Making Beer Soap
Making Beer Soap easier than I thought it would be!
I got my copy of Soap Crafting by Ann Marie Faiola the "Soap Queen" about a week ago, and ever since then I have been missing in action.As I flipped through the book, page by page, I was determined to try every recipe in the book.
Since the book arrived, I have been down in my soap room either making soap, or cleaning up the mess from making soap!
I started with Beer Soap. Here is a picture of the Beer Soap I made.
This is a Bar of the Beer Soap cut
This is the Beer Soap from a top view, before I cut it into bars
To make Beer Soap, you can use any CP Soap Recipe you like. You substitute the water portion for Beer.
A light colored Beer is best, as it does not effect the color as much as a darker ale will.
Before using Beer in your Soap, you need to Boil the beer for 15 minutes, then put in the refrigerator over night. You have to do this to remove the alcohol and carbonation.
Before you start making the soap, pull the beer out and let it come to room temperature.
Here is the recipe I used, and it turned out great!
It traced a little quick, but since I was just pouring in layers, it worked out fine.
I made a 2lb test batch since I wasn't sure what to expect. This recipe will make appx 40 oz, or 9 Bars that are 5 oz each.
I am including percentages so you can size it up.
If you would like to buy the ingredients for this soap as a kit, they will be available on my website
The kit will have everything you need except the liquid (beer), lye, and FO
Beer Soap Recipe
1.8% Castor Oil = 0.56 oz
27.03% Coconut Oil 76 = 8.38 oz
29.73% Palm Oil = 9.22 oz
5.41% Sunflower = 1.68 oz
Take 2 TBS OUT of the Sunflower Oil to use with mica coloring
33.33% Canola Oil =10.33 oz
2.7% Cocoa Butter = 0.84 oz
2 tsp Sodium Lactate
2 oz FO I used Beach Bum
Liquid (Beer) 10.25 oz
Superfat to 5% =Lye 4.367 oz
1 tsp Titanium Dioxide
1 tsp Ultra Blue Marine
1 tsp Blue Oil Locking Mica (turns pink/lilac)
Directions:
1. Measure out all ingredients
BEFORE YOU ADD LYE TO BEER-make SURE, double dog SURE you have boiled the beer for at least 15 minutes, and allowed to sit over night. You MUST make sure the alcohol and carbonation are COMPLETELY boiled out- Or you could have a caustic lye/beer volcano coming at you!
2. Slowly add lye to Liquid (Beer in this case)
Set aside to cool while you prep the other ingredients
3. Measure hard oils into microwave safe measure cup
Heat for 1 minute to start, stir and repeat using 30 second intervals until melted.
4. Add liquid oils and microwave another 30 seconds
5. Check temps of lye water and oils
While you pace around impatiently waiting for everything to cool off, you can occupy yourself my preparing your colors.
Remember the 2 TBS Sunflower Oil you took out in the beginning?
You are about to use them now!
If you forgot to take the 2 TBS out, don't worry, you can scratch by with 2 more TBS and it won't throw your recipe off.
Any light oil will work.
Combine the 1 tsp Ultra Blue Mica with 1 of the TBS Sunflower Oil.
(Save yourself a cup to wash, and DO THIS IN THE CONTAINER YOU WILL BE POURING YOUR SOAP OUT OF and into the mold.)
Combine the 1 tsp Blue Oil Locking Mica Shimmer with the other 1 TBS Sunflower Oil - Do this in the 2nd container you will pour from.
By dispersing the mica in oil, you ensure a nice smooth even color coverage. It eliminates specks in the final soap.
These are the cups I use. They have a nice spout for pouring. They are 3.5 Cup Capacity.
I buy them on Ebay from these folks:
http://stores.ebay.com/formycastle
CHECK THOSE TEMPS AGAIN!
Once the lye water has cooled to 120 degrees, add the sodium lactate to the water and stir well.
Once the temps of lye water and oils are within 5 degrees of each other, you will slowly pour lye water (beer) into the oils.
