New Rasta Soap

Since I just got a new slab mold, Chris asked if I would make him a Rasta Soap with Green, Black, Red and Yellow all swirled around. Being that I love a request, I took him up on the challenge!

The soap is a saponified blend of Olive Pomace Oil, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Shea Butter, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, Fragrances of Egyptian Musk, Eastern Amber, Jasmine and Hinoki Wood.

The colors started to thicken as I poured them into the mold, so the top is a little chunky looking, but I bet when its cut it will look awesome inside! I think I may have added a little too much fragrance oil however because there was a decent amount of excess oil lining the top of the soap which I kinda patted dry a bit. Usually as it cures it will sweat a little bit, but this was puddling. This will be 12 bars 4oz bars, so 3 lbs, and I should have had more than 3 oz into the soap, however, I over poured and corrected a few times and ended up with about 4 oz, so I'm not surprised. I'm not too concerned at this point, but we'll wait to see how it all cuts tomorrow!!

Smells wonderful! :-)

Lavender Peach Soap

My new slab mold arrived today and I was so excited to try out my new oxide color pigments I received! I tried my first 4 color swirl: pink, orange, violet & natural. At first I was a little worried about how to mix the color correctly to not have any speckling, but I just added some hot water to the color and poured in my base at trace into each color.

Since I was doing 4 colors, I wanted to make sure I would have enough time to play with lining the colors and having fun making the swirls, so I tested 1 tbsp of oil with a few drops of fragrance to see if there would be any seizing. (Thank you Sweetflower soap, you have forever made me wary) Thankfully this fragrance was Seize Free and so I mixed my fragrance into my whole base and then poured a little soap into each color and stirred.

I lined my colors into my lovely new mold and then took a skewer and made some swirls!! I'm so happy with how it looks now, I just hope it looks as good all the way through! Will know for sure tomorrow!

Honeysuckle Rain

Still having fun with my new fragrance oils! My latest and greatest: Honeysuckle Rain.

Still not 100% sold on the name, but that's what I'm calling it for now. This is one CLEAN smelling soap! I'm probably going to have to send this one to my mother, along with a Green Tea soap, for Mother's Day. They're both right up her alley.

Ingredients: Olive Pomace, Coconut Oil, Avocado Oil, Palm Oil, Wheat Germ, Fragrances of Honeysuckle & Rain Orchid.

Ready for Use: 5/3/2010

Mint Chocolate Soap

"Not all Fragrance Oils are created equal."

I got in a new shipment of fragrance oils this last week and have been experimenting with them ever since. My last soap, the Sweetflower Soap, was my first "challenging" soap I've had due to fragrance oils, seizing and winding up with soap on a stick. My previous Green Tea soap however, did not have the same issue with seizing up and so I wasn't sure what to expect with my latest Mint Chocolate soap.

Thankfully this one had NO issues with seizing up. In fact, I probably could have beat my soap a little more with my stick blender, yet not knowing what to expect, I prepared for the worst which actually ended up working out in the end. Because I left my soap at such a light trace, the colors ended up swirling together quiet nicely! At least, what I can see of them. Can't wait until tomorrow to cut into it and see how the colors blended in the loaf! In the meantime, the smell is absolutely killing me... it's just like Girl Scout Thin Mints, only more chocolaty and more minty. Awesome.

Aside from the euphoric aroma this bar gives off, the other nice little perk is the Wheat Germ added at trace for superfatting! For those of you who are unfamiliar with Wheat Germ is packed with Vitamin E as well as promotes skin cell formation, which is great for nourishing and rejuvenating dry, mature, dehydrated skin, reducing scarring, stretch marks, sunburns, and damaged skin.

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Olive Pomace, Palm Oil, Castor Oil, Wheat Germ, Fragrances of Chocolate Mousse and Mocha Mint, Iron Oxide Pigments for coloring

Sweetflower Soap

This soap was such a pain in the butt!! I've never created such a soap that congeals SOO quickly. I have a lot against me in the solidifying soap world: castor oil, shea butter and fragrance oils=30 secs to get into the mold or your soap will be shaped like your pot!

