I thought this was going to be a failure half way through but it all turned out ok in the end, I don’t seem to have much luck with fragrance oils. Every one I have tried so far has caused my soap to set up really quickly. I’d love to hear about other people’s experiences with this.
I fancied something that was a bit indulgent for my shower. I had recently purchased some sweet fragrance oils so I thought I would have a go at a chocolate soap with added cocoa butter and cocoa powder. I didn’t want the soap to have horrible brown lather so I am only used a small amount of cocoa powder and make the colour look a bit darker with some chestnut coloured mica.
Here is the Chocolate Soap Recipe :
Ingredients
Coconut oil 150g
Palm oil 100g
Cocoa Butter 50g
Olive oil 125g
Sunflower oil 75g
Distilled water 190g
Sodium hydroxide 71.85g
10mls Dark Chocolate Fragrance oil
5mls Almond Fragrance oil
5mls Vanilla Fragrance oil
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp chestnut coloured mica
Method
Slowly mix the sodium hydroxide with the water until it has dissolved completely and set aside.
Melt the oils over a gentle heat until they have dissolved completely then add the cocoa powder and mica.
Wait for both parts to cool to 40C, add the fragrance oils to the other dissolved oils and then combine with the sodium hydroxide. Mix with a hand blender until the mixture thickens. My fragrance oils caused my mixture to trace really really quickly, it only took a couple of bursts and my mixture had begun to set!!! I quickly plopped it into the mold and hoped for the best.
After about half an hour the surface of the soap started to form tiny beads of liquid and the soap started to really heat up in the mold. After doing some research it appears that the soap may have got too hot due to the fragrance oil speeding up the chemical reaction so much. I put it in the fridge to cool it down a bit.
I unmolded the soap the next day and it is fine, no separation and it smells lovely. A kind of chocolatey amaretto smell, almost good enough to eat.
