There are a lot of “cream soaps” on the market, but it is rare to find a true cream soap that is made from scratch and not from a manufactured base.
Cream soap is a lot different from our regular bars. Liquid soap is made with potassium hydroxide, and solid soap is made with sodium hydroxide. Well, cream soap is made a a mixture of both, usually a 5:1 ratio, with potassium hydroxide being the greater part of the lye used.
A formulation of cream has a lot of stearic acid inside it, but it is balanced with other oils such as coconut oil, olive oil, and butters such as cocoa and shea.
Our cream soap takes about 3-4 hours to complete, but when its done, it is a wonderful soap that can be used for both bathing and shaving.
Please note that I do not include a recipe, or ingredients and full instructions here. Often people read something on the net and think “I can make that!” This type of soap is reserved for the experienced soap maker. If you have been making soap for awhile and ready to tackle something new, then Google is a good place to find cream soap forums. If you are a newbie wanting to learn how to make soap, again, there are a lot of soap making forums, books, etc out there that provide many resources for those that want to learn. Catherine Failor has a few books on how to make many different types of soap available on Amazon.
I use a crock pot to make my cream soap, and I have already prepared my lye mixture, measured my stearic acid, oils, and butters, and glycerin. I pour my stearic, oils, glycerin and butters into my warm crock pot. Once melted, I add my lye to the melted oils.
This is the mixture right after I add the lye:
*I mix with my blender for a few minutes, and this happens:
20 minutes later it becomes a hard taffy state. Time to cover the pot and leave it to cook. I check on it every half hour or so to stir everything back in and ensure an even cook.
The soap will go through many stages during the cook. The following pictures were taken at a 20-30 minute interval:
This is what the soap looks like about 3 hours into the cook. Doesn’t look too creamy does it? This is where things get pretty interesting. At this point we are going to take what is called supercream and add it to the soap. Supercream is simple melted stearic acid and glycerin. This helps to pull the stearic in the recipe and give the soap that creamy texture. Right before I supercream I check my soap to make sure it has a balanced pH. To do this I use a phenol test. If it shows red, then I cook the soap until I get a clear test. This ensure that all the lye has be eliminated and that the soap is safe to use.
Before supercream:
After supercream:
I cook it for a little longer, and then I turn off the pot and leave it alone overnight. The next day, the soap looks like this:
I pour the mix into my kitchenaid and whip it until it is nice and creamy, and at this point I add a non-paraben preservative and or my fragrance and essential oils. I can also color the soap:
After the mix is fully whipped, it is poured into buckets and left to cure for 8 weeks before I package up for sale:
An example of the end product:
You can find our Lime Coffee Bath Gelato and other fragrances here.
I hope you enjoyed my pictorial, please check back later this week for more.
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