Because I wanted this soap to have both green and yellow tones, I had to have an extra set hands in order to do this recipe or else only I'd have been limited to only 1 color.

After I combined my oils and lye, I only gave 1 quick spin of the stick blender (usually at least a min, but this was literally less than 5 secs) then I added my Sweet Almond Oil, cross my fingers and added my fragrances. I had Chris, my boyfriend, waiting for me to pour him some of the soap into his parsley dusted container and stir it together quickly. I poured my yellow base down into the mold and by the time I took his container to add to the top it was already chunking up! (less than 30 secs since I poured in the fragrance oil).

I used the back end of my spatula and pressed the green chunks down on top of the yellow base, which had already solidified into it's own separate bar and then got my fork and started pressing down on the green chunks like you would on peanut butter cookies, breaking them up and squishing them down to a flat surface. (The pic you see posted)

After this, I waited a few minutes and went back to my mold to see if the saponification process helped to warm up and combine the two layers. I pressed my fork on the soap again and this time my fork almost went through to the middle! It's softening up and combining to each other! Groovy.

Now just have to wait 24 hours and hopefully when I cut it, each bar will be 1 solid piece and not split in half at the color mark. I don't think it will though. *hopeful* :-)

In any case, if all works out in the end, this will be one fantastic bar of soap! It smells sooo sweet, clean and light and the nourishing properties of the Parley Powder, Shea Butter and Sweet Almond Oil are so good for your skin!

Parley is packed with Vitamin C and is a powerful antioxidant. Vitamin C helps regulate sebaceous glands to keep skin from drying out which also helps prevent wrinkles and spider veins.

Shea Butter is a particularly effective moisturizer because it contains so many fatty acids, which are needed to retain skin moisture and elasticity. It contains both Vitamin A and E and has shown both antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties.

Sweet Almond Oil is easily absorbable and serves as a great emollient, by lending a soft glowing beautiful touch to the skin. It balances the moisture in the body. In case of loss of moisture, it helps to restore it. It also aids in combating itching and inflammation.

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Olive Pomace, Shea Butter, Palm Oil, Sweet Almond Oil (added at Trace), Parsley Powder (green coloring), Fragrances of Sunflower, Sweetgrass and White Sage.

Botched Batched - Bollucks!!

Last night I tried to make a new soap with some new fragrance oils I just received. I never used these oils before and so I didn't kn0w what to expect with them. When it came time to blend my fragrance, I was working with two colors, so I poured it in the first color and stirred it around, then poured it into my 2nd color and stirred it around.

By the time I went back to my 1st color it had become SOLID. They call this seizing. I tried to remelt my oils but they were not having it. The saponification process had become too disrupted and I lost my soap! :-(

This is the FIRST time this ever happened, but I knew it would happen eventually. Today, I'm going to try to remake my soap, only I'm going to force my boyfriend to help me with the stirring process so the oils don't congeal as quickly and I'm going to not blend up the lye and base oils as much before hand. I had a pretty good trace when I tried to do it last night, I think if I lessen the trace before I add my fragrance oils, I will have a better chance.

I also read that if I add my fragrance oils to a little base oil before adding it entirely, I will have a better chance of it not seizing up.

Wish me luck on my 2nd try!! Will post my results shortly!

Green Tea Soap

I just finished my first ever batch of Green Tea Soap! It smells SOOOO clean and fresh, a new favorite for sure!

A saponified blend of Sencha Green Tea, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Olive Pomace, Castor Oil, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, Green Tea Leaves and scented with fragrances of Green Tea, Bamboo and Fresh Air.

Click here to read up on the benefits of Green Tea in soap or here to read up on the benefits of Green Tea in general!

