Sudz n' Hunni Laundry Soap Experiment

I've been needing to make more laundry soap, have all the supplies and a few minutes this morning. In this photo I've been combining the lye/water solution with the Coconut Oil and d-Limonene.

My initial soap recipe uses 100% Coconut Oil at a 0% super fat for extreme cleaning power.  I used SoapCalc to formulate my recipe, it will give you the correct weights in ounces or grams to make your recipe and it also tells you how cleansing, conditioning, bubblie, hard your soap will be.  If you are making your own soaps and/or laundry soap please use a lye calculator.  

The soap batter has reached a nice trace and I've poured it into my 2 lb. acrylic mold and had a little more than I'd planned so I grabbed my guest size mold. Who knows maybe they'll be samples? Not for bathing though, dishes?  Dishes with gloves, a 0% super fat with 100% Coconut Oil would be super drying on our skin! 

An up close of the soap in the molds. There are a few more steps to laundry soap, in about 24 hours I can un-mold my soap, cut it and grate it using my Salad Shooter, then I'll add other powdered ingredients like washing soda, borax, etc. 

I really like my own laundry detergent, this 2 pound brick of soap can make A LOT of laundry detergent.

In formulating my recipe I went for cleaning power and that's also why I added the d-Limonene.

d-Limonene is reported to be a powerhouse of a natural cleaner. 

Here's what the Green Terpene website says about their product: GreenTerpene™ d-Limonene "Orange Terpenes" Food Grade All-purpose cleaner cuts grease, grime and dirt with ease! Our d'Limonene is extracted from Florida Orange Oil. Its 100% natural, biodegradable, safe, and non-toxic. Contains over 95% d-Limonene.

I've had a hard time getting the d-Limonene here, it ships from Florida and the first try came by USPS, the empty box sure did smell good...

Green Terpene's customer service is excellent, I let them know what happened along with photos. They shipped out a new product via UPS for me. It took awhile to arrive and I'm excited to see how it preforms in my laundry soap experiment!

This Coconut Oil soap was ready to un-mold and hard very quickly.  I cut it into chunks so I could put it through the Salad Shooter.

Shredding soap with the Salad Shooter.

View from the bucket...

I ended up with a bucket full of shredded soap, next I poured it out onto large baking sheets to dry out for about 48 hours.

The next step of the process is putting it all together.  I did put the shredded soap through my food processor so I had a course powder to mix with the other ingredients.  The end result is about a 6 month supply of laundry soap for $20.95.  I used an up-cycled kitty litter container for storage and a coffee can full for everyday use.

If you'd like to make homemade laundry soap here's a link to the original recipe. 

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Sudz n' Hunni Soaps Orange Cardamom Confetti Soap

Hello blog friends!

I'm experimenting with natural colorants for soap making again today.  In the picture above there are two mason jars, the jar on the left is Olive Oil infused with Paprika powder, the right is Annatto Seeds infused in Olive Oil.   They both make a nice orange color, the Paprika being a darker infusion.

I infused each of my soap oils with the Annatto Seeds, when I measured out the Olive Oil I used half Annatto infused oil and half Paprika infused oil to help deepen the orange color.  The four cup measuring cup is resting in a pan of warm water with a washcloth between the Pyrex and pan to keep my oils warm as I wait for the lye water to cool to the temperature I need.

The lye water is cooling in the kitchen sink.

Now it's time to make soap!  I have the lye solution, oil blend and a bucket of shredded soap ends  in an ice cream bucket ready and waiting.  After cutting soaps into slices there are sometimes end pieces that get used as samples and can be shredded to use as decorative elements too.

Next I will pour the lye solution slowly into the oils and gently at first mix them until they emulsify, then I can use my stick blender to bring them to trace (a pudding like consistency).   After my soap comes to a medium to thick trace I will add two cups of shredded soap for a confetti look to my finished bars.

Here's a close up of the shredded soap ends in the bucket.  I used a Salad Shooter I acquired off of E Bay to do the shredding work for me. 

The next step is getting it poured into my two pound acrylic mold.  With the extra soap shreds it was full to the top and will make a big bar of soap when it's cut.

I waited twenty four hours for it to do it's soapy thing and un-molded the two pound loaf of soap and waited a few more hours till it was solid enough to slice into bars.  What you see pictured above is right after the soap is cut using my wire soap cutter.

And the soap right after it was cut.  I'm calling it Orange Cardamom Confetti.  I used an Orange Cardamom blend of Essential Oils for fragrance and it's very orange!  

I used a very basic recipe for this soap and I'll share the percentages of oils I used so you can make your own recipe with a lye calculator.  

Castor Oil 5%

Coconut Oil 21%

Palm Kernel Oil 47%

Olive Oil 26%

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Sudz n' Hunni Soaps Aloe Calendula Comfrey Soap

This is going to be another busy soap week!  I have several soaps that will be reaching their cure dates and be ready for sale, some have already been pre-ordered and they will all need to be wrapped and labeled and of course shipped.  My younger kids are with Grandma & Grandpa in Wickenburg Arizona this week having a good time so I'll be lonesome with out them but keeping busy too.

Lets go back to last Thursday...

I thought you might like to join me for a little soap making!

