Other than colorants and fragrance or essential oils, there are many of cool stuff you can combine to your homemade soap. Among my most favorite is honey (which is a humectant), but there is also glycerin, milk, silk, shea butter, tomato paste, fruit juice and pulp, cocoa powder, flowers and dried herbs, finely chopped oatmeal, cornmeal (for an exfoliating bar), poppy seeds, finely ground coffee beans, beer and wine, citrus zest, berry seeds, yogurt, natural aloe-vera gel, Vitamin E pills contents (2-3 per pound), seaweed, uncooked adzuki beans or almonds ground into a fine powder, and embedded objects. In cold process soap making, whisk in these additives after you’ve blended to an appropriate trace. For liquids, add at a light trace. For anything you want suspended evenly throughout the bar (seeds, oatmeal), add at a heavy trace or else the additive will sink to the bottom.
As far as milk goes, you can really use any kind of milk-cow’s, goat’s, cream, buttermilk, half and half, plain yogurt combined with water, even powdered milk. Use the milk straight in place of the water your recipe requires. Nevertheless, I once used Egg Nog, but it turned dark brown and lost its rich smell. No matter what milk you use, freeze it before you use it. It should be “slushy” when added to the mixture. Milk soaps tend to overheat, as do honey soaps.
In addition, any time you work with alcohol in a recipe, let it go flat or boil it to let lose the alcohol, then cool it prior to use. If you don’t even a tiny 1/2 pound batch will start explosively boiling when the lye is added.
As far as honey goes, add about 1/2 ounce per pound of soap. You’ll want to spray the honey measuring spoon with non-stick cooking spray to so you do not have honey remains sticking to the spoon and altering your measurement.
To embed objects in your soap, place, say, a little plastic toy, rope for soap-on-a-rope, or similar item into the soap mold then pour the soap batter into the mold. However, this works best with see-through or glycerin soaps, which are generally “melt and pour” projects-not handmade cold processed soap.
When attaching dried herbs or flowers, spread them on top of soap just applyed into the mold or mix them in with a whisk right before pouring into the mold. Most herbs will turn brown in your soap as time passes. Dried herbs often bleed a brown color out into the soap surrounding it as well. Some people find this unattractive, while some feel it is beautiful plus a mark of the soap being handmade from organic ingredients.
For additional info on this and other homemade soap topics, go to purehandmadesoap.com. This website also offers free soapmaking video tutorials, pictures of the organic handmade soap process, free beginner soap recipes, and a 50-page soap “how to” ebook. The ebook includes 39 one-pound soap recipes, 60 soap making pictures, and details on how to make your own soap recipes.
