Thursday, May 10, 2012

Shampoo Bar Recipe

The following tutorial demonstrates my own shampoo bar recipe. In this batch, we will be using a great hair-care essential oil blend that incorporates our therapeutic grade rosemary essential oil and tea tree essential oil as well as our invigorating pink grapefruit essential oil.

We will also be using some unique additives including tussah silk and raw eggs! Furthermore, this recipe has a large portion of castor oil which produces an awesome lather.

Are you ready to start using a paraben free and SLS/SLES free shampoo? Follow along with my shampoo bar recipe below and create your own batch today!

This soap recipe will produce 5 pounds of soap and will fit perfectly in our 5 pound acrylic soap mold or 5 pound wooden soap mold.

Here is a picture of our finished product produced by my shampoo bar recipe:

Shampoo Bar Recipe
Shampoo Bar Recipe Kit

Get the shampoo bar recipe kit today and make all natural shampoo right in your kitchen! The kit will include 32 ounces of olive oil, 13.5 ounces of palm oil (RBD), 16 ounces of castor oil, 16 ounces of avocado oil, 13.5 ounces of shea butter, 1 ounce of tea tree essential oil, 1 ounce of rosemary essential oil, 1 ounce of grapefruit essential oil and a small portion of silk. This kit will supply you with more than enough of the above ingredients to make the 5 pound batch of shampoo bar soap as explained in the below tutorial. To complete the recipe, you will need to supply the 3 eggs, distilled water and sodium hydroxide.

I also encourage you to pick up the 5 pound acrylic soap mold or 5 pound wooden soap mold from soap-making-resource.com. Our 5 pound molds will fit this batch perfectly!

Each kit will also include full written instructions for completing the shampoo bar recipe and contact information for my own personal lye source.

Shampoo Bar Recipe Kit: $59.95
Add to Cart

This shampoo bar recipe kit does not include lye, eggs or distilled water. Lye can be purchased at many local hardware stores and we will also provide within your soap kit contact information for my personal lye source. This alone is a great value! Eggs and distilled water, obviously, can be picked up at your local grocery store.

* All ingredients within this recipe are also available to purchase in bulk right here at soap-making-resource.com.

Here is the exact recipe formula that we will be using for this batch:

*This recipe has a 5% super-fat.

*All measurements are weight measurements, not liquid measurements.

Below is the step by step tutorial for making my shampoo bar soap:

Step 1) First we need to create our lye solution. Measure out 192 grams of dry sodium hydroxide in a chemical safe container.

Measuring Out Lye

Next, measure out your distilled water in a separate heat and chemical safe bucket. For this recipe, you need to weigh out 20 ounces of water for your batch. Keep in mind that these are weight ounces, not liquid ounces.

Measuring Out Water

At this point, we will already be adding our first additive, which is silk! Place a small pinch of silk, about the size of half a cotton ball, into your measured out water. Silk will add, for lack of a better word, a silky feeling to your soap and it will also increase the products lather.

Adding Silk to Water

Now that your lye and water portions are accurately measured out and your silk has been added to the water, pour the lye into your water to create your lye solution.

Pouring Lye into Water

Don't forget... When you create your lye solution, you should do so in a well ventilated area. As you pour the lye into your water, a strong fume will be present which you don't want to breathe in. Also, be aware that your solution will heat up substantially once it is created.

During the first few minutes, you will notice that the silk, which is actually a protein, will dissolve into the lye solution. You may need to carefully stir your lye solution in order to help the silk fully dissolve.

Now that your solution is successfully made, set a candy thermometer into the lye water and place it off to the side to cool. We will use this lye solution very soon in a later step.

Step 2) Next, let's measure out our soap making oils needed for this shampoo bar recipe. In your stainless steel pot, weigh out all your oils according to the shampoo bar soap recipe above. Be sure to measure accurately!

Weighing Oils for Shampoo Bar Recipe

Now that all your oils are successfully measured, you can melt them all to a liquid form. Be sure to melt your oils using only a low setting on your cook-top. You don't want to accidentally burn your soap making oils!

