Pumpkin Gingerbread Vertical Swirl

It is autumn, which means that it is time for pumpkin-flavored and pumpkin-scented everythings.

I love pumpkin season. Mostly because of the eating of the pumpkins. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bagels, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin lattes.

Pumpkin soup.

But also pumpkin soap.

Here is my contribution to Pumpkin Mania: a pumpkin-gingerbread swirl soap.

I knew that I wanted to make a pumpkin-themed soap. I went to my fragrance cabinet to see what was there and I discovered that I had an ounce of Bramble Berry's Pumpkin Pie Cybilla fragrance oil, which it appears they no longer carry. (It had been hanging around for a few years and I forgot that I had it.)

The Pumpkin Pie fragrance oil would most likely discolor brown, though, due to the vanilla content. I didn't want a brown soap. So I wondered, how can I make the brown work to my advantage?

That's when I decided to combine it with a Gingersnap fragrance oil. My plan was to make half of the soap orange and unscented, and the other half scented with both the Pumpkin Pie and Gingersnap fragrance oils. The unscented half would stay orange, and the scented half would turn brown. I suppose that I could have used just the Pumpkin Pie fragrance oil, but a) I didn't have enough of it for the whole batch, and b) the Gingersnap fragrance makes the brown color make more sense (or scents?), at least in my mind anyway.

I'm calling it Gingerbread, though. Just cuz I wanna.

Next I had to decide on a design. I remembered this tutorial from the Soap Queen blog using Bramble Berry's vertical mold to make a half-circle design in the soap.

The idea is to pour one color into each side of the vertical mold. Then you lift the divider out just enough to get it out of its groove, twist it 180 degrees, and then carefully pull the divider all of the way out. It is supposed to make half-circle designs on each side of the soap; in this case, orange soap with a brown half-circle on one side, and brown soap with an orange half-circle on the other.

Here's a video of me making this soap:


My design didn't turn out as crisp as I would have liked, but it is still a neat look. I think I just need more practice.

For this project, I went with 50% olive oil, 30% coconut oil, 15% avocado oil, and 5% castor oil with a 5% superfat figured into the recipe. It seemed to trace slowly for me. I wanted the trace to be at about medium to help the design stay crisper, so I had to stickblend for quite a while, which is something I usually have to stop myself from doing.

Before adding the lye solution, I stickblended three ounces (84 grams) of pumpkin puree into my oils to get it really well incorporated. ( I also subtracted three ounces of water from the recipe to make up for the water content of the pumpkin.) Then I added the lye solution and brought the soap to trace. I split the batch in half and colored one half with orange mica, mixed with a bit of oil pulled from the total to work out the clumps. I added all of the fragrance oil to the other half and left it uncolored since the fragrance oil would turn it brown. The scented half got a little thick with all of that fragrance oil in it, but it was manageable. The unscented orange half stayed pretty loose.

Then I poured the orange soap into one side of the mold and the scented soap into the other side. I like to pour the two halves simultaneously to keep the divider from coming loose and sliding around. After pouring, I twisted the divider as described above.

While this recipe has a nice slow trace, it does make a soft soap initially. I left it in the mold for a long time - about two weeks - which is probably much longer than I needed to. I'm just lazy. But it probably does need to sit a little longer before cutting to let some water evaporate and allow the soap to firm up a bit.

I had some trouble getting the plastic liners to come away from the soap because it was so soft, but I was able to remove them after putting the soap in the freezer for a few hours. Then I let the soap sit for a couple more days before cutting. When I did finally cut it, it cut well and didn't seem especially soft anymore.

I've tested an end piece and some of the leftover soap and it is very nice! It feels great on the skin and smells delicious.

And the soap pairs nicely with my pumpkin-scented body lotion. Always have to buy some of that this time of year!

Oh, and what to do with any leftover pumpkin puree? Pumpkin Blondies! (I just swapped pumpkin for the sweet potato.)

Are you a pumpkin fan? If so, what is your favorite way to incorporate pumpkin into your projects?

Sweet Pumpkin Soap (With Pumpkin Puree and Goat's Milk)

Some pumpkins I spotted in Gatlinburg, TN

When autumn arrives, it seems like I've always got pumpkin on the brain. I want to bake pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin cookies. I want pumpkin bisque, pumpkin-scented lotions, pumpkin lip balm.

Pumpkin soap.

With the holidays approaching, I need some soap to gift. Everyone needs soap. Everyone loves soap. Not everyone loves pumpkin, but the good thing about soap is that you don't have to eat it. In fact, you definitely should not eat it. So, even if you don't like to eat pumpkin, you'll probably like pumpkin just fine in soap.

Hopefully, you'll like it better than fine. The natural sugars in pumpkin can help boost the lather, creating a luxurious bar. And if you also add something like goat's milk (which I did in this batch), the luxury factor goes into overdrive.

To make this soap, I used olive oil, coconut oil, sustainable palm oil, shea butter, and castor oil. For my liquid, I used part goat's milk (168g) - which I measured off and froze ahead of time - and part distilled water (121g). The original recipe called for 345g of liquid (for a full water amount), but you'll notice that my liquid adds up to 289g. Because I also added 56g of pumpkin puree, I subtracted that amount from my liquids. (I used the pumpkin puree at a rate of 1 ounce, or 28g, per pound of oils.)