This soap was made in a small, handmade 2lb batch, with superfatting of Jojoba Oil at Trace so you get the wonderful benefits of Jojoba as well as Green Tea. It will be ready for use on April 28, 2010!

Slab Mold, Glory Be Thy Name!

Behold! My new glorious 4 lb Slab Mold that makes 12 bars of soap. I just ordered it online and anxiously await it's arrival. With it, I hope to finally achieve the color swirls I've been hoping to do with my Log Mold... only I think my Log Mold is too deep to achieve the swirls the way I would like them to be. It's 4 inches deep, so I can get a nice swirl effect on the surface, but when I cut my soap the inside and base is always, lets say, less impressive in my swirling effect.

With a Slab Mold, the thickness of my batch should only end up being about 1 inch, so I should have more control over my swirls. The coolest part about this mold is it's a wooden mold, but lined with a silicone liner, so now I shouldn't have to worry about lining my molds with wax paper or crinkling up any of my edges. I just pour right into the silicon and the soap peels away easily when it's time to take it out! After a quick wash, the liner is ready for another soap! No waste, a cleaner edge and (hopefully!!) better swirling ability with my colors. Beauty.

A Sustainable Solution

I've come to admit to myself, all be it a noble mission, I probably cannot make ALL my soaps Palm-Free. Some? Yes, most definitely, but all... probably not likely, unless I want to start using Lard as a substitute, which I would rather not.

The solution: Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)

While there still is a lot of Palm related hardships, the solution to the problem is to use Palm products from sustainable sources of production. There's a few places online where you can purchase this type of Palm Oil and so, when I need to use it in my soaps, that's what I will use!

Ah... there, finally! Now I can soap and not have to worry about the quality of my soaps suffering alongside the Orangutans.

I love a happy ending.

By The Look of This Cover, I Was Expecting a Best Seller

The other morning my boyfriend woke up and decided to make us whole grain waffles. He poured the batter into the iron and waited anxiously for his crisp, golden brown waffle and when he opened the lid, his golden brown waffle ripped in half into a lumpy, crispy mess. The taste and nutrition was just as good, but the presentation was nothing to behold. So too, I feel, is my last creation. :-(

This morning when I woke up, the first thing I did was run downstairs to slice into my new Soft Lavender & Rosemary soap. By looking at the surface, I was expecting the insides to look just as lovely as the outside. I just got my colors in yesterday and decided to try to make my swirls in the mold, as I had seen from some videos. The videos never showed the outcome of the insides of the bars, but the tops looked lovely. That probably should have been my first hint!

After I combined everything and swirled it all around, the top of my soap looked like the prettiest soap I had ever made and I was dying to cut into it and see the same pretty swirls all the way through. What I got instead, was a blocky, lumpy mess of colors and hardly no swirl whatsoever. Pollock's work had more detail. Crud. And I was so excited.

I'll probably sell these bars at a bit of a discount just because I'm so unimpressed with the look of them. At least the composition turned out fantastic and you can still get the same wonderful benefits from each bar. Just make sure to close your eyes and you'll never tell the difference ;-)

Creating with Olfactory Hues

My new soaping colors arrived today and I tested them out in my first ever batch of Soft Lavender & Rosemary soap! Unfortunately....wait, what am I saying... FORTUNATELY!, I now have a new addiction in soapmaking! First off, let me say, OMG, it was SOOO much fun! I simply love the act of swirling colors. Yes, I know, simple enough to entertain a 4 year old, but hey, I'll admit I'm just a kid at heart!

All I want to do now is some up with new scents and see what colors I can mix to help express these scents! This just added a whole new level to my soapmaking! Stand back soap world, I'm coming with a double fisted punch of fragrance and trippy colors! (sounds like a Dead show!) :-D

There's tons of ways to color soap, either in the pot or in the mold, swirl with a spatula or skewer. I'm going to try to video tape my next few batches to show the process and how I color. Unfortunately, I was hoping to do so this weekend, but with this batch of Soft Lavender & Rosemary I ended up using up most of the rest of my Carrier Oils and my new shipment won't arrive until Monday or Tuesday of next week! Bugger!

