Vintage Patchouli Handmade Artisan Silk Soap

More soap pics! As promised, this is my new Vintage Patchouli soap - made with my normal blend of Sweet Almond, Golden Olive, Avocado, Coconut, Palm (sustainable source of course) and Castor Oil with lots of Cocoa Butter.  As always, I added wild silk to the mix - I just love what this brings to the party, such silky smoothness.

The fragrance is described as a sensual blend of patchouli, bergamot & white flowers on an intense base of woody incense - to this, I added additional Patchouli essential oil as I love love love it.  The fragrance smells clean yet deep and dark, perfumed and mysterious, a fragrance that makes you think of long held secrets

The style, as I said in a previous post, comes from my spending probably far too much time looking at vintage styled decor photographs... when I sniffed the fragrance, those images just popped into my head and the colours just felt so right to me.  I loved the muted colours, soft but there's something mysterious to them too.  Or maybe that's just me?!

So, here are images of my Vintage Patchouli Handmade Artisan Silk Soap...

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. 

Two new Summertime Soaps

I got to thinking that I'm really tired of the cold and grey skies and needed something to make me look towards Summer, the sun shining, the smell of fresh cut grass and the sight of flowers blooming.  I wanted to make a soap that was fresh and zesty and that made me think of Summertime. 

So, in the last couple of days, I've managed to get some time in the kitchen (difficult these days in the middle of visitors and my Dad being in hospital [everything sorted now]) and make two new soaps, both of which define Summer for me.

The first is Pink Grapefruit - this is a divine fragrance, slightly sweet but definitely tangy & zesty, the sort of smell you'd get if you sprinkled a little brown sugar on a half a grapefruit and grilled it .. that juicy, sweet, tang? Know what I mean?

I used Sweet Almond Oil as my main oil because I am in love with this for soaping, added sustainably sourced Palm Oil, Coconut Oil, Cocoa Butter because it's simply divine and it helps with hardness and a tinch of Castor for bubbles.  I used Raspberry POP mica from the US to colour it - now this did turn a little on the peachy side but that's ok because I actually think it suits the Pink Grapefruit theme really well, it's held enough of it's pinkness whilst actually looking a tinch grapefruity too (if that makes sense?). 

The other additions were pure silk (as ever, I LOVE what this brings to the party), titanium dioxide to whiten the base, and a sprinkling of Diamond Dust mica on top because I love everything shiny and glittery and I'm a natural magpie at heart.

(favourite pic!)

You will see it did gel a little on the inside - now I prefer non-gelled soap because I adore the creamy look of them so I think I should have popped this one into the fridge for a few hours to avoid this but you live and learn I guess - it doesn't make a huge difference anyway, it certainly doesn't affect the performance of the soap.  The fragrance is incredible - this one has got to be smelt to be believed!

The second one I made was something I've wanted to do for a while now - I've been interested in using Aloe Juice as the water portion and got my husband to pic up some in the local health food store about 3 weeks ago.  I'd not managed to get space in the kitchen to soap until this week so decided to go ahead with the Aloe soap because I'd gotten my hands on a fabulous new Cucumber fragrance oil that is amazing. 

For this soap, I used the same recipe as above, with silk, titanium dioxide, two types of green mica plus a generous sprinkling of the Diamond Dust mica on top.  I don't know if it was the Aloe, the TD, the mica or the new FO but this was soap on a stick and, even though I managed to get it to submit to the mould, it began to seep oil at a rather alarming rate! I shoved it in the fridge (a small one given to me by my brother just for cosmetic making and soaping) and hoped that'd cool it's heels but, on checking it 10 minutes later, it was now seeping oil out of the mould and onto the floor of the fridge - NOT good! So, remembering my last adventure with overheating and the Deep Pomegranate soap, I decided to immediately HP it and hope for the best.  I really didn't want to lose the fragrance but I knew I'd lose my lovely green and white layers (to be honest, not so lovely really as it had set like a rock .. or so I thought).  In fact, when I scrapped it into the crockpot, it was very liquidy underneath.  So it was HP'd and this is how it turned out:

Really happy with the smoothness of these

(Favourite pic!)

I really love this one - it's held the fragrance really well (I added a touch more Aloe Vera juice to stop it from drying out and I made sure to not overcook it at all - but I did get my hubby to zap test ... love is a husband who'll let you burn his tongue!).  It's a lovely cool Summer's green and the fragrance actually makes me think of cucumber sandwiches at a picnic because I get a hint of fresh cut grass in the background somewhere. 

I hope you love these and they help you think that Summer really is only round the corner!

Long Break and New Experiments!