I used canned pumpkin for my puree. (Make sure you read the ingredients label - you want 100% pure pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling, which has added spices and sugar.) Because I was using only 2 ounces total, I had some left over. Unless you're making a fifteen-pound batch (or using a lot more pumpkin than I did), you'll probably have some extra, too. You can freeze the leftover pumpkin for later. Or you can make Pumpkin Molasses Cookies, which is what I did.

Goat's milk is a wonderful additive in soap - it feels so creamy and the sugars in it also boost the lather. It's a good idea to freeze the goat's milk ahead of time and to soap cool so that the sugars in the milk don't scorch. I like to stir my lye solution in an ice bath to keep the temps low. The thing about goat's milk is that it can smell a little funky when the lye hits it. I've heard it described as an ammonia-type smell, but I think it sorta smells like goat cheese. Many folks find the smell unpleasant (I didn't mind too much since I absolutely adore goat's cheese), but not to worry - the smell disappears within a few days and shouldn't affect the scent of the final soap.

For the scent, I used a Sweet Pumpkin fragrance oil from Elements Bath and Body. This is my favorite pumpkin scent out of all of the pumpkin FOs I have tried so far. It is more sweet than spicy, which is why I like it so much. See, my nose is weird. I have a difficult time detecting spice notes like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc. A lot of times I can't really smell pumpkin-scented candles. I once had a pumpkin and spice FO that I couldn't smell at all. Thinking that maybe the fragrance was defective, I had my friend sniff the bottle and he said, "What?! You can't smell that? It's so strong!" Funny thing is, my dad is kinda the same way. I dragged him into a Yankee Candle once and made him smell everything and he and I had trouble with a lot of the same scents. Genetics, I guess. DNA is weird wacky stuff.

Anyway, I really like this fragrance oil and everyone else seemed to like it, too, when I used it last year. The vanilla in the fragrance oil does discolor the soap, though, so it is necessary to plan accordingly. My soap went from a carrot-orange color to a dark but lovely brown.

Somewhere along the line, I saw this blog post by Amy from Great Cakes Soapworks. She uses a rubber stamp dipped in mica to embellish her soap bars. I loved this idea, and thought it was an easy way to add some pizzazz to my bars. Amy even made a YouTube video showing how she stamps the soap, and I used her method. (A big thank you to Amy for sharing her technique!) I didn't realize until I watched the video again that she and I had made very similar soaps. We both used pumpkin puree and goat's milk in our batches. When I went to make my pumpkin soap, I remembered that I had some goat's milk in the freezer and thought, Wouldn't that make this soap even nicer?

The soap about halfway through gel phase

Whether or not to gel soap is a personal choice. Lots of soapers choose to avoid gel phase so that the color remains lighter and the texture is a bit creamier. To avoid gel phase, pop the soap into the fridge or even the freezer (particularly if you're working with super-heater ingredients like milk, beer, honey, etc.). I decided to gel my soap because I like gelling my soaps. Plus, since the fragrance oil discolors the soap dark brown, I wasn't concerned about trying to keep the colors lighter.

I used my wooden log mold for this soap, and it turns out that I really didn't need to insulate this batch. With the combination of pumpkin puree, goat's milk, and the spice notes in the fragrance oil, the soap went into gel phase almost immediately. Fortunately, I was peeking at my soap and saw it going into gel phase, so I was able to take the top of the mold and the towels off before the soap overheated or cracked. (My textured tops kinda flopped, though.)

When it was time to cut the soap a couple of days later, I dipped my pumpkin stamp into some of Bramble Berry's Gold Sparkle Mica and then pressed it lightly but firmly into my fresh-cut soap. (It's important that the soap has been cut just before you do the stamping so that the mica will stick to it.)

I had some Goldilocks moments: The first try, I didn't use enough mica. The second try, I used too much. But the third try was juuuuuuust right. I discovered that it is best to get a bunch of mica onto the stamp and then tap the stamp against the countertop to get rid of the excess mica. After I cracked that code, stamping was much smoother and more uniform.

Here is a video showing how I made and stamped my Sweet Pumpkin soap:


How to clean the stamp when you're done? Get a toothbrush (new and unused, of course) and scrub the stamp under running water.

I bought a bunch of stamps. There was nothing I could do to stop this.

The stamping looks great, and I'm so glad to have a fun, easy way to adorn my soaps. I was so inspired, I raided the stamps in the dollar bin at my local craft store and bought a bunch. At that price, I couldn't afford not to! My Christmas soaps are made for this year, but next year I will have some cute holiday options!

Oh, and hey, don't forget - it's still November, so that means that it is Givember time at Bramble Berry! A few weeks ago, the lovely folks at Bramble Berry sent me some supplies to try (you can read more about that here) and offered a very special treat to my blog readers. Here's how it works: Any Bramble Berry order placed during the month of November that includes the code GIVEMBER50 will get you entered into a drawing for a $50 Bramble Berry gift certificate. This code only applies to orders placed during November - don't forget to include the code during checkout! Happy shopping, and best of luck to you all in the drawing!

Also, Thanksgiving is next Thursday and I want to wish all of you who are celebrating the holiday a very happy Thanksgiving!