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coffee soap

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Mon, 10/11/2010 - 4:41am

Enyonam

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Joined: 10/11/2010

coffee soap

hello everyone! I'm a newbie to this site. I have been making soaps for about a year now and have managed to make some great milk and castile soaps (cold process). There is a local coffee shop in town who would like to carry some of my products and I would like to make a soap that features their organic hand roasted coffee. I have made three different batches so far. The first one stunk (as in smell) so bad that my brother is still making faces when he goes near the few bars i haven't thrown away. The second and third batches smell better and have a much better consistency, but still have the overtones of nasty and not yummy coffee.

My two theories right now are

1) coffee and lye just don't get along at all

2) the coffee is scorching during the curing process (thus giving off the badly burnt coffee smell)

Has anyone ever made a successful and good smelling batch of coffee soap? If so, can you maybe give up a secret or two?

Thanks,

Enyo

Thu, 06/30/2011 - 6:20pm

skyhawk

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Joined: 06/28/2011

I know this post is a little outdated but as a newbie myself wanted to chime in on this subject. I also have made my first batch of soap using the crock pot method. i chose to add fresh coffee grounds to my soap for the scrubbing properties. I did not add any FO just the grounds. the batch came out perfectly until you smelled it, then low and behold, the same problem as stated above. it smelled like old coffee grounds that had been left in the pot for a few days. i hope to try another batch this weekend and will add at the very last second of trace, after the mix has started to cool to see if that helps. The bars work well and do what i want, they are just not plesent to smell. Will end up being garage soap i think............. :)

Thu, 10/14/2010 - 5:50pm

Administrator

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Joined: 11/24/2009

Hi & thanks for joining our new Forum!

Re coffee in soap...

You've run across a common problem. Real coffee, like many other organic substances, doesn't do well with lye. The result tends to be an unpleasant smell to varying degrees. Sometimes the 'off' smell dissipates while the soap bars are curing (as can happen with soaps that have some real honey added), and sometimes it doesn't.

Coffee grounds are sometimes added in small amounts for the texture added to soaps, but the scent itself is added as a fragrance oil. Then the next problem - coffee-scented fragrance oils generally don't survive the initial high alkalinity of cold process soapmaking & the resulting scent isn't what you want. Melt & pour soapers don't have this problem as high alkalinity is not a problem with M&P soap.

Look for a fragrance oil that specifies that it works in cold-process soaps and test it with a small batch, first. I have to admit that I haven.t found a good coffee scent F.O., myself.

Perhaps someone else out there can help with a good source for a coffee F.O. that works well with CP soaps?

Steve M.
Summer Bee Meadow
Site Administrator

Sat, 11/13/2010 - 2:30pm

bugalley

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Joined: 09/12/2010

I made a batch back in Feb. Initially it stuuuunnnk. Bad. I put it away and left it alone. It has mellowed very nicely. I used a coffee mocha fo (are we allowed to say from where we buy stuff??) and coffee grounds for scrubbyness.

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coffee soap

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