Saponification Sunday. Alkanet Love

This is how I do it. I fill a small glass with 1/2 cup of Sunflower oil (or sweet almond) and 2 heaping teaspoons of Alkanet root powder. I forget about it for 2-3 days on my counter top. Maybe a week. OK once for 10 days. Then I pour the concoction through a coffee filter attached to a wide mouth jar with a rubber band.

I forget about it a few more days. I then remove the filter with all the alkanet debri in it, discard it and weigh the bright reddish colored oil. If it weighs two oz, then I will deduct that amount of oil (be sure it's the same type of oil) from my recipe total. In other words if my recipe calls for 6 oz of Sunflower oil and I've ended up with 2 oz of alkanet infused oil, I will only add 4 oz of Sunflower oil to the rest of my oils in the recipe.

Then I will add the two oz of my alkanet infused oil into my soap batter after it has come to trace. I will stir the infused oil into the rest of the batter with a spoon so as to keep increased thickening to a minimum. Then I stir in (slowly) my essential oils.

When I am sure my mold is ready, I will hit the whole soap batter a couple of times with my hand mixer and pour into the mold.

Unless at the half way point I decide to color 4/5ths of my batter with the alkanet, add a little titanium dioxide to the remaining batter, swirl in a little of the alkanet infused soap batter which has now turned a wonderful blue-purple, tilt the mold sideways, prop it up with a pan lid and pour the swirled batter on top.

Which would give me this.

After a little time in the mold, the slant held and I came up with this

 

Another day and I was able to slice into bars.

 

 

Scented deeply with Patchouli, Rosemary, Lavender and Grapefruit EO's it is a winner. In my never to be humble soap making opinion.