October 2020
In 2019 I made a youtube collaboration with Renee from Soaps for love and she was kind enough to send me one of the soaps she made with it. I was happy to see my embed in her soap, but what I was really fascinated by was by the fragrance of her soap. I talked to her and she told me it was orange clove from Wholesale supplies plus. After looking it up, though, I decided not to buy it because the usage rate was really low (1% or so) and it did not seem like most of the reviewers of the fragrance were aware of this.
Then, after several months I noticed that the usage rate had increased to about 3%, I contacted them to make sure and then bought it. 3% is still low though, so I thought that it would be best to use it in a hot process Soap, so that I could add it after saponification. It has been several months since I planned it, and I have yet to make the soap. I think it is because a) I do not like making hot process b) I complicated the design in my head c) the few times I have made hot process soap, it has not been that good. I bought a ph meter that should make it easier to tell when soap is ready but in my mind this will be extra work.
March 21st, 2021
Well, after more months of not making the soap and procrastinating, I decided to make a cold process version instead, and in case 3% is too weak for it, I added 2% of satsuma orange fragrance.
I worked on the embeds last night, and I made the soap tonight. Tomorrow I will add the piping / frosting and the orange embeds.
I have based the design of the soap in the Orange Marmalade Cake, a cake made famous (to me at least), by the Mitford book series. This cake comes up every few chapters in the books. Esther Bolick, one of the characters in the book, was its creator, and she treasured the recipe. Until one day, she was going to make it for a fundraiser but broke her legs and/or arms during a fall and she gave the recipe to the women of the church so they could make it for her. I actually attempted baking the cake once. I searched for the recipe online. Sadly my orange juice had gone bad which ruined the cake and I was very disappointed about it.
Thankfully the soap turned out better. I made the orange slices with melt and pour and soap dough. Below is the recipe and ingredients I used for it, and if you scroll all the way to the bottom you will find the video link.
Recipe Totals
Note: I am using a lye blend that includes Koh (Potassium hydroxide), mainly because I bought some for a project, did the project, now I have a lot leftover and want to use it up. Also because I have read that it helps increase bubbles, and my husband loves a bubbly soap. You can enter the ingredients in a lye calculator and modify the recipe, to get the correct amount for just Naoh.
I made a 1 lb soap with it, but the recipe below is for a 2 lb soap because I used a larger mold, essentially I made two soaps out of the same recipe.
| Liquid Required | 7.82 oz | 221.83 g |
| NaOH Weight | 4.82 oz | 136.67 g |
| KOH Weight | 0.4 oz | 11.21 g at 90% Purity |
| Lye Weight | 5.22 oz | 147.88 g |
| Oil Weight | 36 oz | 1020.58 g |
| Fragrance Oil Weight | 2.25 oz | 63.79 g |
| Superfat | 5% | |
| Total Batch Weight | 51.8 oz | 1468.62 g |
| Lye Concentration | 40% | |
| NaOH / KOH Ratio | 95% / 5% | |
| Liquid : Lye Ratio | 1.5 :1 |
Recipe Oils, Fats and Waxes
| Oil | % | Ounces | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 30 | 10.8 | 306.17 |
| Tallow Beef | 30 | 10.8 | 306.17 |
| Coconut Oil, 76 deg | 25 | 9 | 255.15 |
| Castor Oil | 8 | 2.88 | 81.65 |
| Shea Butter | 7 | 2.52 | 71.44 |
| Total | 100 | 36 | 1020.58 |
Custom Additives
- 0.05% of Rosemary olearesin added to the oils (oil percentage)
For more information on these additives you can click in the links below, please note above links are affiliate ones.
- Rosemary oleresin (My oils already had this added when I masterbatched the oils)
Fragrance
| Orange Clove | 3% of soap batter |
| Satsuma Fragrance oil | 2% of soap batter |
Or:
1.20 Oz Orange clove from WSP
0.80 oz Satsuma orange from WSP
Equipment
Mold
For Orange Embeds
- Soap Base (Melt and pour): Crystal Clear MP and White Melt and Pour (Try to get the same brand so they adhere to each other better.
- Yellow colorant for melt and pour (I used the transparent yellow one from Hobby Lobby)
- Orange soap dough
- Round cavity mold 2.5″, because this one may be out of stock, you can try a 2.25″ round silicone mold*, for the whole orange embeds. And a smaller one to prepare the inner core portion, like this 1.9″ mold*
- Pencil or pointy tool to create texture on the embeds
- Acrylic Roller
- Tissue Blade (These are very sharp and will cut “tissue”; so be very careful with them, make sure to hold them from short edge opposite the blade)
- Clay extruder
Colorants
- 1/2 tsp of Yellow Vibrance mica (Nurture soap aff link)
- Titanium dioxide from Make your own or Titanium Dioxide from Nurture Soap for the frosting.
Frosting:
I made the soap frosting the following day. Same recipe as above. I think 8 oz should be enough, I made more because I wanted white soap dough leftover (I made 12 oz I think). Here is a link to the recipe in a lye calculator.
*Several of the links above are affiliate links, if you use them, I will get a small percentage back that will help keep this blog running.
Soaps by Glenda 
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