Whenever I find myself in a carnival setting, if there is a vendor that sells candy apples, you can be sure I will be buying one. Unlike caramel apples, candy apples have a hard shell that makes them a bit difficult to eat. Yet, the sight of a candy apple triggers a memory in me, and to make my inner child happy, I get one.
If I am buying a caramel apple though, then it must have peanuts. That flavor combination is one of my favorite ones.
For this soap, I wanted to keep the design fairly simple since it was my first time using the fragrance (Apple Caramel Crunch). I added some soap scraps to the inside and the top to simulate fall leaves, and some gold mica as well.
I am listing below the recipe I used, materials, and a link to the video for the process.
My affiliate links:
Several of the links above are affiliate links, as the ones below. If you buy from them, it will not cost you any more, and I would get a tiny commission on it.
Making the Embeds
- Soap dough: in caramel brown color, green, red and yellow (for the stick)
- This is a kit with several sculpting tools
- blade to cut the sticks
- For the leaves embeds, you can use a mold like this one
I did not film the making of the caramel apples so here is a brief explanation:
First, I colored some orange soap dough (because I did not have any brown) with brown oxide powder and copper mica.
Then I made round-ish shapes with the green soap dough, and covered them with a thin layer of the brown soap dough. Alternatively. You could make a round shape with the brown, and add a small piece of green to the bottom to resemble the granny smith apple.
Next I made the wooden sticks. I made them by cutting already cured soap, but it would be easier to roll some soap dough snakes instead. To add the sticks to the apples, I punctured the apple and inserted a tapered end of the stick there.
Colorants:
Gold dust enviroglitter (for the top)
I did not add any colorants to the body of the soap. I used orange, yellow, red and green soap scraps though, that I chopped finely.
Mold:
Tall and skinny mold (hand bar size)
Equipment
Safety Equipment:
- Nitrile gloves
- Facial Shield (I use either a facial shield or the goggles below)
- Safety Goggles
- Respirator (I use this when mixing the lye, I mix the lye in the window sill, window opened, with a pedestal fan blowing the fumes away, better yet, freeze your distilled water prior) I also try to wear long sleeves, pants and closed shoes. In my personal experience, most of my near misses (when I feel my skin itching or a slight burning sensation), or when I come contact with the soap batter, have happened when I am wiping down the containers, when I am almost done.
Recipe Oils, Fats and Waxes
| Oil | % | Ounces | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 30 | 10.2 | 289.16 |
| Tallow Beef | 30 | 10.2 | 289.16 |
| Coconut Oil, 76 deg | 25 | 8.5 | 240.97 |
| Castor Oil | 8 | 2.72 | 77.11 |
| Shea Butter | 7 | 2.38 | 67.47 |
| Total | 100 | 34 | 963.88 |
Custom Additives
| Add with the Fats | |
|---|---|
| Rosemary oleoresin | 0.02 ounce |
| Add at trace | |
| EDTA mixed 1:1 with water | 0.49 oz total (0.24 oz of EDTA) |
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
| 2.0 oz Apple Caramel Crunch | 7% vanilllin |
| 1.90 oz of DIY vanilla stabilizer from here (3 months later, bars still look as above) | This needs sodium metabisulfate and sodium thiosulfate |
Recipe Totals
Please note that this recipe has a low superfat* percentage and big water discount*. If you are a beginner, a recipe like this one might be better.
| Liquid Required | 7.42 oz | 210.24 g |
| NaOH Weight | 4.94 oz | 140.16 g |
| Oil Weight | 34 oz | 963.88 g |
| Fragrance Oil Weight | 2.13 oz | 60.24 g |
| Superfat | 2% | |
| Total Batch Weight | 48.49 oz | 1374.53 g |
| Lye Concentration | 40% |
MAKING THE SOAP
- I start by making the embeds several days ahead. I suppose you could make them the same day, just be careful when handling them.