Stir by hand to incorporate, then hit it with the stick blender for 3 seconds at a time.
Stop mixing before you reach a heavy trace!
You want the Beer and Oils to be mixed, but still thin enough to pour.
Soap Queen calls this a 'melted milkshake' texture.
Split about half of your soap batter between the 2 containers, (the ones with the mica's dispersed in sunflower oil.) and leave the remaining half in the original cup.
This will be your base color.
You do not have to measure them, I kept a little more than half the soap batter in the orig Cup to make it a white base.
Add the Titanium Dioxide to that remaining batter, and stir.
Titanium Dioxide can be added right to the batch, although some people like to disperse it in a little oil first.
Stir the soap you divided into the 2 smaller containers (the ones with the the micas)
At this point, you should be stirring by hand.
Hit it just a second with the stick to blend the mica color up from the bottom of the cup. Just a second though, you don't want the soap to trace just yet!
Now you have a large cup with white soap, and two smaller cups of soap colored with mica.
Add fragrance.
I cannot STRESS THIS ENOUGH- Stop using the stick blender once you have added your fragrance oil or essential oil.
You are a few seconds of stick blending, away from tracing your whole batch into pudding. This soap needs to be thin enough to pour.
You can estimate the measured fragrance between these 3 containers of soap batter.
If you are using a dark color Fragrance Oil or Essential Oil, you may want to leave the white portion unscented.
It really doesn't seem to effect the finished soap, unless you were over loading the colored portions with fragrance...
You are just ASKING for seizing to happen
Now for the fun part!!
Start by pouring ALL of the white soap in the original/large container, into the mold.
Give the mold a little jiggle to shake out any air bubbles
Then pour your other two colors, taking turns in a long (lengthwise in the mold) "S" Curve Patterns.
Give the mold a little bump after pouring each color, to make sure it levels and goes into the corners.
It might look crazy now, but it's going to be a beautiful one of a kind batch of soap in just a minute!
Time to make some swirling magic!
Once you have poured all your soap, use a skewer (or something like it, round spoon handle, look around your house, I am sure you will find something, even a Popsicle stick would work)
Poking just about 1/2 inch into the soap, drag the skewer back and forth across the width this time, opposite of the long "S" Curves
Then go back and drag the skewer up and down lengthwise, going over it just once.
Use some Self Control
You may need to ask a friend to pull the skewer out of your hand before you over do it and ruin your perfect linear swirl!
As your beautiful swirl emerges, before your eyes, try to fight the temptation to KEEP SWIRLING.
I am not a big fan of the "More is Less" Philosophy, but when it comes to swirling your soap, this REALLY holds true.
Give your beautiful soap a spritz of rubbing alcohol and cover with plastic wrap.
Yes that's right, plastic wrap. Try to lay it on there in a way to remove air bubbles, kind of like putting down adhesive shelf paper.
Back away from the soap!!
Resist the urge to be a Peeper!
Don't lurk around- unwrapping and peeping at the soap!
Your soap NEEDS to be snug, insulated, so it can go through gel stage!
Try to find something to do to avoid the soap.
I make my soaps late at night before I go to bed.
Straight out of bed I go down to my soap room and check the soap.
Sometimes, when left undisturbed, they were still warm and gelling the next morning!
Wait about 24 hrs to unmold
Just because you can pry it out of the mold in 12 hrs doesn't make it a good idea.
I have scarred more bars of soap this way, and I still do it sometimes, due to my impatience!
Do your soaps a favor, and wait until they are good and hard to unmold them. They will look so smooth and pretty if not pried out of the mold by your overly eager hands.
Beer soap smells weird when you first cut it.
Don't worry! That smell goes away as it cures, within hours of cutting it-really!
Allow your soap to cure for at least a few weeks.
I admit if the bar feels hard enough and passes my ph strip test, I have been known to use them sooner.
However, if you allow the curing process to complete, you will have a much nicer, harder, longer lasting bar of soap.