Although, one can never really guess what the bar may look like once it's cut, I'm anxiously awaiting tomorrow morning when I can slice into my new colorful concotion and gloat over my creation! I think this one is going to turn out splendedly, so keep your fingers crossed! Will update you all in about 14 hours!

Palm-Free, Maybe?

I tend to go Gung-Ho whenever I get a new idea in my head and I wrote a couple of days ago that I was going to be going Palm-Free for all my soap. I now fear I may have spoke too soon!

It is possible to have Palm-Free soap, but after much research, I might not be able to get away from it entirely as it is one of the few oils which provide for a hard, cleansing bar.

SO! I've decided to come to a compromise... I can't guarentee at the moment that all my future soaps will be Palm-Free. I'm going to try it for a while and see how my soaps turn out... if they work just as well, then PERFECT! We're Palm-Free! But, if I don't like how they work, then I'll just create a Palm-Free line of soaps specifically for those who are Palm Conscious, as well as have a line of soaps with Palm Oil to achieve the effect I like in my soaps.

In the meantime, I'm going to use Soybean Oil as my replacement for Palm Oil. Both should create a hard lathering bar, but I know Soybean Oil isn't as popular. We'll see how it goes!

Wish me luck!

Making Sense of Making Scents

I think I've said it before... I am a scent FREAK! I LOVE smells of all kinds! Before I go out my door, I will inevitably spray myself with up to 5 different fragrances to get the smell I like. I love combining scents to create new ones!

Growing up, I didn't have many perfumes, but I had tons of oils which I would buy from Venice Beach. Amber, Egyptian Musk, Sandalwood, and Nag Champa were among my favorites, along with Ocean, Rain, Lavender, Lotus Flower, you name it!! I love the woody, musky, earthy tones as well as the fresh, floral, springtime notes, although I must admit, I've never been a huge fan of the sweet, fruity, candy like scents as much. But spritzing myself with numerous aromas was nothing compared to creating new scents for my soaps.

As I mentioned in my last blog, I went nuts with all the smells I bought to start making soaps. At first, I didn't want to work with anything but Essential Oils (aka EO's) for the fact that I wanted everything I put in my soap to have a medicinal benefit beyond smelling good. Unfortunately, as I started opening my new treasure trove of oils, I discovered most EO's smell just that way, medicinal. Most are bitter, strong and, in an all encompassing word, Gross! Luckily, there are a handful of EO's who's scents are simply divine in their most potent form, such as Lavender, Sweet Orange, Tangerine, Lemongrass, and Bergamot to name a few.

Being the trooper that I am, I went ahead and started combining scents to try and make the best I could out of the situation. I read up on Top, Middle and Base notes in EO's, learned to differentiate between them and the best way to combine them. To summarize:

Top Notes: Typically will evaporate quickly and have anti-viral properties. They tend to be fresh, awakening and light and are typically inexpensive. They are fast acting and will be the first thing you notice when you inhale a blend. Some examples are Lemon, Eucalyptus, Peppermint, Sage, Bergamot, Tangerine, Sweet Orange, etc.

Middle Notes: Most EO's are considered to be middle notes and will typically add body and balance to a blend. Middle notes take a few minutes to establish their aroma and are normally soft and warm fragrances, such as Geranium, Chamomile, Palma Rosa, Pine, Rosemary, etc.

Base Notes: Base notes are normally very heavy and have a strong scent. They evaporate very slowly and even slow the evaporation process of other oils they are blended with. They rich, relaxing and usually the most expensive. Some Base Oils are Balsam Peru, Clove, Myrrh, Patchouli, Vanilla, Cedarwood, etc.

