BATCH#7 Espresso Buzz Trial#2

Ok so i think I got Espresso Buzz down and it has the most fluffy white lather of them all. Again I only made a half batch so I didn't end up wasting too much if my idea to brew coffee into the soap didn't work. We also used olive, canola and castor oil in this batch leaving out the coconut oil because I ran out... and because I wanted to see if the soap would still be a pale color without it. So far it looks good and I'm super happy with the way it looks. It doesn't have the smell of espresso but the espresso seems to have covered up the oil smell that is obvious in the base soaps I've made so far.

Cherry Soap Saponifying

The olive & coconut oil in our base BATCH#4 worked great so I'm mixing up BATCH#5 the same way and this time were adding our dried & ground Door County cherries. According to what we've read you add any scents like essential oils or dried fruit & flowers at the end after the soap is done cooking. I'm assuming this is to preserve the smell and maybe even the color. So far our dried cherries are a nice bright red color and still smell like cherries so hopefully both those traits transfer over to the cured soap.

The book has a chamomile tea soap where they use dried & ground tea leaves about 1/4 to 1/2 cup it says. We've got a little under 1/4 cup dried cherries prepped so we'll see how that amount works and work up if needed.

Nice White Base...

Batch#4 is a little soft still so I'm moving it to the fridge but check it out... we got the nice white base we wanted!! This week will be all about using the cherry and grape powders they should make great colors.

Ready to Pour!

Poured the molds after 1 hour this time instead of almost 2 like the last 3 batches. Also this time we followed the directions in the book closer and didn't stir throughout the process, just at the end after the entire batch saponified. It melted from the outside in just like it said it would in the book creating an "island" in the center until it was completely done.

For the mols this time we're trying our luck at lining one with wax paper as suggested in the book. The other we're doing the same with just a little wipe down of olive oil. We haven't had much luck with it not sticking to the molds so hopefully the wax paper works. We should know by tomorrow and I'll update then.

Batch#4 saponifyin'

We're making a batch this afternoon with olive oil and coconut oil. We also crushed de-juiced and are now dehydrating the grape skins to be ground up later that will be add to make our Wine-Oh soap next week.
Today is all about getting a base down for that batch and the cherry batch. Olive oil has moderate conditioning properties and creates a very hard soap. Coconut oil on the other hand is very low on the conditioning scale and is also high on the hardness scale. They should balance well meaning the end product should leave your hands clean but not strip them too much of their natural oils. If this turns out well it may be our base for two different batches. I also choose these oils because they should create the whitest base for the cherry and grape colors to really show through. We want the crushed cherry to make a really pinkish red color while the grape we'd ideally want to be as purple as possible so the two look different. That is also why we used the dark "black grapes".

Golden Blonde Soap cut today...

It's softer then Olive Bar from Batch#1 but not a wreck like Batch#2:) This Batch#3 is also my 1st attempt at my own recipe.
It lathers really fast and rinses super clean from the skin just as fast! Also unlike Batch#2 it has a really hot golden blonde color that rocks and leaves no smell behind... LOVE IT!

Changes...
If we add some Washington Island Wheat it will get a texture without compromising the color.
If we take out one of the oils that makes the bar soft we'll have a harder overall bar that will last longer.

Batch#2 Update

So Batch#2 didn't solidify in the molds and we had to scoop it out and form it by hand. It still works as soap but we haven't figured out why it was so clay-like in the mold. We know the palm oil was to blame for the color... as you can see it is not the same color as my coffee:( I moved the other mold to the freezer so maybe it will solidify in the mold if we can get it to freeze.

Batch#3 seems to be doing well and has a much better color (a lot less palm oil) we'll find out tomorrow I guess. Plus were partially done with the cutting board were constructing check out our awesome blueprint for it!

Batch#3

Saponifying our next base in the kitchen this afternoon. We're experimenting with a olive, coconut, canola, palm & soybean oil mixture this time. It's a bright golden color right now (almost the same color as the walls). This should be a pretty hard soap with a good lather and also condition moderately. Since Batch#2 was soft as clay we had to scoop it out of the mold and form it into balls to use at home... well now we know. Hopefully this batch is hard enough to get out of the molds in 1 piece and have a great color!

Espresso Buzz

So we were going to make cherry but didn't take into account the orange color the palm oil would make it so we tried to counter act the orange with espresso instead thinking brown would be an easier color to achieve. Well here's what we got... not exactly what I had in mind:) Were gonna stick to basics for a while and get a color perfected before adding any "flavors" for a while.

Batch #3 saponifying in the kitchen now with olive, coconut, canola, palm & soybean oil...

First Batch of Hand-Milled Soap!

The first batch EVER for Peninsula Soap Co. is cooling in it's PCV pipe mold in the kitchen right now with 4.5 hours of dry time to go. We're starting with the hand-milling process just to get a feel for what it's like to work with soap in the melting/cooling stages and also to experiment with color, oils and dry ingredients. This weekend we'll be trying the soap making process from scratch in our garage. The first batch has ground espresso and coconut oil in it... I ground some of the espresso coarsely (to add texture and exfoliators) and some espresso more very finely (to add color). I'm thinking Espresso Buzz sounds like a good name for it. After all what's better then espresso in the morning!

All soaps will be vegan and cruelty-free plus they will have no chemical or artificial anything. All the ingredients in them will be things that are "pantry common".

Last week we formed our LLC and bought our website www.PeninsulaSoap.com
I'll have to learn how to create the website soon so we can start selling these yummy soaps!

We just did some tweets to record our progress too:)