Yellow Lilies

This is tea tree oil soap for Gina and Catlin.  I finally got the right amount of oil in the soap thanks to "The Soap Magician."  I made two other recipes but I was only guessing about how much to add and didn't get it right either time.  Third time was a charm and I really liked the swirls I got (I did an IPS )and the way the top turned out.  I think I will call this Yellow Lilies because of the top.

This will be a great soap for young skin.  I added beeswax, oatmeal, goat milk powder and clay.  I'm going to include the recipe here because I think it is finally the way I want it.  The basic recipe came from Soaping 101:

12.8 oz olive oil
9.6 oz coconut oil
8.0 oz. tallow
1.6 oz. castor
4.55 sodium hydroxide
8.75 liquid

I added:
2 t. clay
1 T. collodial oatmeal
1 oz. cocoa butter for superfatting
.35 oz beeswax
1 t. goat milk powder

1 oz. tea tree oil
.20 Eucalyptus Lemon oil
.20 Juniper berry oil
.10 Lime oil

For coloring I used medium blue ultramarine with flourescent red orange to get the purple and flourescent strong yellow.  I got the ultramarine from Brambleberry and the red orange and yellow are flourescent micas from TKB Trading.

The texture is wonderful and there are tons of bubbles.  

Landscape/Seascape

I was shooting for a landscape soap but got a seascape instead.  Soaping always gives you what it wants and not what you want.  It is most always a surprise.  I scented this with Beach Breezes and Lavender fragrance oil to make up the difference.  I need to order more since I love Beach Breezes.  It is my sunflower recipe.  I used rose hips and vanilla bean powder for the bottom layer that was supposed to be dirt but now we call it sand.  I did an in the pot swirl for the blue and white, made a little scooped out place in the soap and spooned in the yellow and then topped it off with the purple.  Came out very nice, visually and scent wise.

I will make this again soon because it is such a pretty soap to give as a gift.  People have no idea how you made it.  I love being able to make soap and give it away.  What a blessing.

All packaged and ready to go.  May each bar bring as much pleasure to the person receiving it and it did to me when I made it.  I love making soap!!!!

Amber's Oatmeal Soap

This soap was made especially for Amber since she wanted some oatmeal soap.  I made some a long time ago that I gave her that was made with oatmeal I had ground up in my coffee grinder, however, this soap was made with collodial oatmeal so she may not like it as well since you don't notice the oatmeal as much but I like it better. I fragranced it with Japanese Cherry Blossom.  She will like the fragrance since it is powdery and floral but I much prefer crisper scents like rosemary and such.  It is colored with Brazilian Red Clay which they should call pink clay because it isn't red in the soap. Made with the sunflower recipe and I put poppy seeds in the pink and made a cocoa line.  I love this size bar that I get with the mold my husband made me.  It fits in your hand just right.

Angel Baby

I was so looking forward to soaping this fragrance because the name sounded so pretty.  Well, first it excellerated and then it discolored my soap to a nasty yellow that looks terrible.  I would be ashamed to give it to anyone.  It has a light scent not even enough to describe.  So soapers don't be ordering Angel Baby.  It is a waste of your money and time.  It didn't show up in this picture but the top is a yucky yellow with yellow spots.

And, I don't think I like all this posting at one time trying to catch up on all the days I didn't write about what soaps I was making.  I think for now on if I don't post it when I make it, I'm going to forget it.

Pink Berry

I called this one Pink Berry in my soaping notebook but failed to write down what fragrance oil I used.  I did a video of the making so I will have to look back at that because I'm sure I said what fragrance oil or essential oil I was using.  I'm very pleased with the way this one turned out even if my bars are huge.  It really is an eye-catching soap.

 I used rose clay and red brazilian  clay for the colorants and did a in the pot swirl.  I used a 2D frosting tip.  It makes beautiful flowers just by pushing the soap through.  Candy pearls and glitter on top.  The recipe used is my sunflower recipe.

Hanger Swirl Purple and Aqua/Mango Mango

This soap smells absolutely wonderful.  I added 1 oz lavender fragrance oil since I'm out of lavender essential oil, .60 fir needle, and .40 rosemary.  I love it.  Normally when I make soap I keep the end pieces for myself and that's all, however, I am keeping a couple of bars of this for myself since I've almost used up one end piece.  It feels so creamy on the skin.  This is my sunflower soap recipe.  I need to call it something besides hanger swirl because I will be doing this one again because all the bars are gone except for mine.

MANGO MANGO

This little soap doesn't look like much but the texture is wonderful.  It is made with tons of shea butter, mango butter, and mango tea.  I left it the natural color of the tea and poured the batter into my little silverware container that I got at Walmart that I love as a soap mold.  It hold 23 oz and is just perfect for a small batch.  I used grapefruit fragrance so you don't smell much.  I think I read where that eo is too delicate to hold in soap.  It didn't in mine but I wanted to give it a shot.

Shea Butter Soap

This soap is 1/4 shea butter.  Very rich and decadent.  It is expensive to make so I probably won't be adding it to my list of soaps that I make a lot.  This is from "The Soap Magician" and you can find the recipe on her video.

It moved very fast on me and after it was all over and I looked back at the recipe I saw where Sharon had done a water discount. Whoa...I should pay more attention.  I did a video of the making and you can see how quickly I was in over my head.  I can't wait to cut it and see how big the air pockets are.  There is no way I dodged the bullet on this one.

I did not upload the video of the making and cutting of this soap since I had so many air pockets.  I guess I could have and tagged it "what not to do."  I believe some things should be left to the imagination and the video of this soap is one of them.

