Milk and roses

Finally I made the rose soap I had been planning to make for a while. Most of my soaps these days are made with the same amount of palm, coconut, olive and sesame oils. One thing most observed by all the people who tried my soaps was how soon they vanish. So I decided to try a higher percent of palm oil, which seems to be fine on my skin because of the high humidity factor. My normally extra dry skin (in European weather) is doing well without a moisturizer. However I wanted to make this soap a little special so I made it with buffalo's milk and superfatted it with shea butter.

Buffalo's milk is known for it's high fat content so the superfat is 2%. The sink was filled with ice cubes to keep the frozen milk from getting hot, but it did turn a bright yellow and then a pale orange with the lye. The hand blender was kept away because of the seize situation with the earlier batch of soap but somewhere after 10 minutes of hand stirring I gave in. In spite of stopping the blender way before the soap traced, the second the essential oils went it, I could sense a panic attack in the offing. The spirit of Speedy Gonzales kicked in and the essential oils got stirred in by hand at a pace even the hand blender couldn't beat. In a flash the entire soap was in the mold, decorated with petals waiting for the gel phase to arrive.

Small soap blocks ready to be sliced up

The scent blend was Rose, Geranium, Palmarosa, Peppermint, Clove and Black Pepper EO's. I like the blend, but wish it tones down a little during the curing period. It smells really rosy! Maybe more spicy and woody EO's next time.

The soaps are darkening as they cure

Just have to keep that blender out of my sight!!