I'm using Cathy at Soaping 101 recipe to make a soap for sensitive skin using Aloe Vera Juice, a strong tea made with Calendula Petals as well as Calendula Petals and Comfrey Leaf infused in some of the soap oils.

Pictured above is the Calendula Tea infusing in heated distilled water and the bottle of Aloe Vera Juice.  After the tea was ready I used my scale to measure out the amount of liquid my recipe called for and substituted the tea and juice in place of the normal water I'd use.  Then I poured the liquids into ice cube trays and put them in the freezer over night.

  

Here's a photo of how I infused the Calendula & Comfrey into the soaping oil.  I've found using a large seal-able tea bag (or two) works nice, there's no straining the herbs out of everything later.

The next step was to make my lye solution using Sodium Hydroxide and the frozen Aloe Vera Juice and Calendula Tea.  The reason for freezing the liquid is so it doesn't burn and discolor when the lye is added.

Michael took some good pictures for me of this part of the process.  The lye will heat up as it comes in contact with the ice cubes and melt them.

So I stirred and poured a little at a time until the lye was incorporated into the ice cubes.

Most of the ice cubes melted as I added lye and stirred.  

This was kind of an unusual process for me, I'm used to waiting for the lye solution for my soaps to cool down and setting the container in an ice bath in the kitchen sink.  This time I filled the sink part way with hot water to warm up my lye solution to about 95 degrees.  I'm finding I like to soap at between 90 and 100 degrees, kinda like my sweet spot.

The soaping oils are ready and waiting, I warmed them on the stove top to 95 degrees so they'd be well mixed.

I carefully poured my lye solution into my oils and started to mix with my stick blender until it reached a nice medium trace.

Next it's time to pour the soap batter into my lined and waiting 5 pound wood mold.

Filled it to the top for a nice big bar of soap once they are cut...

I tried to give it a little fancy swirl on top before I put it in the oven to rest and go through it's gel stage.  

Did you know the oven is a good place to insulate soap right after it's poured?  

This soap is fragrance free and naturally colored with the Calendula Flowers, Comfrey Leaves and colors of the soaping oils I used.  It will be a nice simple bar of soap for sensitive skin packed full of the good things from the oils and herbs that were used to make it.

I used Cathy's recipe from her Soaping 101 You Tube channel if you'd like to make this yourself.

 If you aren't a soap maker it will be available for sale after August 20, 2013 in my Sudz n' Hunni Soaps online store, you can also leave me a message in the comments or e mail me if you'd like to pre-order some too.  My e mail address is listed in the green tabs above under "contact info".

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Band Camp at Northern Arizona University

Hi blog friends!

Last Saturday Jenny and I traveled to Flagstaff to take her to Band Camp at NAU, tomorrow Rick and I will make the return trip to go pick her up all in the same day.

I thought it would be fun to share the photos she let me take along the way.

I think it's kind of funny that she posts her stuff on Facebook but when I take a picture and do the same or blog about it she gets upset with me, ahh 13 year old girls...

We went through Lake Havasu City to get to Interstate 40 so we stopped at Dairy Queen for lunch.

We had rain going through Ash Fork and Williams.  

This was a stop to get gas in Williams - 4.09 a gallon oh my!  

Our final destination Saturday in Flagstaff. 

Sunday morning we went over to NAU to register and check in.  We went out for lunch and I dropped her off at her dorm and headed for home.  

She is sharing a dorm room at Northern Arizona University with one of her friends from home who's also in band.  I think it's kind of neat that they have the opportunity to experience living in a college dorm and taking classes at the college for a week while they are there.  Jenny has said she'd like to go to NAU when she graduates, so she has a little peek into the future.  

I'll take my camera again for the return trip with Rick, I won't have to drive the entire 8 hours this time so maybe I can get some nice photos of the scenery.  Unless of course I can't stand sitting in the passenger seat...  It's beautiful up there and the smell is amazing!  

Pine trees -

Soap Making - Just Good Clean Fun

About a month ago my husband comes home from work and asks if I had a good day, told me the house smells good and asks how I spent my day ...

This is what our kitchen table looked like about an hour before he walked in the front door.  

The soap making aftermath.

I've been wanting to do some photo tutorials of cold process soap making but everything seems to happen so fast that it hasn't happened yet.  Our kids will be out of school in a few weeks so maybe Michael will help me out by taking pictures of the process, he kinda likes chemistry as long as he doesn't have to help clean up  the mess.

Here's what my soap looks like in the mold.

In this batch of cold process soap I tried using Paprika and Spiulina powders to make my green and orange colors, so far so good.  I'll know more once I've un-molded and cut the soap.  I also tried a few swirling techniques I've learned by watching Soaping 101 & Soapstar videos on You Tube.

Here it is out of the mold about 24 hours later.

And then 24 hours after that.  I decided to call it Arizona Back Country because it smells like the Arizona desert after a gentle rain.

Here's my description of it's fragrance:

Close your eyes and imagine with me for a moment if you will, the aroma of the Arizona desert after a gentle rain.  Picture mesquite trees, tall saguaro cactus, desert sage brush and wild rosemary blended with the earthy fragrance of the desert floor.  

This soap is ready to use and for sale in my Sudz n' Hunni Soaps web store starting today!

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