Oils Melting on Cook-top

Step 3) While we wait for our oils to thoroughly melt, we are going to prepare our additives. In this batch, we will be adding our own hair-care essential oil blend, tussah silk fiber and raw egg yolks. Keep in mind that we have already taken care of adding the tussah silk to our batch as it was dissolved earlier in the lye solution; so we only need to prepare our essential oil blend and our eggs.

3 additives for shampoo bar recipe

That's right, we will be adding fresh egg yolks to this batch which will give your finished product an extra super-fat level, unique texture and the skin care benefits of vitamin A, D and E! I think you will love using egg yolks in your soap and below I will explain exactly how to incorporate them! Egg yolks are the perfect addition for a shampoo bar recipe.

First, let's create our essential oil blend. This blend will be made up of Soap Making Resource's therapeutic grade rosemary, camphor essential oil, our therapeutic grade tea tree essential oil and our therapeutic grade pink grapefruit essential oil. Rosemary and tea tree are both known for their skin and hair care benefits and grapefruit essential oil gives this blend a lovely top note that is perfectly invigorating for a warm early morning shower.

Measure out exactly 28 grams of rosemary, camphor essential oil, 21 grams of tea tree essential oil and 21 grams of grapefruit essential oil to create the blend.

Essential Oils for Shampoo Bar Recipe

Why are we measuring in grams? I like to use grams to weigh out the essential oils because this smaller unit of measurement is much more accurate than ounces as it has a smaller margin of error.

I like to measure out each of the essential oils in my blend separately and then once accurately portioned combine them all into a single dish.

Combining Essential Oils

I do this so that if I make a mistake in my measurements with one of the oils, I can always use a pipette to remove some of the over-poured oil until the amount is adjusted to my desired weight. This would obviously not be possible if I was measuring out the essential oils while directly combining them with the other ingredients in my blend.

Next, we will prepare our egg yolks to be added to our shampoo bar recipe. We will be adding 3 medium egg yolks to this 5 pound batch of soap.

3 Eggs for our 5 Pound Batch

There are a few simple steps when using eggs in soap making. First, it is best to only use the yolk of the egg as the egg whites have a protein in them that may produce a sulfur-like smell in your finished product if the batch gets too hot.

So your very first step in preparing your eggs for soap making is to separate the egg yolk from the egg white. Do this by carefully transferring the yolk from one half of your shell to the other while allowing the egg whites to drop into a bowl below.

Separating Egg Yolk from White

Once all the egg white is removed from the yolk, place the egg yolk into a separate bowl. Repeat this step until you have 3 prepared egg yolks with fully removed whites in your bowl. You can discard the egg whites or I suppose you can always use them for cooking if you have planned ahead a recipe in which they can be utilized.

3 Egg Yolks

One final step is required to prepare your eggs for soap making. You must remove the thin membrane from the yolks as this thin film will not incorporate well into the batch and will likely remain suspended in one of your bars. Yeah... Gross. So unless you want to explain to whoever is using your soap exactly why there is a chicken egg membrane floating in their bath tub, I would definitely be sure to remove this part of the egg!

Now, beat your eggs until they are an even color and texture.

Beating Egg Yolks

Before we add the eggs to our shampoo bar recipe batch we will need to temper them. This will be explained further down the page.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Plus instantly receive one of my own personal soap recipe formulas using a combination of sweet almond oil, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil and shea butter scented with an intoxicating essential oil blend. This recipe is explained step by step in full detail. you're going to love it!
Instantly receive one of my own soap recipe formulas.$5 Coupon off your first purchase of $30 or more!Access to more exclusive subscriber coupons.Future Soap making recipe tutorial announcements.How to make lotions, bath bombs and more!Interviews with successful soap makers.Contests with awesome prizes.Revealing soap making poll results.New product announcements, demos and reviews.Unbeatable Soap Making Resource Sales!*Your information is SAFE with us! -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Step 4) Now that we have finished preparing all of our additives, our soap making oils should have had plenty of time to fully melt. Take your soap pot off the burner and place a thermometer into the hot oil. At this point, your lye solution has also cooled down quite substantially.

