Fresholi Soap Swap

I just took part in a soap swap for the first time and sent a bar of Mint Monster to 5 different soap makers from the Fresholi forums


The 5 different soap makers sent their handmade stuff to everyone taking part. It felt like Christmas had came early when the following arrived:



The diversity was the best thing about it in my opinion. It was great to smell new scents and use soap made from ingredients I'm yet to incorporate into my own recipes. The feedback I received for the Mint Monster soap was all very positive and I was really chuffed to read it all :-D
I'll definitely be taking part in the next soap swap.

Lavender and Eucalyptus

Embedding stars in hot process worked out a whole lot better this time. Although they're not perfect, they weren't meant to be
:-P

Mint Bundle

Gift ideas come easily when you're a keen soap maker ;-)
Here's some bundles of 3 spearmint soaps. They all have different amounts and types of dried mint.

Rosemary HP

I decided to do a video of my latest soaping event. Gotta love time lapse.

Next time I'll do a longer one for sure. The soap is strongly scented with rosemary essential oil and the top has been decorated with safflower and calendula petals in moderation. Yellow dock root was infused with the olive oil to give a pink colour. Hopefully they'll pinken up in the next few days. Here are the 'just cut' pics:

Soap Drought

What do I blog about when soap supplies have run dry...the last soap I made perhaps? Well here it is:


A small amount of honey and some finely ground oats went into these and they smell very sweet. The scent is a combination of honey and sweet orange. Good enough to eat. I've been using the same recipes recently and I can safely say I'm sticking to them for good.

I've been making soy wax candles instead of soap while I wait for my oil to arrive. The glass jars were due to be put in the recycling bin but instead I decided to make candles in them. Here's what they look like:

Croap!

Every soaper makes crap soap at some point and a lot can be learned from it. Here is the first disaster I'm willing to post:


I now know not to spend so much time placing stars 'just so' into HP soap, especially when they're salt bars. Common sense really haaha.

Recent HP soapies:

After adding too much patchouli essential oil to this batch:

I decided to grate most of it up to use in the following castille batch. Olive oil and shea is all I have in my cupboard right now BUT it's all I really need at the minute since I'm mostly experimenting with scent and colour.
Another alkanet root colour experiment:

My New Home Made mould...

Is Awesome! I gave my grandad some mould building instructions and a week later I'm making perfect soap :-D

Found a new love

For the last 6 months I've been making cold process soap, reading books, forums, watching you tube vids and learning so much from every batch of soap I create. It's been fun to say the least and now it's time for another focus...

Yesterday I made these:



It was my first attempt at hot process soap which was a success. The colour was achieved by using an alkanet root infusion. I used a bit more alkanet than last time and I also added chopped up pieces of soap from a previous cold process batch. Because the Lavender and Eucalyptus essential oils were added after the soap was cooked, they will retain their healing properties or so I've been told. The smell is divine!

Ingredients used:

• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Avocado oil
• Castor oil
• Cocoa butter
• Coconut milk powder
• Water
• Sodium Hydroxide
• Lavender essential oil
• Eucalyptus essential oil
• Calendula petals

Natural Colourants

Infusing oil with various bits of plants is what I'm now dabbling in. I think synthetic colours look fabulous but at the end of the day, they're synthetic and something I'm not for one moment considering adding to my 100% natural soaps.

This natural pink was achieved by infusing yellow dock root powder to the olive oil and left to sit for a few days. I used a piece of cheese cloth to strain it otherwise I would have ended up with speckles.

Alkanet root provides the perfect purple although some may mistake it for grey. I think it's mega cool. The star anise pods were a last minute thing and they smell divine. Both of these soaps are unscented because it was colour I was experimenting with. I think the next time I use these colourants, I'll be scenting the purple one with anise or patchouli, maybe both. As for the pink, I'm yet to decide. Time to buy some more essential oils I think.

Alkanet root powder in olive oil (left) 

Spirulina I'm yet to use (right)

Pints and Pints

Here's another beer soap made with Newcastle Brown Ale. My first attempt at layering went well although I didn't shake the second layer after pouring incase I disturbed the bottom layer. I think this is the reason there are a few tiny air bubbles. Oh well. It's going to be fathers day soap :-D

Family Effort

My first funnel swirl looks like this:

I managed to get my family interested in making soap. They helped me make this batch of sweet smelling coffee soap and now of course they want to make more. The funnel swirl itself was easy enough to do and instead of securing the funnel to the mould using canes and bag ties, one of my helpers held the funnel inside the mould. 

