Soapmaking with Friends

 I had some work friends come over and make soap with me the day we got out for Thanksgiving break. Everyone did a great job and they all turned out great! I had 3 colors and 3 scents to choose from. The darker yellow did end up darkening quite a bit into brown, due to the vanilla fragrance oil, which was expected. I love the bright greens and dark reds! I made a plain no-color/scent batch to give to my mom for Christmas. It's fantastic for washing fruits and vegetables from the garden or market. 

It's Soapmaking Time!

I haven't posted about soap in awhile. It's something I just make and forget to take pictures of. My mom and aunt came to visit so I showed them how to make a few different kinds. These were all inspired by Brambleberry. 

 

Cutting logs of Soap

I used the book Pure Soapmaking by Anne-Marie Faiola to inspire this batch of soap. 

Each log is about 50 oz. of soap. I'm terrible at cutting, so my bars usually have 4.5-5.5 oz. soap each. 

After removing the bar from the mold, I lay it on its best side (where drag marks won't matter as much) and cut using a non-serrated knife. I use a pampered chef knife and cutting board with notches to help guide.

 I'm still learning how to make layers. You can see my first-poured layer was a nice light color, but the second was too dark. The third and fourth are hardly distinguishable. 

Putting a few blackberry seeds on top made a cute scrubby addition. These will likely come off the first couple of washes, but that's okay. 

And you can see I got 10 bars from this loaf, all are at least 4.5 oz. 

Homemade is BESTmade

I began making homemade soap (cold process mostly) in June, and I feel like I'm getting better almost every single bath. (Yeah, I'll admit there have been a few fails!)

 Here is a charcoal face soap fresh in the mold.

Here is a batch of eucalyptus soap made with goat milk

I love the layers in this raspberry jam scented soap

Here is an unscented scrubby soap made with blackberry seeds. I'm in love with these layers!

Soap-Making and Bath Bombs

Back at Christmas I got into Bath-Bomb making, and since then I've delved into the world of Cold Process Soap Making. (Yes, the kind where you start out with lye.) (Yes, Mom, I'm being very careful with lye.) I've made a few batches so far with varied results, but I do believe I'm getting better! It takes 4-6 weeks for each bar to cure (the water evaporates to make the bar harder and last longer) so I sill have a couple more weeks before I find out for sure if I did my first few batches correctly. I think I did pretty good, though! 

I started with a Handmade Soap Kit from Brambleberry, and then tried again with a Basic Quick Mix of oils. I read a lot online and watched a ton of Youtube tutorials. I also purchased the book Pure Soapmaking by Anne-Marie Faiola. Then I started mixing my own using recipes I found online (mostly soapqueen.com) I've made 5 batches so far. It's pretty fun! The best part might be that it makes the whole house smell good, too. My goal is to create natural, as-organic-as-possible soap. (Soap can't actually be organic, but I want something made up of natural, good-for-you ingredients that aren't harmful to the earth.) 

Also, on my last order from Brambleberry I got a free sample of Blueberry fragrance oil. Today I used it to make a batch of bath bombs. The last set I made about a month ago didn't go well at all, so I was pleasantly surprised when these (mostly) turned out well. A few crumbled while drying but since more than 1 actually stayed in a spherical shape this time I'm not complaining! And they smell WONDERFUL! I added some blue gel dye to keep the blueberry theme going. 

SaveSave