Huckleberry Harvest

I'm quite intrigued by my Huckleberry Harvest soap. I really thought the interior was going to be the same ugly tan color that was on the top. It had really lightened up in the mold. Then I cut it open and this is what I found!


The border is just so goofy! I have seen pictures of the border thing before but now I can't remember where. Feel free to give input on why it has this border. The purple swirl is almost indistinguishable.

Bottom line: I like it! :)

Mmm...Chamomile Lavender.... LOVE IT! :)

Saturday Soaping

I think it's the heat. It's making me stay inside and forcing me to make soap. I'm just so giddy that I'm making so much soap. Now I need some sort of curing racks because it's starting to add up. There are worse things I suppose. :)

Today I made Chamomile and Lavender again. This is the fourth time I've soaped this blend. One of my very first batches of cold process (I'd been doing hot process for a while) was with this combo and it kind of takes me back. This is the first time that I've left out the milk and I had a lot more time to play. Not that I needed time with this one but ya know. This one is kind of called "It's Got It All!" soap. I've decided that I need to use up some of the extra oils that I have around so I've been moving away from my favorite recipe to use them up. This soap is made up of Olive, Palm, Coconut, Palm Kernel, Castor, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Rice Bran, Macadamia Nut, Soybean, and Apricot Kernal Oil. The benchmarks were quite nice too.



I'm not sure what I was thinking on this one. It's Huckleberry Harvest. This scent is so yummy! Huckleberry is huge in Montana where I grew up so I'm loving it even more because of that. I could go for some huckleberry ice cream right about now. *Daydreaming*Questioning why I live in Missouri* Anyhoo, my new favorite color combo is chocolate and purple so I chose those colors for this soap. I'm not going to call it ugly yet as I've learned enough that what it looks like now is definitely not what it's going to look like when it is solid. So we'll see. It also wouldn't come to a thick trace like I wanted. I stood around whistling and twiddling my thumbs but finally gave up on it and went ahead with it. Any other time I'm the Queen of thick trace you know. What's up with that?


I'm doing a little experiment. I've put one loaf of each into the freezer and I have the others sitting in front of a small fan on my table. The fan worked wonderfully with my Carrots n Cream soap. I got nervous today and chose to only sacrifice one loaf of each to a potential partial gel.

It's always an adventure and ALWAYS FUN!

It's Not So Bad After All!

I actually like how this one turned out. It's not as I originally hoped but the final result is still quite nice. There is a faint swirl but it's not even worth looking for. The scent has mellowed as well.

Stuffed Up

I'll start by saying that this soap did not turn out as expected. Of course, this could be the 101st time I've said that. :) My intention was for a beautiful blue and green swirled soap. What I got was a drab green soap. So what gives? Well, I keep forgetting that my cocoa butter is natural and so it is very yellow. Then add in the yellow fragrance oil. Thus the expected blue became a gray-green and the expected green became...I don't know. It's in there somewhere....


I named this soap Stuffed Up because it's scented with a sinus relief fragrance. I thought it might come in handy the next time our family gets hammered with a cold. Our whole house smells like Vicks Vapo Rub. I do like the smell of Vapo Rub but I'm not sure I enjoy the whole house smelling this way...when it's 96 degrees out today!


Either way...it was still another fun midweek soaping adventure!

Carrots n Cream....Again

Castile Colors

Here are the colors! I'm really pleased with the shade of each. The pink brightened up on me for sure. I shouldn't have doubted it! :) Now that it's done that to me a few different times with different recipes, I need to remember how it reacts and make sure I don't add so much! It is going to be so fun to use these soaps in future batches.


I was able to unmold the Carrots n Cream soap but it is still a bit too sticky to cut. I really don't like having to wait so long in the summer. The humidity is through the roof!

Carrots n Cream

This Carrots N Cream soap was to be my first batch of castile soap but I decided I'd want to use it sooner than later and so I modified the recipe. It is still mostly olive oil but I did add in some palm kernal oil, avocado oil, and castor oil. It's going to be so luxurious. The main liquid is from aloe juice. Now, I understand that the likelihood of any of the beneficial properties of the aloe coming through the saponification process is slim to none. It just so happens that I had a large jug of it needing to be used up. :-) I mixed the lye with aloe at just over half of the liquid amount. The remainder was made up at trace with pureed carrots and heavy cream. I left it unscented to add to the gentleness of the soap. It's going to be hard waiting for this one. I also used my new pink WSP mold for the first time. I debated what to do to prevent gel in these since my freezer isn't really set up for something of that size. So I came up with a plan and I'll let you know if it works or not.


Now the soap in the blue molds is my first batch of castile! I needed to make up some soap that could be later cubed and/or shredded for future batches. So I chose to go the easy route and did a castile. My olive oil is very light-colored so I think the colors will turn out great. They are a tad dull at the moment but I know they'll "pop" later. The pink is a combo of Celestial Colors and I more than likely over did it again! I bet it's going to be so, so bright! The other colors are pop micas. I love the pop micas. I've had no problems whatsoever with them except for the raspberry which is why I choose not to use it. I might be brave and try again soon though to just see what happens. I think my favorite of all the castile color bars will be the swirled one. So pretty!


Update:

The carrot soap is not gelling and is the color of butter right now. It's really pretty.


Pink and Orange:
I'm not sure that the pink is going bright on me this time and it doesn't look like the colorant dispursed very well. But I think it's still a nice color.


Green and Yellow:


Blue and Purple:
I couldn't get a good picture but the blue and purple are much brighter.


Swirl:
LOVE IT!

Pink Currant and Thyme - CUT

The pink really brightened up on me! The glitter came out ok but it got a little lost in the condensation that left a salty residue when it dried.


I enjoy playing with colors but I am ready to have a few batches of just plain ol' soap. I will have to look through my essential oils and see what is up next in the soap pot!

Glitter-ized!

She's got glitter now! I tried something new (for me) and unmolded the soap while still frozen. It will still need to sit until tomorrow afternoon at least before I can try to cut it. But I took the opportunity to glitter-ize while the soap had some condensation. I hope I don't regret it!


(Does anyone else despise the fact that the cutter on the freezer paper box doesn't actually cut the paper?)

Spontaneous Soap Making

I am a bit shocked that I actually made soap today. I usually don't try making soap when I'm home alone with the kids but today I decided to go ahead with it.

This is Pink Currant and Thyme. I think I got ok colors for the pink and green.


I piped some of the extra soap.



Edited to add: A good friend pointed out that I forgot the glitter! Can you believe it? I was flabbergasted!