Main ingredients used:

• Olive oil
• Grape seed oil
• Shea Butter
• Castor oil
• Cocoa Butter
• Water
• Lye

I also added ginger, cinnamon and sweet orange essential oils, cocoa powder, finely ground coffee and orris root powder. Starting from this batch onwards I'm adding confectioners sugar which I've been told helps to boost the lather. 

Mixin' It Up

The silicon mould arrived and it's been used pretty much non stop for the past week or so. I recommend this type of mould to any soaper. There's no lining involved and the soap just slips out in one piece :-D

Here is my first batch made using the new mould. A simple avocado and shea:

Ingredients~

• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Avocado oil
• Shea butter
• Castor oil
• Water
• Lye

I didn't scent this one but it still smells of something, the avocado maybe. It still smells nice and natural.

 Next up was the Newcastle Brown Ale soap:

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Avocado oil
• Castor oil
• Shea butter
• Newcastle Brown Ale - flat
• Orris root powder
• Palmarosa E/O

Strange reddish brown bits of colour are scattered throughout which made me think that something went terribly wrong. Oh yeah and I added 5x the original amount of castor oil I had planned to put in. Dead soap I thought. A day later, after cutting I tested a piece and didn't get irritated, nope just an immense lather. This soap is a sure winner, probably my best so far *cheesy grin*

So then I figured I'd try and conjure up some more of the most talked about soaps I'd seen recently. These were coffee and salt bars (to the left)

Salt Bar 

This one set very quickly and was cut in just 3 hours. I just couldn't wait. Next time I'll use 50% salt instead of about %90. This soap is great if you're impatient and want to make, cut and try in a day. It's also smooth on your skin and not rough in the slightest.

Ingredients~

• Coconut oil
• Castor oil
• Grape seed oil
• Water
• Lye
• Sea salt (fine)
• Orris root powder
• Lavender E/O

Coffee Bar 

The award for most additives I've ever used in a batch goes to this soap. After cutting and testing a piece (my usual ritual), I couldn't smell much coffee. What I could smell was mostly the sweet orange E/O shining through. Maybe next time adding coffee to the lye solution may help carry the coffee scent a bit. I'm pleased with  the overall outcome of this soaping episode, the happy accidents and lessons learned. Soap will keep your slippers nice and warm when landing on top of them, be grateful you are wearing them etc.

Ingredients~

• Coconut oil
• Olive oil
• Grape seed oil
• Shea butter
• Castor oil
• Water
• Lye
• Ginger E/O
• Sweet Orange E/O
• Finely ground oatmeal
• Cocoa powder
• Finely ground coffee
• Confectioners sugar
• Orris root powder

A Productive Week

It's been a long productive week of soaping and learning  from happy accidents. A description of  each batch and lots of pics are to be posted at some point. But for now I'm going to rest my tired feet.

 So what's in the boxes? 

                       -Answers in a comment ;-)

I Want To Eat Them...

But I can't *sigh* I am quite happy with the way the bubble wrap effect turned out and the scent reminds me of a gourmet dessert. I shall call these slices of sweet goodness, 'Honey Bee Goode'. It's a fairly appropriate name I think and if you could smell them I'm sure you'd agree. Three months into soaping and it's becoming clear I've caught the soap bug. Now I must make some more soap to wash away this filthy addiction. 

~Ingredients~

• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Grapeseed oil
• Shea Butter
• Castor oil
• Cocoa Butter
• Beeswax
• Water
• Lye
• Orris root powder
• Honey
• Sweeet orange E/O 
• Palmarosa E/O
  

Soaper's Supplies

Sifting through various soap suppliers on eBay I found P&P costs were going to set me back a bit but luckily  one of the shops I placed an order with sent a note with my stuff in the mail which directed me to their separate online store. Postage is flat rate £2.95 and all of my orders so far have been sent the next day. So not only is postage very reasonable but you get what you pay for on time too. 

Click here for soaper's supplies. 

