Peony Sorbet

One of my recent fragrance deliveries was an incredible Peony - I just love it; it's rosey yes but not as "old lady" as some rose fragrances can be.. to my nose, there's a greenness behind it that really adds a little something else.  It's just so beautiful and I wanted to make a soap that would do it justice. 

I used my latest formulation because it feels so amazing on your skin plus I know it behaves really well for my spoon swirl - admittedly, I was a little afraid of using the Peony for that technique because, as most soapers know, floral fragrances can go a bit mental and speed up the whole process (I have had soap on a stick from one before!).  But I thought oh well, go for it and see and one way or the other, either it'll be pretty looking or not, but it'll still smell wonderful!

So, I weighed out my palm (sustainable source of course), coconut and cocoa butter and melted them as I weighed out the Sweet Almond, Olive, Avocado and Castor oils.  Once the hard butters were melted I mixed them in with the fluid oils.  I made up my lye water and added, as always, my generous portion of silk (I so love what it does to the feel of the soap). 

Everything was left to cool down to approximately 90 degrees F as I went ahead and mixed my colours.  For this soap, I wanted to have a four colour swirl (which I seem to be favouring at the moment, even if it is more work for me - it seems to give me a depth of colour shades that I really like).  I used Colorona Bordeaux mica for the darkest pink (but not as much as I used for my Black Raspberry Vanilla soap where it was a redder colour), Raspberry POP mica for the mid pink shade and a liquid red soap colour for the pale shade and just added enough so it was lightly pink.  The final colour was white and I used TD for this. 

One thing I've started doing which is really helping me with space and cleaning up after is tidying away everything as I use it.  So, once oils are used they are put back, then I take the butters out and put away before the next batch of ingredients comes out.  So when it comes to mixing my colours, I have a free and clear and tidy workspace which I find really helps with my concentration levels.  I cover this with tissue paper so that I don't ruin the kitchen worktop. 

I mixed my oils and lye and it was lovely, no adverse reactions, nothing went crazy.  I only mix to a light trace so the batter is very fluid still and then mixed a quarter into each of the colours (which I have in matching sized jugs which helps me to eyeball that I have the correct quantity in each jug, give or take a little).  I mixed everything carefully (nobody wants spots of colours) and then went ahead with my spoon swirl - this took me approximately 30 minutes which is pretty time consuming I guess but I do love it. 

And here are the pictures of Peony Sorbet:

As you can see, I swirled the top of the soap which I really love and decided, as with my previous soap, to swirl the body of the soap too but I think I prefer the spoon swirl look by itself so I'm not going to do that anymore.  The swirl on top is different enough to stand out from the body spoon swirl.  Again no glitter as I do believe it is, somewhat, contributing to colour change on the tops of the soaps which I just don't want.

I hope you like the new soap - if you're interested in these, they will be fully cured by the end of August.