Jaffa Soap- My First Attempt at the Funnel Pour method

Funnel Pour Jaffa Soap

Jaffa Soap
Hello. This is my first ever attempt at a post on soap...or any topic for that matter! I hope that you enjoy it and can share your thoughts and experiences. Jaffas always remind me of my childhood. I remember as a child I would go to the movies and the boys from school would sit up the back and roll the Jaffas down the isle. If they didn't roll them down the isle, they tried to hit myself and my girlfriends on the head. At least we always had a supply of free lollies when we went to the movies thanks to those silly boys! Jaffa's always remind me of growing up in Bathurst NSW and going to the movies on a Saturday afternoon! I'm smiling just thinking about it!

I watched a Soap Queen episode on YouTube on Cold Process soap using the funnel pour method and thought that I might give that a try...so I did! I didn't want to use the artificial fragrances and colours as demonstrated, but wanted to experiment with natural ingredients that anyone could find in their pantry. So I decided to make a cold process Jaffa Soap using Paprika for the orange colour, Cocoa for chocolate and Sweet Orange Essential Oil for fragrance. My main problem was remembering which order I had poured the colours! Finally I gave up trying to remember and just did the best I could. 

Just a few words before you begin if you have never made soap before...Safety, Safety, Safety! 
1. Always wear gloves, goggles or glasses, long sleeves and have your legs and feet covered. Lye is very caustic and dangerous so cover up! 
2. Never ever pour your liquid into the Lye. Always pour the Lye into the water or liquid!
3. Make in a well ventilated area without children or pets around. I like to mix my lye solution under the Range Hood extractor over my stove so the fumes get sucked up, up and away! Some people take theirs outside and then bring it in. I prefer not to do that as I think that carrying the lye solution around, adds more possibility for an accident...but that is just me. Anyway...try not to breathe in the fumes.
You will need:

• Gloves
  
• plastic or stainless still mixing bowl
  
• A set of digital scales. In Australia we use metric so all my measures are in grams
  
• funnel (juice funnel is perfect)
• sticky tape
• wooden spoon or stainless steel spoon
• hand held blender
• glasses or goggles
• Mould. I use a 1 kg mould for this and also an empty milk carton. (If you live in the US, then we in Australia spell 'mold' 'mould'...I am pretty sure that the UK uses the mould spelling as well)
• disposable plastic cup with the bottom cut off.
• jug for your lye solution
• some disposable cups to measure oil and lye
• 2 extra jugs of your soap mix

Ingredients:

• Coconut Oil = 442 grams/ 44.20%
• Olive Oil = 358 grams / 35.80%
• Sunflower Seed Oil = 200 grams / 20.00%
• 4% Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) Amount = 147.3 grams (This means that your soap is super-fatted at 4% or there is a 4% lye deficit)
• Liquid (Water) = 330.0 grams
• Paprika powder mixed in a teaspoon of oil- use as much as you need to get the desired colour
• Cocoa powder mixed in oil - use as much cocoa as you need to get as chocolaty as you want
• Note: I ran out of Olive Oil so my original measures were 500 grams Olive Oil and 300 grams of Coconut Oil. So if you use these measures then run your oils through a Lye calculator. There are many Lye calculators, but I like to use Brambleberry's Lye Calculator. If you want to use this calculator, you can find it here. This is an American site, but it is very informative and interesting to browse.

Let' Begin!

1. Measure out your Oils- beginning with your Heavy Oils first (Coconut and Olive). Also have your paprika and cocoa mixed with oil ( in separate containters) and weigh out 28 grams of Sweet Orange Essential Oil.
2. Measure out your water. (Remember in soap making all measurements are by weight! So it is grams of water not Millilitres).
   
3. Measure out your Lye
4. Take your water and Lye under the Range Hood and pour the lye into the water and stir until clear and dissolved. This lye water will get very hot so be careful! Leave to cool and get your molds ready.

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 5. Prepare your mold. You do this by placing the disposable plastic cup with the bottom cut out over your mold and sticky tape into place. Rest your funnel in the cup. Just ensure that it is steady and not wobbly!

 6. Pour the cooled Lye water into the oil. Just make sure that the oil and water are around the same temperature approximately 38 degrees C/ 100 degrees F
7. Mix with the wooden spoon until well combined.
8. Grab your hand held blender and place upright into the oil and lye mix. Gently tip the blender sideways to let any trapped air escape from under the blades...burp your blender!
9. Blend until you reach a light trace.
10. Add your Sweet Orange Essential oil and blend well
11. Divide your mix into 3 roughly equal parts. I poured 1/3rd into 2 jugs and left the remainder in my bowl.
12. Add your paprika to 1 jug and your cocoa to the other. Mix in well.
13. Now carefully pour your soap mixes into the molds. 
Choose your first colour, followed by your second and then your third. It does not matter which you choose first, but try and remember the order in which you pour. I find it helps to count to 3 or 4 as you are pouring to get an even spread. Pour down the same side of the funnel's spout each time so that the soap pours into the same spot over consecutive pourings.

Leave in the mold covered for at least 24 hours. Un-mold and cut. At the moment it is a very hot Autumn in Australia so I don't really need to insulate my soaps. I covered this one just incase the cat got too curious!