We need to lower the temperature of our oils before using them in our shampoo bar recipe. You may also need to lower the temperature of your lye solution if it is still too warm. For this shampoo bar recipe we want both mixtures to be below 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We are soaping relatively cool because too much heat will cause your eggs to cook before they are fully integrated into your batch.

You can cool both mixtures in a sink filled with ice water as seen in the picture below:

Oils and Lye Cooling in Sink

Step 5) Now that your additives are prepared for addition into your shampoo bar recipe and your lye solution and oils mixture are cooled down to below 80 degrees, we are finally ready to make soap!

Carefully take your lye solution and pour it slowly into your soap making oils. At first, stir manually using a silicone spatula or wooden spoon until an even texture and color is achieved.

Pouring Lye into Oils

At this point, you will want to temper your eggs so that they are ready to be added to your soap once a thin trace is reached. To temper your eggs, remove a small portion of soap batter from your main pot and pour it into your bowl of eggs. Manually mix the two components together.

Tempering Eggs

Tempering your eggs will allow them to gradually adjust to the temperature of your soap and keep them from cooking upon contact when you add them to your soap batch.

Now that your soap batch is an even color and texture, begin mixing with your stick blender until you reach a light trace.

Mixing Soap with Stick Blender

You can test for trace by dribbling a small amount of soap onto the surface of your batch. If the soap sits on top of the rest of your batch for a few moments before sinking back down, you have reached trace.

Keep in mind that you don't want your soap to get too thick just yet, so don't mix with your stick blender for too long. You still want your soap to be somewhat thin as we need some time to add our additives and don't want to risk having our soap solidify in the pot!

Now that you have reached a light trace, add your essential oil blend and stir it in manually until your soap is an even color and texture.

Adding Essential Oil Blend to Batch

Next, add your tempered eggs.

Adding Tempered Eggs to Batch

At this point you can mix everything in with your stick blender until your soap reaches a medium trace. Generally, I allow my soap to thicken up to about the consistency of a thin pudding. Keep in mind that once you add your eggs, you should mix constantly as you want them to be fully integrated into your batch. If you stop stirring, they can potentially cook before fully mixed in, causing particles of "scrambled eggs" to be suspended within your product.

Step 6) Finally, pour your finished soap into your prepared mold. In the picture below, I am using the Soap Making Resource 5 pound acrylic log soap mold.

Pouring Soap into Mold

you can also use one of our 5 pound wooden soap molds. If using a wooden mold, just be sure to line your mold with butcher or freezer paper according to our mold lining instructions.

Step 7) After about 24 hours, your soap will be adequately solidified allowing you to remove it from the mold without damage. It's easy to perfectly remove your soap if using one of Soap Making Resource's acrylic log molds!

Removing Soap from Acrylic Mold

Step 8) Now cut your log of soap into bars. In the picture below, I am using Soap Making Resource's adjustable guided soap cutter.

Cutting Soap

Step 9) Once all your soap bars are sliced, place them on a rack to cure.

Soap Curing on Rack

Let your newly created soap cure for about 6 - 8 weeks. This extended cure time will allow the excess water to evaporate from your product creating a harder and longer lasting bar of soap.

Step 10) Last but not least... Enjoy using your all natural shampoo soap!

I hope that you all enjoyed my shampoo bar recipe tutorial with eggs, silk and custom hair-care essential oil blend!

Don't forget to pick up the the kit if you want to make this recipe at home or you can always purchase the ingredients used in this recipe in bulk at soap-making-resource.com

Return from shampoo bar recipe to the soap recipes hub page.

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How to Make Soap - Learn all there is to Know About Making Homemade Soaps

So... you want to learn how to make soap... but where do you even start?

Do you dream of creating that perfect little scent bursting masterpiece that can only call the Louvre its home? Maybe you envision creating your own successful natural soap company.

For some of you, however, you would just like to learn how to make soap for one simple reason: so that you can take part in this wonderful, unique and extremely fun craft that so many love.

Whatever your goals are, I have one thing to say: Congratulations!

You've come to the perfect place to learn everything there is to know about making homemade soaps, no matter what your level of expertise!