Citrus 'C'

Citrusy indeed! By following an online recipe and doing a little bit of subtracting/substituting, I was able to achieve the following results:

Eight 4oz bars of soap slipped easily out of my new plastic un-photogenic mould. The darker areas are (I think) where it hasn't dried as much but if the other bars I've made are anything to go by then the colour will soon even out. No colourings were used and I don't intend to use them at-least not for a long time anyway.  I haven't quite yet decided whether I should stick with the new mould. While it makes cutting so simple and bars of equal measure, I like how the other mould creates unique bars with character. What would you prefer?

~Ingredients~ (in no order)

• Avocado oil
• Castor oil
• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Shea butter
• Lye
• Flat Corona
• Orris root powder
• Lemongrass E/O
• Sweet orange E/O
• Palmarosa E/O

Palm Free Guiness

I decided to follow an online soap recipe and chose to use Guiness as the liquid. There are plenty of horror stories of people not using flat beer and I didn't want any lye volcanoes in my kitchen so two days previous, I had heated the Guiness just before boiling point and then stored it in a jar. 

Here is proof that you don't need palm oil to make soap work: 

(I tested a teensy bit)

Ingredients:

• Avocado oil
• Coconut oil
• Castor oil
• Olive oil
• Shea butter
• Flat Guiness
• Lye
• Palmarosa E/O

~Progress~

A few soap experiments later and I notice they seem to be getting better or at least more edible looking which can't be a bad thing. I'm saving the pics of all the sad soggy soap for a post in the future that will make you laugh *I promise*

                             And behold the latest:

                                                   ~Lavender Oatmeal and Tea Soap

Made by cold process, the bars were cut this time into thick, chunky slabs which weigh around 4.5 ounces. Maybe next time I'll strain the tea instead of adding a teaspoon full to the lye solution. On another note, it looks like something I'd eat for breakfast...

The ingredients for this batch were as follows:

• Coconut
• Olive
• Sunflower
• Macadamia Nut
• Castor
• Grape seed
• Apricot Kernel
• Lye
• Earl Grey Tea
• Lavender 
• Oatmeal

New Mould, New Soap

A friend sent me some wine and of course I didn't notice the bottles at first. My first thoughts were, "Oooh look a soap mould!". So here you can see my latest batch in a mould that used to be a wine presentation case. Gone are the narrow Converse shoe boxes I used for the previous batch. The mould is perfect for many reasons since the dimensions mean easy cutting and there's even a wooden lid to aid insulation. Next time I will no doubt be lining the other side to accommodate another batch. 

After my ever increasing awareness stepped up a notch, I felt like I needed to get rid of the rest of the palm oil and did so in this highly conditioning bar of soap. I read of people using beet-root juice as a natural colorant so I gave it a shot expecting 3 tbsp to make pretty raspberry swirls.  I did get a slight swirly effect by using 2 pots and thinking I was clever but *sigh* what you see here folks, is no raspberry swirly oh no...

Here is the rosemary and swirls of a different colour, not quite green but certainly not pink. It looks interesting enough and smells very natural, well of course it is vegan after all.

My ingredients for this earthly batch were:

• Palm oil
• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Sunflower oil
• Castor oil
• Grapeseed oil
• Rain water (melted snow)
• Lye
• Beetroot Juice (obviously not enough)
• Rosemary

And now to order some more oil excluding palm...

Ogle At My First Batch

One day I decided to make soap. After watching Fight Club followed by hours of youtube soap tutorial vids, I was ready. I bought the equipment needed and various oils including *gasp* palm oil. If I had known all that I do now about palm oil, I wouldn't have bought it. For those of you scratching your heads watch this. In future I will be leaving palm oil out of my soap and using various alternatives.

Here you can see my first batch sitting cosy in a drawer (curing). I used the cold process method simply because I don't have a crock pot and it seemed like a good place to start. My recipe used the following oils:

• Peanut 
• Olive 
• Coconut 
• Palm 
• Macadamia nut 
• Castor
• Sunflower 
• Apricot kernel

The little black freckles you can see are poppy seeds which are apparently good for exfoliation. I did drop in some lavender oil but only a little bit and it might not have been enough. Only time will tell. I plan to document my soapy experiments in this blog so that I will be able to learn from my mistakes and receive feedback from fellow soapers.