Tuesday, March 12, 2013

"Antique Rose" - a Hot Process Adventure

Yesterday afternoon I made a batch of castile soap.  Well, you could actually call it "Bastile Soap" as another soaper coined the term elsewhere.  Castile is a 100% olive oil soap and mine has a tidly bit of castor and coconut oil in it - and don't forget the goats milk!.  Castile is supposed to be very mild, lovely to use...but I feel it's a bit less bubbly than I like my soaps to be, which is why I add the other 2 oils.  I had started to make it just plain old castile soap with no scent and then I changed my mind and added the "fresh cut roses" fragrance oil from Nature's Garden.  I'm hoping that by working with a hot process soap the scent will stick a bit better since it won't have the initial battle with the lye to survive AND I had wanted to do a mild soap for this very mild scent....I always make this recipe hot process because it cures MUCH quicker - a few weeks instead of a few months.  Patience...something I can be short on :P

So...here it is. All cut into bars but still needing the edges trimmed up...

Pardon the glare from the morning sunshine...it was awful early when I went it and cut it...but you get the idea right?  I think I shall call it "Antique Rose" since it's kinda old fashioned looking. 

The adventure comes in with the fact this is a new to me fragrance...at first in the bottle I thought it was kinda weak...then when I added it to the soap it was still just kinda weak...about 5 or 10 minutes later BOOM!  For just a minute it got strong and the scent wafted through the house nicely.  Sadly, it went away and I got all worried again.  Had I added it too hot?  I had temped the soap and it was well because the flash point of the fragrance oil per their website...like 70 degrees cooler than the flash point...But the scent had gotten very faint again...Okay, so then I went to wash up the soap dishes and WOW!
The bubbles smelled WONDERFUL!  I was still kind of sad thinking my soap would not throw any scent dry.  It's pretty important that something smell like you have it labeled.  No one is going to believe that the bubbles smell when the soap doesn't right? I left my soap to cool in the mold and walked away...florals aren't my favorite, but I figured at least I could use it...

Then bright and early I cut it up and snapped a pic and walked away again.  To me it was still very weak...an hour to two later I was standing in the kitchen prepping fodder like I do each day and it kinda crept up on me...stronger and stronger the scent from the soap room grew in the kitchen!  YAY! I could smell my soap from a room away! That's normal, finally! Usually the whole house smells like whatever I am soaping and cutting (it helps that the house is small)....

So, the adventure is will the scent last or not?  I guess I should say "the adventure continues" lol :)  I'll keep ya'll posted for sure...Also, my husband thinks I should call it "Creeping Rose" because it just sneaks up on you instead of whacking you in the nostrils like other fragrances...we'll see...I kind of don't think so though...

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