I managed to salvage some of it and with the rest I made soap balls and added them to another batch of soap.

A couple of days ago I made castile soap.  Nothing but olive oil, water and lye.  I wanted a gentle soap to put in my layettes.  I will put this on the curing rack and leave it for 6 months.  I made a castile soap when I was first learning and I used a bar of it the other day and the ph tested 7.  That's about as good as it gets.  I had already decided to put a bar of soap for "Mom" in each layette, now there will be two in some of them.

Rosebuds

I made my tallow soap today and wanted to do a purple with rosebuds like I did the Valentine soap in pink. I didn't change anything except the color.  And, I didn't wrap it in towels but it cracked also, like the Valentine one. I don't want to put it in the fridge because I do want it to jell.  I kinda smushed it back together on the top, however, I don't know how deep the cracks go until I cut it.  And it was so pretty.  Seems like it is always something.  I made a video and tried to link it to here but I don't know how.  So if you want to see the making of this soap my youtube name is CharityKnitter and the name of the video is Rosebud Soap.  I'll still take a pic tomorrow when I cut it and upload it to this page.... cracks and all.  (That really is discouraging.)

Orchid Rain/Cedarwood & Litsea

ORCHID RAIN SUNFLOWER SOAP


Made my recipe of sunflower soap yesterday and I added the fragrance Orchid Rain from Candlepro.  This is the first time I've ever experienced ricing.  Little globs started appearing when I added the fragrance.  It smells nice,  but very light and not worth the effort of using again.  I don't want anything that gives me problems on my soaping shelf. 

I cut it this morning and I didn't notice anything unusual.  

ORANGE, CEDARWOOD AND LITSEA SOAP

Today I made another batch from the book Melissa got me at Christmas since my order from Soaper's Choice with my shea butter arrived yesterday.  I will include the recipe but I'm going to run it through a lye calc and increase the volume.  I poured it into my 2 lb. mold and there wasn't nearly enough.  This recipe is measured in grams so I wasn't sure how much it would make.  I guess I'm showing my ignorance but I always measure in ounces.  (The first and only time I made this recipe it was put into a Pringle's mold.  I don't know how many ounces they hold since I've never taken the time to measure but the recipe worked fine for that.)

I colored the base with French Green Clay and added a bit of t.d. and greem chrome for an IPS and the top.  Put glitter and gold mica on top.  Since I put mixture into my wooden mold I'm not going to cover it because I'm afraid it will crack.  I will probably cut this tonight because this recipe sets up quickly....which I like.  I had premixed 1 oz 10x orange, .50 oz Virginia cedarwood and .25 oz litea and from that I used the amount of essential oil called for in this recipe.


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

78 grams sodium hydroxide
215 grams liquid

25 grams essential oil or fragrance

Happy soaping.  This is an excellent recipe btw.

Vanilla Bean Beer Soap

Last night I made another beer soap so I could use the PVC pipe that my husband made for me.  I will take a pic and add it later.  It worked great.  My soap jelled and that is what I was after since the Pringle can only worked in the middle and the 12 round layer mold didn't let my soap jell at all.

This soap is the same recipe as the last except that I did not add any beeswax and instead I added vanilla bean powder and oatmeal for exfoliation.  I'm sure the mixture of vanilla and chocolate nut brownie fragrance oil will turn a dark brown but that is fine.  It looks pretty with the tiny flecks of vanilla bean showing in the soap. 

I'm expecting my order from Soaper's Choice to get here today with my shea butter and other oils I ordered.  I want to make another batch of soap from my Christmas book.  The first one I tried turned out wonderful.  I love the texture.  (The lavender and patchouli.)Also I want to make another sunflower oil soap like my Creame Brulle that finally got hard and smells so good you could keep your nose stuck to it forever.

I'm really enjoying the essential oil soaps that I've made recently and I've been reading an Ebook about essentials oils and the benefits they give us.  It is very interesting.

So there you have it on this first Monday in March 2013. 

Today I made soap.  I wanted to make another soap for Catlin.  I will be mailing her the lavender and patchouli with tea tree but I wanted to make another one and use more tea tree.  That way she will have a choice of strength depending on how her skin is doing.

Today's soap is my wonderful tallow recipe.  I added bentonite clay and oatmeal and half an ounce of mango butter that wasn't factored into the lye solution.  This recipe is superfatted at 5%.  I added 14 drops of tea tree to 32 ounces of oils.  I discounted that much of my fragrance oil.

I used Lovespell fragrance from BB.  Med. blue and t.d for the colors.  I layered colors and did a hanger swirl.  I will post a picture when I cut it tomorrow.  

Yesterday I made soap.  Big surprise.  I didn't have anything fancy in mind. I just wanted to soap.

I left the main batter plain and poured off two containers for pink and yellow.  The pink was merlot sparkle from BB and it turned out sorta mauve.  The yellow was fizzy lemonade from BB which is a bright yellow.  I didn't make either one of them real dark.  

I layered the pink and yellow and did a swirl with a spoon after I finished with the natural batter.  It wasn't anything all that great.  I probably won't do that again.  I was going to do a hanger swirl but the new rod that Carl made for me wouldn't fit into the silicone mold.  He made it for my narrow wooden mold that I love. 

I used my tallow recipe and added a little bit of goat milk, colloidal oatmeal and rhassoul clay.  I used Fresh Ginger Lime from Crafter's Choice but the name doesn't really go with the colors I chose for my soap so I'm calling this soap, "Rhassoul Clay and Oatmeal." If I think of a better name I will change it.  I'm not very good with thinking of something original.