Sometimes a fragrance will carry traits of both Top and Middle Notes or Middle and Base notes. Lavender can be considered a Top Note as well as a Middle Note, just like Clary Sage, Hyssop, and Lemongrass.

Working with Essential Oils and learning my "Notes" definitely got me off on the right foot! I've since expanded my scent collection to include several fragrance oils, as well as Essential Oils. If I'm looking for a quick remedy to a skin issue, then I will always go to my EO's to help the condition I'm looking to cure; however, if I'm looking for a yummy scent and the EO's I'd like to combine just aren't cutting it (or in some cases the scent I want simply doesn't come in an EO - I wonder if Espresso could be considered an Essential Oil of coffee??) then I'll turn to my trusted Fragrance Oils to do the trick!

In the end, all I want is nothing short of a unbelievable, fantastic, well-rounded scent that one would love to rub all over their body! ;-)

Oh, To Be Palm Free - High Five!

As with any new venture I get into, I tend to go overboard. When I first started to make soap, I read a lot of online stories and got a few books and realized my options of Base Oils and Essential Oils was extensive.... So I did what anyone with a meager savings and a new addiction would do, I went out and bought 20 different kinds of carrier oils and 50 different kinds of essential oils and started creating!

I knew when buying my oils that I didn't want to use any lard in my soaps. Now don't get me wrong, I love a juicy steak as much as the next person, so it wasn't a decision on behalf of the animal. Rather the idea of working with animal fat was far less appealing than vegetable oils (that and while I'm sure it would make fantastic soap and more than likely Ive used such a soap in the past) and I just couldn't get down with the thought of rubbing saponified animal fat on my body in order to feel clean afterwards. More or less, if I'm gonna use a soap like that, then I don't want to be making it and more importantly, I don't want to be knowing whats in it. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

I found out the most common vegetable soap formulas combined the following three oils: Olive, Coconut and Palm Oil. So I made sure to buy a lot of these, as well as other kinds to add as fillers for their various skin benefits. After I got into making several soaps, a girlfriend of mine, who was working at Lush in Santa Monica at the time, gave me the skinny on the Palm Oil controversy and why people were being Palm Conscious.

I won't go into so many details, as you can read up more about it in this article, but more or less because Palm Oil has become so increasingly popular in so many different ways over the last few years, from bio-fuel alternative, to being a main ingredient in bath and body products, to being used in many food products, the production of Palm oil is running the Orangutans out of their homeland, destroying the rain forest and more, as I said, I won't go into so many details, but definitely read the article if you get a chance, it's very interesting.

While I unfortunately do not have the time to go and pound my fist for change, I'll at least do my part to be aware of the issues and not contribute to the problem. Palm Oil is not a necessity in making my soap. There are several other alternatives (and better ones at that!) which I can use.

I still have a little bit of Palm Oil and Palm Kernal Oil to go through, I figure if I don't use it, then that would be an even bigger waste! But after I'm done with what I have, I will not order any more and I'm going to start making all my soaps Palm-Free. Just another little marketing perk and an excuse to pat myself on the back! :-)

And now on to play Super Mario Bros for the Wii.... Thank God they went back to the old school version! Yay!

Back on the Bubble Wagon

After a brief hiatus from the wonderful world of Soapmaking after I moved to South Lake Tahoe in August 2009, I once again have the itch to get crafty! I never explored many ways to sell my soap when I was in LA, other than a couple craft fairs, but I think this time around I'm going to try my hand out with Etsy and other online avenues, as well as the weekly local craft fairs.

And today, I will attempt my first Fat Suds Beer Soap!

We bought a Fat Tire Beer just for the occasion and will be combining it in a lovely 100% Organic Vegetable Soap bar who's concoction I will announce shortly along with pictures of the process.

Last night I completed my first "Spicy Dragon" soap bar... a frrrresh, clean, eh-Spicy, Muy Macho bar of lathery goodness which will be ready for use on April 12, 2010.

Check out all my current soaps on Flickr