purchasing my HDPE mold from Soap Hutch, I've struggled a bit with the unmolding process. It's nothing that I can't handle and generally, I manage to get my loaves out with little or no damage at all to the loaves themselves. It just takes patience and sometimes quite a bit of elbow grease.
Lately, I've been playing around with water discount levels and more recently, Sodium Lactate.
You can use Sodium Lactate at 1oz per lb. of base oils. But, be careful, because I've read that it can cause crumbling if too much is used. I've been using it at 1.3% of my overall oils and that combined with the water discounts have really been helping my loaves firm up much more and therefore unmold much easier.
I may one day venture up to 3% but for now, this is working for me just fine.
I think this soap is a gorgeous green. Sodium Lactate is so awesome. It makes getting the loaves out of silicone molds so much easier.
ReplyDeleteThank you Landa! I'm L♥ving Sodium Lactate :0)
DeleteThat green practically glows, it's stunning! =)
ReplyDeleteLol, it will glow under the right lighting!
DeleteWow, love that green! The Margarita FO sounds amazing. Perfect for summer!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jenny. It's one of my summer favorites :D
DeleteWhat a gorgeous color! Actually, I looked at your other soaps and I am so amazed at how great you work with colors! And the patterns are beautiful! I hope to get close to what you can do one day.... Regarding sodium lactate, aside from making soap release easier from the mold, do you feel that it makes for a harder and longer lasting bar? Does it accelerate trace? Do you add it to the oils? Thank you. :-)
ReplyDeleteI personally haven't noticed that it makes the bars last any longer, but they are harder sooner. I also don't think it cuts down on the curing time, but it allows me to label and shrink wrap the bars sooner. It hasn't caused any acceleration and I add it to the oils before adding the lye but have heard of people adding it right to the lye solution. Hope that helps :0)
DeleteHi Kia, thank you for your reply. I hope you don't mind me asking, what is usually your ratio for saturated to unsaturated fats? I am trying to steer away from palm after I consume what I have, so without it, I am left with just coconut oil and cocoa butter. But I understand some people are allergic to cocoa butter. I have used stearic acid and beeswax but they are not good if playing with colors and designs because they really accelerate trace. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. :-)
ReplyDeleteI don't know the exact ratio off the top of my head, but I do use more unsaturated than saturated. The olive oil I use, creates a very hard white bar. That's my main oil, then coconut followed by rice bran. Coconut, shea and palm are my only hard oils and I don't use much palm. Some people are allergic to shea as well. Are you opposed to hydrogenated soybean? It should add some hardening properties to you soap.
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