My watermelon soap turned out really cool- all three layers turned out pretty darn even and the colors were awesome, until the fragrance oil started to discolor. Ah bummer! The red started to get very brown, even now its still pretty cool looking, but I decided to do a rebatch of half of the log. The soap was still very very soft, it was rich in olive and rice bran oils which are awesome gentle oils. So I decided to take the dark red/brown part and add it to half a batch of oils. This was totally unchartered territory for me! I stick blended the oils and soap together. Could this really work? I mean its a bit of a long shot! The oils became very very thick and I definatly would not be able to see trace (a natural thickening of the oil and lye solution, trace is when the soap is ready to be poured into the mold) I blended and blended and blended until I didnt think it could get any smoother then I added my room temperature lye water and started stirring and stick blending. I blended for a few minutes, and started stirring, I added in some titanium dioxide and just kept on stirring. I couldnt see any change in the thickness, it was still THICK! I was getting slightly concerned so I just kept on stirring and finally decided I had stirred longer than usual and could only hope for the best at this point. I glopped it into the mold and pounded out the air bubbles. Oh it smelled glorious!! It turned out awesome! And has been named Melon Smoothie. I cant wait to get some shots of it labelled up!!
I purchased my first soap mold from www.southernbellesoaps.com I had been hunting on ebay for a while, trying to sift through the different options and sizes. I found an auction that included a few beginners supplies. I dont remember what all it included but it did include a few recipes scaled to fit the 4.5lb mold. I purchased it and I have loved this log mold since. It doesnt look like they are selling them anymore! Im ready to purchase another! My husband made me a 7.5lb mold but it has warped something fierce so my bars turn out slanted. I dont like using it for that reason. I also use a couple of other molds. I have used some odd things for soap molds. For a lot of my test batches I just throw some plastic down in a small box, throw in some dividers and go to town with experimenting. For my largest batch, which was 17 pounds of soap I used a dresser drawer lined with freezer paper. It worked really well! I also have two small slab molds that used to be two halves to an electric knife case. One day my kids were sleeping really well and I was done my batch of soap and itching to make a second, but my one mold was already in use! I spied the case and checked on how much it would hold Hmmmm 4.5 pounds….nice! So I gave it a shot! My next purchase is going to be a Kelsei Mold. Its a really awesome mold- its a slab mold that holds 18 bars of soap, but the best part is no cutting!! Its very pricey but I definatly will be investing in one very soon!
I soaped two batches today, the first was watermelon. Oh wow was this a FUN soap to make!! I cut up one of my favorite soaps for ’seeds’ before I even mixed my lye water. The soap I cut up is called sinful and its almost black with a creamy grey black swirl- just like watermelon seeds! I planned three layers, which is very ambitious. I placed my main portion of my soap mixture in a larger bowl and added in dye and fragrance and away we went! I added some green to a small portion I had set aside and titanium dioxide to another small portion I had also set aside. So I set to work getting the green mixture to a thick trace. It went beautifully! Next I needed to move onto the white layer. But snap! the red layer was looking extreemly orange from the fragrance oil. I was a bit worried. But continued onto the white layer. Got it to the correct trace and poured it ontop of the green. So far so good! Then I turned my attention onto the now dark orange layer…..well there are orange melons out there….right? Not much I can do at this point but continue on, saponification does wierd things, so I cna only hope for the best! I brought it to trace poured about half and then scattered some of the ’seeds’ and poured the rest and put it to bed. When I peaked an hour ago it was deep deep red! Just like a nice ripe juicey watermelon!! I can only hope the other layers turned out half as well! This is definatly a BOLD soap!
Afterwards I cleaned up and started on a beautiful oil, Stephanotis. Florals very often excellerate trace and therefore shouldnt be swirled or layered, they just need to be slammed together as cooly as possible. But I soap at room temperature and have a couple other tricks up my sleeve to keep things from moving too fast. I ended up swirling it with just a touch of green. It smells devine! I didnt have any problems with it moving too quickly.
YES!! Finally I will actually offer these on a regular basis. Ive gotten many requests for both of these products and finally have the recipes as I like them and theyve been tested on an ongoing basis.
The body sprays will be available in any of my scents and my lip glosses will be available in Pink Grapefruit and Lemon Butta, with natural honey to be coming soon.
Its almost time for me to restock my bath bomb stash! I made two sizes, ‘halves’ and ‘quarters’ halves are a half sphere and weigh about 2.5 oz, quarters are ice cube shaped and weigh around 1.1 oz. I have 10 pounds of citric acid waiting for me in my store room and I have another 20 on its way. I hope itll be enough! I plan on restocking many of my classics:
Oatmeal Milk and Honey
Pink Sugar
Sweet Orange
Watermelon
Pink Lemonade
Pear
Grape
Cherry Infusion
Buttercream
Warm Vanilla Sugar
Along with some new bomb scents
Lemon Butta
Pumpkin and Vanilla
Irish Cream
Chocolovers Type
Spring Tulip
Super Cherry
Berry
Baby Bath Time
Vicks Snot Bomb