For the newbie, this will take some time to master, but I know that you're ready for it. I'll be by your side every step of the way... and don't worry; it's going to be a ton of fun. I promise! -----------------------------------------------------------------------Plus instantly receive one of my own personal soap recipe formulas using a combination of sweet almond oil, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil and shea butter scented with an intoxicating essential oil blend. This recipe is explained step by step in full detail. you're going to love it!
Instantly receive one of my own soap recipe formulas.$5 Coupon off your first purchase of $30 or more!Access to more exclusive subscriber coupons.Future Soap making recipe tutorial announcements.How to make lotions, bath bombs and more!Interviews with successful soap makers.Contests with awesome prizes.Revealing soap making poll results.New product announcements, demos and reviews.Unbeatable Soap Making Resource Sales!*Your information is SAFE with us! -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Enough talk... let's get right down to fun... uh... I mean business.

On this page, I'm going to highlight in detail each lesson every beginning soap maker should go over in order to learn how to make soap successfully. Click on the blue text to enter that particular tutorial. Once you've finished all of them, you'll be ready to move on to actually making soap. In order to learn how to make soap, it is best to start from the beginning. If you want, you can start from the very beginning! Click here to read a brief history of soap making.Next, make sure that you understand exactly what soap is (you may just be surprised). It's absolutely vital that you know what you're working with.Now review these essential soap making safety tips. Be sure to do this important step before you start.As you already know, there is more than one way to do just about anything. With soap making, this is especially true. In fact, there are four main methods of homemade soap making, each of which is completely unique. Before you can start making soap, you'll need to decide whether you want to use the melt and pour, rebatching, hot process, or cold process soap making method.

In addition to there being multiple ways of making homemade soaps, there are also many different types of soap. In fact, I feel that there are as many different soaps as there are soap makers as every creation has a flare of originality.

There are Glycerin soaps, lye soaps, animal based soaps, castile soaps, and tons more.

Some soap classifications overlap tremendously. For example: all handmade soaps are "lye soap" and most soaps at one time or another had glycerin in them. Nonetheless, being able to understand some classification of soaps may be helpful.

While you are learning how to make soap, you will be exposed to many other soap types.

Now, sit back, relax and thoroughly enjoy everything that this site has to offer as you go through each lesson in this tutorial

Oh, and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!

Return from how to make soap to the soap making resource home page.


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Tussah Silk

Here at Soap Making Resource we offer all natural cruelty free tussah silk for soap making. Our tussah silk fiber is high quality, clean and perfect for every one of your batches! After you try using silk in soap making once, I think this is one additive that you will find yourself using in just about every batch!

Tussah Silk

So how is silk used in soap making and what qualities will it add to your finished product?

Silk is used in soap making by adding a small amount of the fibers to your hot lye solution. How small are we talking here? For a 5 pound batch of soap, you need to add only about a cotton-ball sized pinch of silk. A little goes a long way with this additive. In fact, the cost added to each bar of soap from incorporating silk into your product is just pennies! Pretty cool.

Tussah silk, which is actually a protein produced by the silkworm, will quickly dissolve into your lye water and the now "silk infused" lye solution is added, as usual, to your batch.

The addition of silk will cause your homemade soap to have a more shiny appearance, slightly increased lather, be more slippery, and have a general luxurious "silky" feeling to it. You will definitely notice the unique qualities added to your finished product from including silk in your recipe.

In addition, silk, of course, is undoubtedly good for your bar's label appeal. After all, silk does scream luxury!

I absolutely love silk soap and I think you will too!

Tussah Silk

Tussah silk is 100% all natural and harvested in a way that is not cruel to the silkworms. This additive should be included at the general rate of one cotton-ball sized pinch per 5 pound batch of soap. The silk should be dissolved in your hot lye solution prior to adding the lye solution to your batch. Our tussah silk is available in a 1 ounce, 1/4 pound, 1/2 pound and 1 pound size.

