Soap Making Notes – Full Flock Soap with Marigold & Mulberry

Goat milk soap (cold process) made with calendula (marigold) infused oil and dried mulberry powder/ mulberry seed as an exfoliant
Ingredients

• 1oz Lanolin
• 2oz Castor Oil
• 4oz Shea Butter
• 4oz Cocoa Butter
• 8oz Coconut Oil
• 14oz Olive Oil (infused with dried calendula)
• 4.5oz Lye
• 9oz frozen goat milk
• 4T dried mulberry powder & seeds
• 1/2 tsp ylang ylang essential oil
• dried calendula petals and mulberry powder for topping

Notes

To make the infused olive oil I soaked dried calendula petals in olive oil for about 2 weeks and then strained out most of the plant material. I left some of the petals as an experiment to see what they are like in the soap– mostly they seem to have been dissolved by the lye but some may remain to provide extra exfoliating.

The mulberry powder/seeds were made by crushing ripe mulberries from our mulberry bush, pressing out the juice and then drying in the dehydrator. Once the mash was completely dry I powdered it in a spice grinder. The fleshy part turned into a fine powder but the seeds kept their shape. The seeds remind me of poppy seeds and will be a nice exfoliant. Those are the dark specks you can see in the soap. I had hoped that the mulberry powder would turn the oil pink but as you can see it didn’t have any affect on the color of the soap. Next I think I’ll try infusing oil with mulberries to see if I can extract the color that way.

Most of the soap went into a 2 lb loaf mold but I put a little bit in a single-bar sheep mold as an experiment to see how this soap recipe works in fancy molds.