Sharon's "Keep the Peace Beer Soap"

Today I made beer soap again, however, this time I used a Irish ale called Smithwick's.  I thought the decription on the beer was very interesting and since it was Irish, I bought it.

Listen to this:  This brewery in St. Francis Abbey in Kilkenny, Ireland has been in operation since 1710.  Smithwick's is Ireland's oldest ale, inspired by John Smithwick's original recipe.  This ale delivers a distinctive color, full bodied taste and ultra-smooth finish.

I'm counting on that ultra-smooth finish.  :)

I made Sharon's Tranquil Peace but since I used all my shea butter yesterday, I had to use mango butter.  I ran the recipe through the lye calc and the lye and water are the same.

I added 1 t. rose clay, 1/2 t. rose hips powder to one layer, .30 sodium lactate since this is a 30 oz. oil recipe.  And I topped off the top with luffa sponges that I cut in half. 

I used 1.55 total fragrance.  1.1 oz Strawberries and Cream fragrance oil from MMS and .45 oz. Jasmine fragrance oil from Bulk Apothecary.

Recipe:

2.4 oz shea butter
4.8 coconut oil
1.2 avocado oil
12  olive oil
4.8 rice bran
4.8 palm kernel

4.05 lye
9.0  beer

This is superfatted at 5%.

The making video is on Youtube under my name CharityKnitter.  I will do the cutting video probably late tonight or tomorrow. 

Lavender and Patchouli

Yesterday I made a new recipe from the book Melissa gave me for Christmas.  I've been waiting to get a new scale before using the book because all the recipes are in grams.  

I made this soap for Catlin, Betty's granddaughter, because Betty said she was having issues with her skin so I said I would make her a soap with some tea tree oil in it.  

About 5 days ago I boiled a cup of water and poured it over 1/4 cup of lavender buds and let it steep overnight.  The next day I strained the water and removed the flowers.  I put the infused water in the fridge until I was ready to use it.

The recipe for this soap is as follows:

170 grams shea butter
170 grams palm oil
113 grams coconut oil
113 grams olive oil

78 grams sodium hydroxide
215 grams water (Since I didn't have quite 215 grams of lavender water I made up the difference with distilled water.)

25 grams fragrance  I used 15 grams Bulgarian essential oil and 10 grams patchouli.  I added about 7 drops of tea tree oil since this is a small batch of soap.  (After cutting I had a little less than 30 ounces of soap.)

I added no colorants since I knew the lavender water makes a dark soap and I was making a simple utilitarian soap

I poured soap into a Pringle's can and wrapped it in towels overnight.  It only jelled in the middle.  Both ends remained unjelled.  Figure that out.

It is not a pretty soap but it smells wonderful and I believe it will work for what it is intended.  A nice cleansing soap for the face that smells wonderful.

St. Patrick's Day Soap

Well, it is about time I had a success after last week's soaping escapades.  I think the fragrance oil played into one of them being mushy because the other two are getting hard.  Really don't understand any of it, I'm just supposing.

A few day's ago I did Catherine's hp soap that she posted the tutorial for last week.  I love this soap.  I colored it green for St. Patrick's Day and chopped up three bars and with the end pieces I made soap balls.  After watching Marie on Tati Soap I knew I wanted to make a soap with chopped up pieces.  I've watch Holly do this too but I didn't want to spend all that time making different colors.  Holly has way more patience than I do.  

I used Catherine's tallow recipe which I absolutely love.  I've tweeked it with a little bit of palm kernel.  I added parsley powder for interest and, of course, I always add clay to my soaps.  Sometimes I add a bit of cream like Holly does but this time I didn't because I didn't want to take a chance of it being soft like last week's soap.  

So here it is.....tah dah!!  I'm so proud!

I did manage to upload a video to YouTube on the cutting of this soap.  My channel is CharityKnitter.  Don't know how to link it to here.

Soap Failed

I really don't know what happened but my Creme Brulee never got hard.  I don't know if I measured my oils incorrectly or if there is something wrong with my lye, I just don't know.

Yesterday I made a coffee scented soap.  It smells so good but today it is still soft.  Now I know I didn't measure wrong on this one because it is my favorite recipe and plus I was extra careful since this was my first soap since creme brulee.  I'm beginning to think that maybe my lye doesn't have enough strength or something.  I guess I will find out if this one never gets hard.

