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First time making coffee soap...Have a Question


lovemylabs

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I searched through our oils and found two ounces of CS Vanilla Hazelnut. We have no other coffee fragrances on hand (yet). For those that make coffee soap, if we use strong coffee instead of our Distilled Water for the lye solution and only two ounces of VH FO, would the final scent of the coffee be too strong for the Vanilla Hazelnut scent to come through? And would 1 T of brewed coffeed grounds be sufficient enough as a good exfoliator?

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I'm like Jack, sorry, I only do MP but have made a ton of Coffee soap. Used the coffee grounds has a colorant also with those soaps.

I use a LOT more than most people recommend as far as the amount of coffee grounds go, and when the final product is through, it is a great exfoliant but it's not so harsh you can't bathe with it. The loaf in the pictures, was "dyed" using coffee grounds at different temps and amounts of grounds, and the dark line is a LOT of grounds to use as a scrubber ( this loaf was made to be a kitchen soap so it had that scrubby effect)

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Thanks yall.

This loaf, was actually a rebatch ( you can look back in the posts and find pictures of the screw up the first go around.. .what happened was the layers separated but I fixed it in the rebatch .)

Ok, the really dark layer, the first go around, someone had to explain to me because I didn't know what I'd done... then I did it on purpose in the rebatch.

That line is where poured the last layer in the mold, just a tad hot, and didn't stir quite as much as I did on the top layer ( so it was incorped good ).. so a lot of the grounds , being heavy, settled, and that's what made the center really scrubby layer. It was cool enough that some of them stayed suspended throughout the "white" layer, but most of them "fell" and created that wide dark layer.

Another thing , on the colors........looking at the soap as it's sitting in the picture... the top layer, was coffee right out of the can, not "pre-used", and it was added to the hottest soap I could do safely and I stirred and stirred, and reheated back up, stirred again, to get that chocolate mousse color. The "white " layer, was coffee grounds I'd just used in my coffeemaker to make coffee that morning, so they didn't "color" the soap as much.

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Hey Darbla...I can't remember where I saw "brewed" coffee grounds during my research, but we just had a discussion on whether to use brewed or fresh (unused). The bottom line I guess...is the coffee grounds are going to be "wet" anyway once they are incorporated into the soap. Since coffee grounds don't dissolve, the soap wouldn't be any less exfoliating I wouldn't think. @blacktieaffair....wow, what a process you went through. But the end result is gorgeous! Thanks for the info on your process.

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Over time, as the soap cures the grains of coffee become exfoliating no matter if used or freshly ground.

I've learned to include fragrance (an EO blend) as the coffee smell doesn't pull through the CP process the way I need it to - even with grounds included. I used coffee as the liquid to dissolve the lye once. Stench is not strong enough of a word to describe it - even after a nice long cure. Blech.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ive been thinking about making tomato soap, and did a search here. I read where people use tomato powder, ground up sun dried tomatoes and tomato juice. I was looking in the grocery store tonight and noticed that the sun-dried tomatoes have a preservative in them, and the tomato juice also has additives. Do these additives have any effect on the saponification process or on the quality of the soap?

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Sorry carsonogx, can't help you on that question, but wanted to do a follow up on the coffee grounds...Well, we made two three pound batches of Coffee Soap using CS Vanilla Hazelnut. It smells amazing. The first batch we used 4 T of coffee grounds. OMG...too much!! The second batch we used 2 T...still too much. My husband told somebody it was like 60 grit sandpaper. So we're going to promote these two batches as strictly handsoap OR if you're a surgeon and can stitch your skin back together after use! We just did a third batch last week and didn't add any grounds at all. Gonna try it out soon.

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