So, today I decided to try my hand at HP again, and this time everything as far as the sanponification of the oils went beautifully! Just like in the pictures! My hang up was with Tangerine Wow. The fragrance was a mix of 10x Orange, Cinnamon, Clove, and Litsea. Since I already had all my oils in the pot and was at 8% superfat, not wishing to go higher I decided I would mix my Tangerine Wow into my essential oils rather than adding oil. BIG MISTAKE! The more I stirred with my mini mixer, the more it clumped. Finally I poured my EO's through a small metal strainer into another metal strainer, and completely separated the gummy ball of pigment at the bottom. I suspect that there is some kind of plastic that coats the pigment, which the EO was absorbing into. I balled up the failed pigment into a lovely orange little cube about the size of a starburst which I will be putting in my car as an air freshener. Anyway, after that I decided it would be best just to add the pigment directly to oils from the batch. I skimmed off a little of the oil that was pooling in the center of my HP batch as it folded in on itself, and used that to mix in the pigment. I figured it would be safe to add it before things got stiff and mashed potato-y. WRONG AGAIN! It immediately morphed into a sickly olive green. I ran my whisk through the soap and it came out red while the soap in the pot was greenish. I rinsed off the whisk and the pigment washing away was definitely green. I figured I had somehow found a way to remove the pigment, as it seemed to like sticking to the whisk more than being in the soap mixture. So I repeated this process, stirring and rinsing as the soap turned less and less green, but green it still remained, to some extent. I was beginning to despair, and sent my boyfriend to go fetch the brick red pigment from my soaping room in the basement. I figured perhaps a deep red would still fit the scent profile and cover up the green. Then, suddenly I hit neutrality and the color morphed back to a lovely pumpkin color! It was like some kind of magical pH meter in the soap. I suspect whatever plastic shielding that had become gummy in the EO just melted away in the pot, leaving the pigment at the mercy of the lye. From now on I think I'll just be using my Tangerine Wow in CP.
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