I needed to restock a couple of soaps this week, so, I decided to do a bit of experimentation. First up, I wanted to see if adding a bit of cocoa butter to one of my standard recipes would add any benefits or would detract from an already good thing. I think the potential of more moisture and a harder bar would be great. But, I don't want to lose any lather in the process.
I only needed to make two soaps--Oatmeal Milk & Honey and my Sea Salt soap. I wasn't sure about adding the cocoa butter to the Salt soap, so I ran a new formula through the lye calculator and started making the modified goatmilk soap to make a big batch of the OMH. At the last minute, I decided to try the new dehydrated Dead Sea Mud--I had gotten that to save money on shipping...and this was the first time to try it. It still comes from the Mud Queen and is imported from Jordan, so I am hopeful that it will have all the benefits I have come to expect from her products.
So, my initial impression of the cocoa butter in the cooking phase is that there was almost no difference--it may have come to the "applesauce" stage slightly faster than my normal recipe. (In Cold Process, maybe it would trace faster) Maybe. After cutting the soap 24 hours later, I would say there was no difference on the hardness of the bar. But, since this is a softer goatmilk soap, maybe a better test of this will be when I try it on my regular recipe without the extra moisture of the milk. Finally, after another day on the curing rack I would say that some of the scent of the unrefined cocoa butter is coming through...which really compliments the OMH scent. Or maybe, it's just in my head. Anyway, I think this will be a really nice addition to milk soaps. I will try it down the road in a regular recipe. Oh, and absolutely no difference in the lather! Yippee!!
On the Salt soap experiment, I decided to add half the amount of cocoa butter to see if I could detect any change in my recipe. Then I added the same amount of powdered dead sea mud as I would have of the "wet" stuff. It is really nice to work with...much easier than scooping out the mud pies from a container. I didn't adjust the liquid I reconstituted it in...and perhaps on the next go round I will remember to add a bit more liquid (I use goatmilk and distilled water). When it was all incorporated into the cooled soap, I would say the color was browner than using the wet mud. But, now after it has been cut and I would say the color is no different than usual. And, the addition of the cocoa butter has not affected the lather or the minty scent of the bar.
Again, I would say this was a very successful day of experiments. :)
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