Weigh out the lye and slowly pour into the coffee in a well ventilated area. Stir until the lye has completely dissolved, then set the coffee/lye mixture aside to cool.
Now weigh out the soapmaking oils for this recipe using a digital scale. For my brownie soap recipe I used a combination of babassu oil, castor oil, unrefined cocoa butter, refined coconut oil, olive oil and safflower oil. Heat the oils until they melt then set them aside to cool as well.
Once your lye/water and soapmaking oils have cooled to room temperature or around 76°F you’re ready to make soap.
Use a measuring spoon, measure out sodium lactate and stir it into your lye-coffee. The sodium lactate helps to make a harder bar of soap.
Then you’ll need to temper your egg. It is important to start with a room temperature egg. Tempering your egg prevents you ending up with what looks like scrambled egg in your soap.
To temper the egg, remove about a cup of oil from your soapmaking oils then whisk the entire egg (no shell, of course) into the oils. (No! The egg won’t cause the finished soap to go bad! In fact, it lasts just as long as regular cold process soaps that don’t contain egg.)
Using measuring spoons, measure out the unsweetened cocoa powder for your soap. I recommend using a stick blender to incorporate the cocoa powder into the oils.
You can now return the oil with the egg mixed in back with the remaining oils. Briefly mix again.
Now pour the lye/coffee into the soapmaking oils. Mix the soap with a stick blender until you reach trace.
If you’re using a fragrance oil, add it at light trace and keep mixing until the soap batter is like a light pudding. (I didn’t use a fragrance and it still smelled like chocolate!)
Pour the soap batter into a round mold. I used a round silicone with six cavities.
Allow your soap to set up for at least 48 hours before unmolding. If your soap doesn’t seem like it’s going to come out of the mold easily – especially if it didn’t gel – you can place the mold in the freezer for about a half hour or simply wait an extra day or two.
Because it’s winter and much colder in my house right now, I got soda ash on the tops of my soaps. However, I loved the contrast between the color of the soda ash and the color of the soap and the coffee beans so I left it on my soaps. If you don’t like the way it looks, you can simply steam or wash it off. Or add piped soap to the tops!
Be sure to allow your soaps to cure four to six weeks before using.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post! GO