1oz: $7.50
1/4 Pound: $22.50
1/2 Pound: $37.50
1 Pound: $64.50

Thank you for taking the time to check out our cruelty free tussah silk for soap making. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us! We are happy to help as you browse our large selection of soap making supplies.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Plus instantly receive one of my own personal soap recipe formulas using a combination of sweet almond oil, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil and shea butter scented with an intoxicating essential oil blend. This recipe is explained step by step in full detail. you're going to love it!
Instantly receive one of my own soap recipe formulas.$5 Coupon off your first purchase of $30 or more!Access to more exclusive subscriber coupons.Future Soap making recipe tutorial announcements.How to make lotions, bath bombs and more!Interviews with successful soap makers.Contests with awesome prizes.Revealing soap making poll results.New product announcements, demos and reviews.Unbeatable Soap Making Resource Sales!*Your information is SAFE with us! -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return from tussah silk to the soap making resource home page.

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Comfrey Soap Making Tutorial

Comfrey will color your soap anywhere from a light lime green to a dark forest green depending on which comfrey soap making method you decide to use.

This page will be all about how to color soap with comfrey and the different coloring results you can achieve using this botanical! Don't worry; I will go through all the techniques in detail for using this natural soap colorant successfully. Of course, for your convenience, helpful pictures will be included for each method as well!

Comfrey is a really fun colorant to work with, so enjoy!

The following tutorial is a part of the Soap Making Resource natural colorant tutorial database. It is a free tool that I am creating for you and the soap making community!

We are working on completing lessons very similar to this comfrey soap making tutorial for all the natural soap colorants that are out there. Hopefully this detailed reference will help you immensely when using natural colorants in your products.

Please also share this database with other soap makers if you think it will help them! I would appreciate it and so will they!

Below is a list of all the colorant tutorials that have been created so far. More are constantly being added, so watch this list grow with time!

Also, don't forget to sign up for the Soap Making Resource newsletter to stay up to date with what's been going on at Soap Making Resource supplies company and also receive even more soap making recipes, tutorials, tips and tricks...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Plus instantly receive one of my own personal soap recipe formulas using a combination of sweet almond oil, avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, castor oil and shea butter scented with an intoxicating essential oil blend. This recipe is explained step by step in full detail. you're going to love it!
Instantly receive one of my own soap recipe formulas.$5 Coupon off your first purchase of $30 or more!Access to more exclusive subscriber coupons.Future Soap making recipe tutorial announcements.How to make lotions, bath bombs and more!Interviews with successful soap makers.Contests with awesome prizes.Revealing soap making poll results.New product announcements, demos and reviews.Unbeatable Soap Making Resource Sales!*Your information is SAFE with us! -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is a picture of all the comfrey soaps that I made for this comfrey soap making tutorial. As you can see, the shades of green you can achieve from comfrey in soap making vary greatly. This picture features the Soap Making Resource 2 pound acrylic no line soap molds. Keep reading for more pictures and full instructions on how to create each of these colors with comfrey.

Comfrey Soap Batches

Also, I decided to include a table of contents for this tutorial. You can either read it straight through, or click on each link to be taken to each section of the lesson.

In this comfrey soap making tutorial, all the recommend amounts of colorant can simply serve as a starting point for you, if, of course, you want to alter your resulting color.

For instance, if you see a shade of green that I produce that maybe is a little bit lighter than what you are going for, simply add more comfrey or increase your infusion time. Easy as that! The comfrey soap pictures below will serve as a great guide for you!

When working with natural colorant botanical powders, like comfrey, I like to infuse the colorant into one of my liquid oils. After the infusion is complete, I then drain out the actual plant matter so that it is not added to my soap. This helps avoid any scratchy feeling that can sometimes occur when adding botanical powders to your product.

When infusing a natural colorant, you are basically using heat to extract the color of the botanical into one of your soap making oils. This newly colored oil is then used when making soap to dye your batch. I like to do my infusions in a crock pot. This extra heat helps the color from the comfrey extract more quickly.

If you don't want to infuse, don't worry! Further down this page, in this comfrey soap making tutorial I will also be demonstrating how to color your soap with comfrey by adding the powder at trace. Although this is not my preferred comfrey soap making method, many people like to use botanical colorants in this way. Plus, comfrey is one of those nicer botanicals that don't produce an overly scratchy product when it is added directly to the soap.

For all the comfrey soap making examples, I will be using the following recipe:

* This recipe has a 5% super fat.
* Ingredients are available to purchase at the soap-making-resource.com online store.

