Cup 'o' Joe Soap

The latest coffee soap creation, definitely my favorite.

My coffee soap history, short and sweet smelling..

My experience with coffee soap has been a lot less difficult than I read it to be. I was really second guessing every recipe I came up with. I had coffee butter in my collection for nearly 5 months before I had the guts to give it a try. The first go round I did it with MP Detergent Free Shea butter base from WSP. I took whole beans and ground them up and did a 2.5 lb mold 3/4 way up with a mocha shimmer layer with the grounds mixed in. My lack of MP experience, I had no idea that most of them would float to the top. I added a layer of pale gold to the top. The fragrance blend I choose for my summer coffee loaf was Vanilla, Coconut and the coffee scent came only from the fresh ground coffee inside the soap. It was delish smelling, I highly recommend trying it. 
  As I said I added coffee grounds that had all floated to the top of my bottom layer. Well when I cut the soap it was lovely, smelled fabulous, clean lines. Even the contrast between the colors was perfect. What I did not realize at the time was that I had created a weak layer between my soap layers with the coffee grounds. It took a little while before they fell apart but they sure enough did. The layer of coffe grounds was about 3/4", way to much to be such a grainy substance.

My first coffee soap, you can see the week layer, lesson learned.

  A long time went by before I ever tried it again. My brother in law mentioned a coffee to me that he said was super rich and dark, Starbucks Sumatra. I decide if I was going to use coffee grounds and still maintain any natural coffee scent after the lye process. It would have to be intense to start with.
  I did a very small batch to start with so I was not wasting a lot of materials if it didn't pan out. I have a little 12 oz mold I use and if there is any left over I pour into whatever is around. (I use those as free samples for my customers too. when they are good that is.) So I used, Sumatra Dark blend, coffee butter, Cocoa butter and walnut shell powder as my specialty ingredients in this loaf. I did part water and part coconut milk for the lye solution. Coconut Milk soap is growing to be my all time preferred milk to use in my soaps. The benefits are amazing. The only fragrance is a touch of vanilla and the rest is only the coffee grounds I added at trace. I saved a little of the batch and added white mica to the unscented part of the batch I sat aside. I drizzled it slowly through the middle of the loaf and the chrysanthemum mold I used for the extra. I swirled it just enough to give the impression of creamer in coffee. Very simple and so suiting to the scent, that I have to say is still there and lovely as ever. I prepped my grounds prior to adding them at the end of trace too. All I did was put what I was going to use in a jelly jar and soaked it in Sweet Almond oil. Stirring frequently. I did that for an hour prior to using them.
  The grounds are throughout the loaf and give an excellent exfoliating properties along side the walnut shell. The white is still just as bright too. So now my fear of using fresh grounds with lye is over. Moderation is the key I believe. I used nearly 2 TBS for my one lb batch and that was on the high side from what the research said I had done prior. I get a lot of contradicting info on the web but all we can do is tell from our own experiences. There are so many factors to why a batch might head south. So if you try something and it ends up horribly, don't just give up, try and figure it out, ask questions and experiment. it's the only way to truly know for yourself.

Coconut Milk, Coffee Soap recipe (Sample batch)

Coconut oil 76      4oz
Avocado oil           2oz
Almond oil            2oz
Castor oil               2oz
Avocado Butter     1oz
Cocoa Butter         1oz
Coffee Butter       1.5oz

Water/coconut milk(frozen) 4.94
Lye                                         1.83

Always rerun any recipe you find to make sure it's adequate and safe. Hope you love it and make it your own. You can check out my Cup 'o' Joe soap on Etsy www.etsy.com/listing/163424753/cupojoe-soapcoffee-scrub-soapstarbucks