- In a well ventilated area (outside or by a window), add the lye gradually to the distilled water. Do not breathe the fumes. You can freeze half of the water ahead to avoid fumes, and weigh the ice cubes. You need to wear your safety gear. Lye burns! You can prepare this several hours ahead, or even days ahead, keep it properly covered. (If making it the same day, loosely cover it to allow it to cool. Once at room temperature, use an airtight lid).
- While you wait for the lye water to cool down, you can weigh and melt your oils, if using soap scraps as embeds inside the soap, chop them ahead of time and sprinkle them with gold mica to keep them from sticking to themselves. Weigh your fragrance oil or essential oils into a glass container or ceramic container (fragrance oils can dissolve thin plastics). I masterbatch both the lye water solution and the oils.
- I also prepared some sodium thiosulfate and sodium metabisulfate ahead of time to prevent vanillin discoloration from the fragrance. (As explained here) You can use any other vanilla stabilizer (the one from Nature’s Garden and Candles has been really good for me, or skip it altogether and let your bars turn a beautiful caramel color.
- When your oils and lye solution are at or below 110°F (37.77°C), put on your PPE (Personal protective equipment) again, and add your lye solution to the oils slowly, to avoid splatters pour it on the blender shaft.
- Stir with the blender on Off position initially, then blend for 5-7 second periods, alternating with stirring for 10 seconds or longer, until it is emulsified. This takes about 30-50 seconds with this recipe. When a recipe reaches emulsion, everything has a uniform, lighter color than before, you do not see the darker oil swirls when blending. Because we are not using colorants for this soap, you can bring it to light trace instead (which is easier to tell apart)
- Add the fragrance or essential oils blend
- Blend the fragrance manually with a whisk or spatula
- Pour one thin layer of the soap batter in the mold, then add some of the scraps and try to add a second layer of soap batter on top. Alternatively, you can add all the scraps into the soap batter and pour them at once in the mold.
- Add the embeds on top.
- Insulate the soap by covering it with a blanket, to help it go through gel phase. You may need to cover it with a cardboard box first.
- Wait 48 hours and try releasing from one side of the mold, and if nothing sticks back, it is ready to be removed from the mold and cut. If it still sticks, wait longer or put in the freezer for 1 hour.
- Cut the soap to desired thickness bars. I use a single bar cutter. Let them cure for at least 4 weeks in an open area protected from direct sunlight before using. (not touching any metal)
*SUPERFAT:
By now you probably know that lye (sodium hydroxide) converts oils into soap, through a process called saponification. And you probably also know that there are specific amounts needed of each for this to happen. Because each soap has a different SAPonification value, different amounts of lye are needed for each oil.
Superfatting sounds like something I like to do to myself when I keep eating after I feel full. But in the soap world, many will know it is when you either add more oils or less lye than it is required. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you need 3 oz of lye to convert 16 oz of manacao oil (totally made up oil) into soap. If you only use 2.5 oz of lye instead of 3, that means that a percentage of the manaco oil will not become soap, but will remain an oil. And this is desirable as that extra oil will cause the soap to become more gentle on your skin, by reducing its cleansing ability slightly. But if you use 4 oz of lye instead of 3, that means all 16 oz of manacao oil will become soap, and not only that, there will be extra lye floating around. That extra lye will be looking for more oil to convert to soap, that oil could be the natural skin oils, which means this soap can burn or irritate the skin.
Usually superfat of at least 3% is recommended as oils properties may change from crop to crop. But even if you had a 0% superfat soap, it would still be gentle as handmade soap creates glycerin, which is a skin humectant. (From most commercially produced soap, glycerin is removed to be sold separately).
*WATER DISCOUNT:
Most soap calculators will give you the amount of water needed to mix the lye with, based on traditional cooking methods of making soap, what we now know as hot process. This is a big percentage of water (38% of the oils) because a lot of it would evaporate through the cooking process. However, for cold process soap this is usually too much water, which can lead to a lot of soda ash or a lot of shrinkage during the cure.
This blogpost explains it better (from modern soapmaking).
Soaps by Glenda 