Charcoal and Beer soap

A few weeks ago, spurred by the almost full-scale wipeout of plain old soap from supermarket shelves and its replacement with plastic bottles containing various permutations of water, SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate) and perfume, I decided to make soap.
My first foray was a plain 50% olive oil, 50% coconut oil bar.  I did this to get the hang of the process (Cold Process) and make a bar with no complicating factors.
My second bar was a coffee scrub bar, made using coffee scrub melts I’d made a few weeks prior.  I didn’t much like the melts and thankfully knew the exact types and weights of the butters I had used, so was able to formulate a soap recipe by adding oil and running it through a lye calculator.
This here is my third bar.  Lessons learned from the first and second bars led me to keep a nice high quantity of butters but to add in some beer to increase the suds!  It has certainly worked and increased bubbles are visible even at this stage of the cure.
In my second bar I used castor oil, well known to increase suds, but for this one decided to use sweet almond oil instead as it’s lighter, less ‘rubbery’ and well – I had the beer.  The largest oils are again coconut and olive oil, with total ‘hard’ oils making up 50% and total ‘soft’ oils making up 50%. I kept some cocoa butter to assist hardening and shea butter for a nice silky feel.
It’s hard to get a rock hard soap without using palm oil or good old lard, but for so many reasons I’d like to achieve that holy grail.  This bar is nice and firm but does have a touch of creaminess that it wouldn’t have if either of those were used as base oils.  Adding some sodium lactate for more hardness will be tried in another soap no doubt.
Soap making doesn’t need to be scary.  The key thing to remember is to protect your eyes, hands and feet (yes) with gloves, goggles and shoes so that if a crumb or a splash of lye falls on them, then it won’t burn.  If it does burn, take off the garments and wash with water.  And when combining lye and water, add lye to water and NEVER the other way around.
I was really excited to try a beer soap and had read lots about reaching a fast trace and making sure it’s fully boiled and completely cooled before using.  The sugar will cause both the bubbles and a greater heat to be reached in a cold process soap during saponification.  It is critical to boil all the alcohol off the beer the night before using and leave it in the fridge to cool completely.  Then when adding the lye do it very gradually and have a bucket of ice to sit the jug on if it starts any level of fizzing.
This soap could be made with any scents, but I love how the black pepper and bergamot are mixing together and giving a sharp, fresh and a little fruity smell.  The charcoal adds to the cleansing and of course to the drama.
At this stage, I should point out again that this is my third soap, which makes me an expert by absolutely zero standards!
All oils are measured in weight, not volume and I used a 1.25cm x 11.25 x 6.27 inch frame, lined with parchment paper as a mould.