I wished I had checked yesterday's soap before I made soap again today in case it is my lye. I used Kimberly's Carrot Soap recipe for today's undertaking.  It has olive oil, coconut oil, castor, shea butter and cocoa butter.  You can find the recipe on Nature's Garden's web site.  I had been wanting to make a carrot soap and had everything I needed and when I ran across this recipe last night I knew that today was the day.  I tried making a video but because I filmed it with my phone on reverse camera it downloaded upside down.  Go figure.  Anyway, I really don't care since it was good practice for me.  I'm not sure I can even figure out how to upload a video to Youtube.  We will see.  This is being written on March 2.  The soap turned out fine.  I guess it just took longer to get hard because of the sunflower oil.  It smells wonderful and I love it.

I've got some Valentine soaps to deliver today.  I made some pink heart shaped soaps and put them in organza bags for a couple of friends.

My girls sent me flowers:

Made me feel loved.  I really do miss them.  I wish they were here I would teach them how to make soap.  :)

Yesterday I tried a beer soap for the first time.  It is a raspberry beer soap from The Soap Magician and it is wonderful.  I took a long, hot, delicious bath with it and when my husband came home I told him this was the soap of the day for his shower.  He said he really liked it too.  I guess that is my next project is to get some beer.

Made another dishtowel dress and this one is mine.

Well, that's all folks!  Keep soaping, sewing and just having some fun every once in a while.

Creme Brulee

Made a soap yesterday from a recipe that has sunflower oil.   I found the recipe in a book that is now out of print called "handcrafted soap" by Delores Boone.  I got the book at the library and really liked it and was able to find a used copy on Amazon.  It is a book dedicated to hot process soap but I re-sized the recipe and cold processed it instead.  I sent a pic to my daughter and she said that it reminded her of creme brulee so that is what it will be called:

I added a cocoa line to the natural batter.  Added td to remaining batter and piped it on top. 

When I cut it this morning it was very soft and has not gotten a whole lot harder today.  I guess it will take a longer cure time because of all the soft oils.  

More Cracked Soap

It has been a productive week of soaping but I've had two soaps crack and I've only had that happen to me once a while back and it was a milk soap.  The only thing I'm doing different is using wooden log molds that my husband made for me.  Before I use silicone ones.  So I'm thinking that by covering them as I've always done it is causing them to overheat.   The next time I will not cover with towels and see how that goes.  Otherwise I'm very pleased with this soap.  It is a recipe that I got from Majestic Mountain Sage and they call it Stephanie's French Green Clay.  I tweaked it a bit by adding more essential oils.  I like my soaps to have a strong fragrance and I also used infused lavender water instead of plain distilled water.  

I took this today of Willow.  She has been limping really bad on her back leg that was broken when she was racing  She had 11 races and then she broke her hock and was retired.  She is a sweetheart of a dog.

And I made another dishtowel dress .  How cute are these!!

One more thing.  Here is the pic of Wednesday's soap.  This one is goat milk and scented with a melon fragrance.  

Lavender Fields

I made soap yesterday and today.  Yesterday's was a goat milk that went well.  It had no issues.  I didn't make any pictures since it wasn't anything fantastic.  It was fragranced with "melon" so I colored it two shades of green.  I might take a picture and add it later.

Today's soap was Catherine's tallow recipe which I love.  I added kaolin clay and normally I add it to the oils before adding the lye solution but for some reason I didn't do that today and so I had a hard time getting it mixed into the batter.  And you know what happens then....you blend, blend and blend while your batter thickens and you're not able to do anything with it but slap in into the mold.  I had added a bit of td to the batter and I really wanted to swirl pink into the white but couldn't do that because of my stick blending.  I piped the pink on top, added rose buds and candy pearls and glitter and was pleased....until I checked on it about 6 hours later.  It had overheated and I had a big crack all along the side of my decorations. 

You can't see the colors very well in this photo but the soap is cream-colored and the piping on top is a pretty pink.  I cut it with the krinkle cutter to divert the eye away from the crack.  Well....that was the plan.  :)

 Now the cracks are turned to the back and it doesn't look so bad.  

Just had to add this pic of a dishtowel I made yesterday to hang over the handle of my stove.  Cute!  Or as Ommi would say "Super Cute!"

The dishtowel has a sprig of lavender on it and the word lavender is embroidered in case you can't see it in the photo.  It ties with ribbons on the side.  You cut your dishtowel in half, gather it and sew it to the little dress top cut from a cotton print.