Soap! Soap! Soap!

[lauredhel]

I finally got around to trimming some soap I made a fair while back. I thought I'd share a few pics. Most of these were made with Brambleberry fragrance oils (I've lifted their descriptions, all available at brambleberry.com), and all are olive-dominant vegetable soaps.

Lily ("This duplication of the lovely pink and white oriental hybrid flower is sweet and sensual."):



Geranium Patch (rose geranium, lavender, and patchouli essential oil):



Vanilla Lavender, made with Black Amber and Lavender FO ("Deep and sophisticated this fragrance blends rustic Amber with bold Parisian Lavender. Combined with these main scents is a mysterious Black Myrrh, dulcet vanilla Tonka bean, and a splash of Egyptian Musk. We've rounded out the fragrance with a surprising addition of raw Clary Sage resulting in an earthy concoction with hints of sweetness and pleasing floral notes."):





Closeup of the Vanilla Lavender. I'm really proud of this swirl.



Ancient Sedona ("This fragrance is an Oriental Floral Amber. This sensual, deep scent was named for the famous city in Arizona, invoking days of old and a deeper, richer experience.It opens with green notes of Mandarin Leaf and Orange Blossom. Heart is heady night Floral, Bulgarian Rose and Vetiver. Dry down has sensual notes of Sandalwood, Bourbon Vanilla, Amber, Labdanum and Tonka Bean."). The colours came out just how I wanted.



More Ancient Sedona:



Love Spell ("It has fruity sweet notes of Italian Bergamot, White Lady Peach and Strawberry mixed with middle notes of Apple Blossom, African Tamarind and a touch of Damask Rose. The base is Tonka Bean, Coconut Milk and White Musk."):




Sandalwood (these are quite speckled-y from an excess of oven processing):



Rose soap ("This fragrance is a lighter, pinker rose than our English Rose. It smells like the petite baby roses that come in teensy little planters small enough to fit on your desk."), coloured with pink clay:



And all together! (There are lots more in a box - these are just the ones I pulled out for the photos.)





Has anyone been soaping lately? Got any plans?

Comments

[delladea]

Beautiful! I haven't even tried making colored soap yet and I'm in awe of your pretty swirls.

The only soap I've made recently was some lard laundry soap scented with lavender oil. I used it in a homemade laundry detergent recipe and it's been working very well for its intended purpose. It's also good for washing very grimy hands, but tends to dry out your skin if you use it for handwashing too much.

[lauredhel]

Congrats on the soap - that sounds great. For hand soap, it's a good idea to superfat it to five to eight percent, and weigh the oils and lye very very precisely. Laundry soap most people tend to do at a superfat of around zero, so it's really not supposed to be suitable for skin!

[delladea]

This batch I had a superfat ratio of about 5%. I checked my ratio of lye to fat on two different soap calculators and both were very very close to one another. I'm thinking I may have not been very precise while measuring ingredients when I made it.

[puzzlement]

Pretty! Makes me want to take a soapy shower right now.

[alexseanchai]

The vanilla lavender is lovely and I wants it. Note to self, figure out how to make soap without using a mold, because I don't think I can get that swirl effect in the 3D molds I use. I'm sure I can in the cheapass square molds that came with my baby's-first-soapmaking kit, but I don't like using those, they're cheapass.

[lauredhel]

Thanks!

That kind of swirl I use a slab mold. Mine are the dozen-bar Nizzy slab divider molds, but there are plenty of others out there. An alternative would be plastic tupperware type containers, which you can use lined or unlined. Just use something a bit flexible (not glass), and not reactive (like aluminium).

[alexseanchai]

*nods* Thanks!

[lauredhel]

Oh, and obviously something that won't melt under the heat of gel phase!

[raynedanser]

Those are GORGEOUS. I love the swirls on the vanilla lavender. Beautiful!

What do you use for the sandalwood? I've noticed (where I am, anyway) that the EO is pretty pricey. Is there an alternative?

[lauredhel]

Thanks! Yes, the EO is pricey ... and I've heard some pretty alarming things about the environmental destruction associated with non-farmed sandalwood EO. I use the Sensuous Sandalwood FO from Brambleberry. There's also a decent Sweetcakes one, and probably plenty more available outside of Australia that I can't access!

[raynedanser]

Environmental destruction is never a good thing. :/ I would have to double check, but I'm fairly certain the EO I was looking at was farmed.

Oooh, I'll definitely have to check them out. Their sandalwood vanilla sounded fabulous, too!

Can I pick your brain some more? I'm just starting out and would love some pointers if you didn't mind. ;-)

[lauredhel]

Brain-picking and sharing is what the comm is here for! Please feel free to start a new post with questions: it might increase the chance that other people will kick in with answers.

[raynedanser]

Oh this is a good point, too. :D This time, though, it was specific to one of your soaps - how you got the gorgeous coloring of the vanilla lavender. I get the slab mold (and have plans to get one), but what did you do for the specific colors?

[lauredhel]

Edited - now with the right info :) You mean the brown and white swirl? That's a 'blind swirl'. The fragrance oil discolours to brown over time in the soap, but at first it has no colour at all. So I separate the soap (at full emulsification or light trace) into two parts, and just fragrance one of them; then swirl them together. Over time the fragranced part turns brown. The pale part isn't white-white because there's plenty of extra-virgin olive oil in there, along with butters (mango butter, cocoa butter).

The swirling's a tad tricky at first when you can't see what you're doing, but you get used to it. I recommend practising on visibly-coloured soap first :)