This batch has 21 ounces of oils in it, but once the lye and water is added, the recipe will make a total of 2 pounds of soap. For this tutorial I used the Soap Making Resource 2 pound acrylic no-line soap mold.

Our first step is to create the comfrey infusion to use in our comfrey soap making experiments. I am infusing the comfrey at the rate of 2 tablespoons comfrey powder to 1 cup of oil. So depending on how much oil you want to infuse, you need to use different amounts of comfrey powder.

So, how many tablespoons of comfrey would you add, let's say, to 40 ounces of oil? Well... 40 ounces is about 5 cups of oil, so keeping with our 2 tablespoons per cup of oil ratio, you would need to add 10 tablespoons of comfrey to your 40 ounces of oil you want to infuse. Easy enough, right?

If you want a darker soap color, of course, you can always add more comfrey to increase the 2 tablespoon comfrey to 1 cup of oil ratio. If you want a lighter color than what is shown in the following comfrey soap making experiments, then decrease the amount of comfrey in your infusion.

I always like to use Soap Making Resource's grade A olive oil for infusing.

It is easiest to create a bulk batch of comfrey infused oil for your recipe instead of trying to make just enough. This way, you can take what you need to color the batch and won't be caught short in the middle of soap making. That could be frustrating as it takes a while to infuse the comfrey, and sometimes, you don't have the luxury in soap making to wait. You can always store any excess unused oil for the next time you make comfrey soap, so it won't go to waste!

As you can see in the picture below, I have my 2 tablespoons comfrey to 1 cup of olive oil mixture infusing in the crock pot. Be sure to set your crock pot to a low heat setting so that you don't scorch your oils.

Comfrey in Crock Pot

For consistencies sake all comfrey infused oil used in this comfrey soap making batch was infused for exactly 2 hours. The longer you infuse your oil, the darker the color will be. Keep that in mind if you decide to adjust the hue of your bars!

By the way, if you don't have a crock pot, you can create your infusion on the stove-top in a regular pot. Just keep the heat as low as possible and be sure to monitor the mixture to make sure it doesn't get too hot.

You can also cold infuse your comfrey into one of your soap making oils, if for some reason you don't want to add heat. With this method, simply place your desired amount of comfrey into one of your soap making oils and let it set for a few weeks. Over this period of time, slowly but surely, the color from the comfrey will extract into the oil.

Comfrey Infusing in Mason Jar

Every once in a while, give the jar a good shake or two. I recommend using a mason jar so that you can monitor your oil's color as the infusion takes place!

Personally, I prefer the heat infused method as explained above because results are more consistent and are achieved much more quickly.

Below is a picture of what our comfrey infused oil looks like after 2 hours in the crock pot. As you can see, it is ready for soaping!

Comfrey Infused in Crock-pot

So let's do some testing! For our first comfrey soap making trial, 5% of our soap making oils will be made up of the comfrey infused oil. For those of you who need a refresher, let me briefly explain the math...

Let's say that your recipe is using 60 ounces of oil total. 5%, or .05 of 60 is 3. So 3 ounces of oil in your recipe will be infused with comfrey while the remaining 57 ounces of oils will not be infused. Believe it or not, using this very small percentage of comfrey infused oil will indeed color the entire batch green!

The recipe, as explained above, is made up of 21 ounces of oil, producing 2 pounds of soap. To experiment with a 5% comfrey infused oil rate, we will need to allow 1.05 ounces of the oil to be made up of comfrey infused olive oil. Again, this is because 5% of 21 ounces is 1.05 ounces. Now, my recipe already calls for 10.5 ounces of olive oil. So, in order to meet our required amount of olive oil, we need to add 1.05 ounces of comfrey infused olive oil and 9.45 ounces of olive oil that is not comfrey infused.

Take a look at the comfrey infused oil next to the non infused oil. Pretty drastic difference, right? The comfrey here looks really dark... almost black... but it will still produce a nice light green when using it at only 5%.

Comfrey Infused Oil and Non-infused Oil Side by Side

Below, you can see a picture of me adding the 5% of comfrey infused oil to the batch. I like to add it after the other oils are initially mixed in, just so I can see the soap transform to a beautiful shade of green. I am using the cold process soap making method here.