Well I am back from my fabulous holiday - I enjoyed every second of it and have realised I'm a complete sun and water baby! We swam every single day, about 4 times a day minimum! There's a lot to be said for having a swim in the sunshine before breakfast! We were very very careful and used lots of sun cream in a high factor - especially useful as the temperatures in Turkey hit 50 degrees C for a few days! Most people faint when I told them that, but we were fine with it - yes it was hot, no doubt about it but if you keep your fluids up and eat a healthy diet and keep cool as much as you can (like swimming 4 times a day) then it's completely manageable.  We ate really well - the fruit and vegetables are just amazing out there ... we visited a market one day and I swear to God, the peaches were the size of babies heads!!! We had to buy some - they were incredible, so sweet and delicious but we only had a half each they were so big. And watermelons galore, fresh apricots, and figs plucked straight off the tree given to use by the local villagers - I never knew it but green figs are stupendous (far nicer off the tree than bought in a shop too).  Can you tell we had fun?? We'll definitely go back - saving like mad already to book for next year!

Anyway, when we were away I had time to time and realised that I love the experimentation part of soap and body product making the very best of all.  So I decided I'd try something new and, this week, made cold process soap for the very first time.  Cold process soap making is a traditional method, used by your Granny and your Granny's Granny that makes soap from caustic soda (or lye) and fats - in this case, oils and butters.  You can add fragrances and herbs and colours or you can leave it as plain as you like. 

In order to work out how my lye you need to transform your oils/butters into soap, you HAVE to use a lye calculator - if you don't and you get it wrong, you could have a seriously flawed soap - which is dangerous because lye is caustic unless it has enough fats/oils to work with it to transform into soap.  If you don't get your proportions right, you could have a soap overloaded with lye - BAD soap!

So, I worked out a recipe on http://www.soapcalc.net/, a very reputable lye calculator used by most of the soapers that I know.  You also have to balance the ingredients in such a way that you get a soap that bubbles, but also conditions your skin, isn't too soft or too hard.  So a little bit of tweaking here and there, and some advice from soaping friends, I worked out a simple recipe with Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil and Castor Oil. 

My first batch was fragranced with Sweet Orange, Grapefruit & May Chang essential oils - see pic below.  This is the basic soap (which you can't see cos it's on the bottom of the picture) and I took out two portions and then coloured one with Tangerine POP mica and the other with Lemon Drop POP mica (if you're a regular reader, you'll know that I had these specially imported from the US).  By swirling the top of the soap but not mixing the colours fully, you end up with a swirled pattern like I have below.  I actually put too much of each colour on and the soap batter was a little too thick to swirl properly but it pretty much worked. 

Above is a picture of the soap, just poured and swirled still in it's mould.  Below is a picture of it the next day, demoulded and cut. 

You'll notice that the tops of the soap are a little softer coloured - this is called ash and lots of soapers get it ... still not quite sure what causes it so I've more studying to do.  You'll see where I trimmed the edges a little and the bright tangerine colour is as vibrant as usual undernearth.  The ash actually doesn't cause a problem at all, it's perfectly good to use and lots of soapers don't mind it as it can add another layer to the design.  In this case, it softens the vibrancy of the orange which I think adds an interesting element.  I need to see how I can avoid it though - that way I can choose to have it and use it as a design feature or I can choose to avoid it. 

All cold process soaps need to dry out (or cure) for approximately 4 - 6 weeks.. I've decided to leave mine the full 6 weeks as a longer cure means a milder bar of soap.  I've used some soap by other makers that have cured as I've used them so they were lovely at the beginning but stunningly lovely by the time I'd finished them. 

Last night, I decided I'd try again and use a different recipe (the key being to find a recipe that I fall in love with - just like all my products, I cannot sell something I don't love).  This time I made it using Apricot Kernel Oil and Cocoa Butter amongst other things.  Agan I worked out the calculation on Soapcalc (I will never NOT do that, I dread to think what'd happen if you didn't and I'm not good at maths to work it out on my own!) and tried to balance it for bubbliness, creaminess, hardness etc.  This time I fragranced with an Amber Vanilla fragrance oil - I used this for a body oil I took with me to Turkey and it really reminds me of my holidays.  Almost all Vanilla based fragrances will discolour to a brown due to the natural vanillin in them - this one is sure to do that too so I decided not to colour it at all and allow the vanillin to do it's magic.  This soap batter was thinner than the previous nights so it would have been fabulous to work with to make thinner, more defined swirls.  I also used Coffee Butter as a super fatting agent (an additional portion of butter that the lye won't react with and that reminds in your soap to moisturise your skin even more) and this made the oil/butter mix a touch brown anyway. 

I apologise in advance for the terrible picture above - the light was horribly yellow in the room when I took it and I couldn't work out how to change it.  In reality, it was a creamy colour.  As you see, I made a swirl pattern on the surface of the soap - I'm hoping that it'll look really cool when I cut it.  I checked it this morning and it's now a really creamy fudge colour - takes all I have not to have a bite (totally NOT advised!!!).  This soap too will need 6 weeks to cure but it smells fabulous even now. 

So ... I'm backing to my love of experimenting and I'm loving making these soaps.  I can see that I will want to put these on sale (well not these soaps as such, they're only testers, but soaps made to the perfect recipe) but, before that, I will need to get them safety assessed (regular readers will know how much we value high quality ingredients and processes and safety in all our products).  But time enough for that, right now I'm enjoying playing around!!! I really hope you enjoyed this post and pictures - please feel free to leave a comment!!!