Discoloration and New Stuff Everywhere!

*waves* Hey y'all!! Hope this finds everyone doing well!
Yet again it has been a busy past few months for us here in Soapyland. Between the illnesses, school, and wild weather it has been cray cray here since I last posted. Anyhow, if you remember from some of my previous posts, Miss Daisy and I got together over the fall to make soaps, and other bath and body products. Well, Miss Daisy and I worked so well together that we decided to join forces to take over the world. *snickers* Actually, we decided to go into business together, and drag our significant others along with us on this adventure. They may or may not have screamed a time or two on the way. *laughs maniacally*
My hubsters is doing the tech stuffs. Miss Daisy's Mr. is doing parrafin and palm candles and getting his hands wet cranking out a batch of soap here and there when time permits. Both the guys are cutting soap for us because let's be honest, y'all know I can't cut straight to save my life!!  Aside from this, Miss Daisy and I have branched out from soaps, scrubs and lip balms, to shaving creams and whipped soaps as well as implementing lotion items and body butters among other items. Miss Daisy has also begun adding her crocheted items, and I am hoping to add beeswax and grubby candles to everything. We plan to launch this Spring, and are both excited! So there is some of the new stuff!

The other new stuff I want to mention is discoloration that happens in soap. There are several significant factors to the discoloration of soap. In my experience it can be anything to the liquid and additives that you add to your soap, to the fragrance and on occasion the actual color that you use. Any fragrance that contains vanilla will discolor, unless you use a vanilla stabilizer. I generally don't use vanilla stabilizer, but will sometimes use a white colorant like TD to lighten. Most of the time I use it to my advantage and use what it will discolor to as part of the theme. On occasion though, the discoloration can be unexpected, especially if we are testing new fragrances. The discolor can be a beige, chocolate brown, yellow, or even an orange. Some of the fragrances that Miss Daisy and I really like discolors our soap. Over the past few weeks we have been making a ton of soap to get ready for our Spring launch and here are some of the ones that we are watching for discoloration. Some discolored immediately, others will discolor over cure time. 

Waikiki Shores by Miss Daisy after pour

Miss Daisy colored the base of the soap batter, but this fragrance contains a lot of vanilla so we may see it darken just a bit.

Strawberries and Cream by Miss Daisy after pour

Strawberries and Cream after cut. It was still soft when we cut it, and Miss Daisy didn't expect it to discolor the way it did. I still think it looks amazing!

Doodlebug made by Me after pour

The tan parts of Doodlebug may get a bit darker, but I was pleased with this overall.

Of course we cannot forget the milk soaps that we made also! This turned out well I think, but discolored of course, not just because of the addition of milk, but the fragrance as well. We added the milk part later on in the process. We are watching these batches to see how much they discolor over cure time since we did these a bit differently than we normally do. :)

Almond, Oatmeal, Milk and Honey. The milk that I used for this one was unsweetened almond milk, and I topped with rolled oats.

I was very pleasantly surprised that my white swirls came through so well!

Miss Daisy's Cherry Oatmeal Milk and Honey Soap. She used goats-milk for this batch, and topped with oats. It looks like a dessert doesn't it?!?!

Miss Daisy was so nervous about this one also, but it came out so well!! We will likely see this one discolor a bit more due to the goats milk and the fragrance oil that was used.

We have made other batches as well but for this post I really wanted to focus on the ones that we are expecting to discolor. When cure time is up we will take a few more pictures to make comparisons with.
Ok y'all, I have got to skedaddle and get some more things done! Please check back again soon for more of our soaping adventures!
Suds & Bubbles,
Soapy