Pouring Comfrey Infused Oil into SoapJust a heads up... if you've never made soap and want to give it a whirl, check out my soap recipe library and follow a long step by step with one of my tried and true recipes. It's the perfect way for a new soap maker to learn how to make soap. After you've got the hang of the basic process, you can always come back to this tutorial and try your hand at comfrey soap making.

Here is a picture of the 5% comfrey infused oil soap:

5% Infused Oil Comfrey Soap

Next, let's see what our soap looks like if 15% of our oils are made up of comfrey infused olive oil. Remember, since our recipe is made up of 21 ounces, 3.15 ounces of oil should be comfrey infused because 15% of 21 ounces is 3.15 ounces.

Take a look at our 15% comfrey infused oil soap. You can see that it is quite a bit darker than the 5% soap as pictured above:

15% Infused Oil Comfrey Soap

For the next comfrey soap making test, we are going to allow 35% of our oils to be comfrey infused oil. This is a considerably large percentage and I am curious to know if the green color will bleed from the soap when comfrey infused oil is used at such a high rate.

Here is a picture of the 35% comfrey infused oil soap:

35% Infused Oil Comfrey Soap

The color produced was a very dark forest green. Beautiful! Even at this high percentage of comfrey infused oil, the color didn't bleed from the soap.

Next, we are going to take a look at a completely different comfrey soap making method. In this section, we will be experimenting with adding the comfrey powder directly to the soap at trace without any infusion.

As I mentioned before, I usually prefer infusing botanical colorants so that I can avoid any scratchy feeling in my soap that can sometimes result from adding powders to a product. Comfrey, however, is one of the more fine powders out there and, consequently, it does not produce too much of a scratchy feel.

For the first comfrey soap making test using this method, we will add 1 teaspoon of comfrey powder to our batch. We are still using the same 2 pound recipe as described above.

Adding 1 teaspoon of comfrey powder to a 2 pound batch equates to a rate of 1/2 teaspoon per pound of soap. So, if you are making a batch of soap that is bigger than 2 pounds, but want to keep a similar color to that produced in this particular comfrey soap making experiment, then use the same 1/2 teaspoon per pound of soap ratio. For instance, if you are making a 10 pound batch of soap, add 5 teaspoons of comfrey powder because 1/2 times 10 equals 5. Very easy!

When adding comfrey powder to your batch, I recommend mixing it into a small portion of soap that was pulled from the main batch. This technique will allow you to have plenty of time to thoroughly mix in the comfrey powder and remove all the clumps. Once the small portion of soap is smooth and an even green color, pour it into the rest of your soap.

Sometimes when you throw all the powder into the entire batch of soap, it is hard to mix out all the clumps before your soap gets too thick and needs to be poured into a mold.

As you can see in the picture below, I took out about 3 ounces of soap and am mixing in the comfrey powder.

Mixing Comfrey Powder into Small Portion of Soap

Now that my small portion of soap is thoroughly colored, all I need to do is pour it into the rest of my traced soap to color the entire batch.

Pouring Comfrey Colored Soap into Rest of Batch

Here is a picture of the soap produced by adding 1 single teaspoon of comfrey powder to my 2 pound batch of soap:

Soap Colored with 1 Teaspoon of Comfrey Powder

Now let's see what color we can achieve from adding 2 teaspoons of comfrey powder to our 2 pound batch of soap. Of course, 2 teaspoons comfrey powder for a two pound batch is a rate of 1 teaspoon comfrey powder per pound of soap. This comfrey soap making experiment should produce a nice medium shade of green.

Here is the resulting soap color from adding 2 teaspoons of comfrey powder to our two pound batch:

Soap Colored with 2 Teaspoon of Comfrey Powder

For our next comfrey soap making test, we will add 4 teaspoons of comfrey powder to our 2 pound batch of soap. This addition of comfrey is at the rate of 2 teaspoons comfrey powder per pound of soap.

Here is a picture of the resulting soap from adding 4 teaspoons of comfrey powder to our two pound batch:

Soap Colored with 4 Teaspoon of Comfrey Powder

For our next experiment, we will be adding the comfrey powder to our lye solution. With this comfrey soap making method, simply mix the comfrey powder into your warm lye solution and let it steep for a few hours. Once your lye solution has turned a desired color, strain out the comfrey and include the now colored lye solution into your batch as you usually would to make soap.

Your best bet for this comfrey soap making method is to add the natural colorant to your lye solution immediately after it is created while the solution is still warm. This extra heat will help the color from the comfrey powder extract into the lye solution.

Below is a picture of the comfrey powder soaking in the lye solution. I know... it is such a dark green that it almost looks black!

Comfrey Soaking in Lye Solution

You can see me in the next picture straining the comfrey out of the lye solution. I like to do this as I pour the lye into my batch of soap. In my opinion, there is no sense in straining the comfrey infused lye into a separate container and then pouring the strained lye into your batch. That would just create double the work!

Straining Comfrey from Lye

For this comfrey soap making experiment, I added 1 tablespoon of comfrey powder into my lye solution and allowed it to steep for approximately 3.5 hours. This was a 2 pound batch of soap and I used the same recipe as the one described at the top of this tutorial. 1 tablespoon of comfrey for this 2 pound batch is a rate of 1/2 tablespoon comfrey per pound of soap.

If you want to produce a darker hue, of course you can always add more comfrey and allow it to soak for even more time!

Here is a picture of the soap produced from using this comfrey soap making method:

Comfrey Soap from Soaking Comfrey in Lye Solution

Next, let's take a look at how our super-fat percentage affects the soap's hue when it is colored with comfrey powder. If you are not familiar with what a super-fat percentage is, please click here for some helpful information.

It is largely believed that the super-fat percentage of a soap affects the products PH levels. Many natural soap colorants are sensitive to PH levels and may produce a different color depending on whether PH levels are high or low.

For this comfrey soap making experiment, we are going to perform a test to see if a much higher super-fat percentage will drastically change the shade of our comfrey colored soap. For the test, we have kept the recipe exactly the same as the one described at the beginning of this tutorial, only we increased the super-fat percentage from 5% to a very large 12% super-fat.

Below is the recipe that we have been using only converted to reflect the new 12% super-fat. As you can see, everything is exactly the same except that the lye has been discounted to 76 grams, which increases the super-fat percentage to 12%.

In the pictures below, we will be comparing side by side a 12% super-fatted comfrey colored bar and a 5% super-fatted comfrey colored bar. Each soap is made using the same exact recipe and both batches are allowing 15% of the oils to be made up of comfrey infused olive oil. The single difference between the two soaps is the span in super-fat percentage. As you can see, the color produced by comfrey in soap does indeed seem to be affected by the soap's super-fat percentage.

Comparing the two pictures above, you will notice that the 12% super-fatted soap on the left has a bit of a lighter color than the 5% super-fatted soap on the right.

The gel-phase occurs in soap when heat produced from the saponification reaction is allowed to build. This is usually promoted through the insulation of your batch of soap with towels or blankets. The gel phase will often drastically affect the soap's final color.

Here is a picture of our comfrey soap going through the gel phase:

Comfrey Soap Going Through Gel Phase

For this comfrey soap making test, we will force one of our batches to gel in order to see if the color produced in our soap with comfrey powder is affected by the gel phase.

Here is a picture of our gelled comfrey soap on the left and non-gelled comfrey soap on the right:

Both above soaps have 15% of their oils made up of comfrey infused olive oil. Other then the fact that one of these soaps went through the gel phase, while the other did not, both soaps are completely identical. You can tell that the soap on the left is a very dark hue. A bit darker than the non-gelled version on the right.

I think it is safe to say that the gel-phase causes comfrey colored soaps to be a much darker in color.

In order to preserve the color produced by comfrey for the longest time possible, be sure to keep the soap in a dark area away from all light! This is especially important when using a green botanical colorant as natural green colorants tend to fade and discolor very quickly.

Hopefully, this comfrey soap making tutorial has been helpful for you. If you think other soap makers would like it, please feel free to spread the word and share this tutorial!

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