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?

Getting Ready For A Soapy Swap!

It's been a while since I've participated in a soap swap. About two and a half years ago, I joined a melt-and-pour soap swap that Bramble Berry was sponsoring. It was a lot of fun - I got to try some new soaps and fragrances, and I met some great soapmakers through their creations.

When Bramble Berry announced recently that they were sponsoring another soap swap, I decided to get in on the action. This time, I'll be making cold process soap.

So, how does the soap swap work? Participants make twelve bars of soap using a Bramble Berry fragrance of their choice (I'm going with Wasabi). Soaps are then sent to Bramble Berry headquarters, and they send each participant back twelve bars made by twelve different soapmakers.

Cool, huh? It's always fun to try other soapmakers' soaps and experience new fragrances. I just hope that everyone who receives my soap enjoys it!

For my contribution, I decided to make a soap with my vertical mold for a couple of reasons. First, it is the only mold I have that will hold a batch large enough to produce twelve bars. I have two 3-pound molds that make about 9-10 bars each, and my column mold probably would come up a little bit short, too. The vertical mold holds approximately four pounds of soap, which works out to about thirteen bars. Second, I wanted to try Anne-Marie's vertical twist technique.

I decided to substitute my own recipe, though, instead of trying the palm-free one. I have no doubt that it is a great recipe, and I do want to try some palm-free recipes. But I wanted to work with something familiar, especially since I had enough Wasabi FO for only one batch.

Here's my recipe:

Olive oil - 40%

Coconut oil - 28%

Palm oil - 26%

Cocoa butter - 6%

(Superfat @ 7%)

I also added sodium lactate (1 Tbsp for 45 oz. of oil) and Wasabi FO (.8 oz. per pound of oils) to the cooled base oils before adding the lye solution. For the colorants, I mixed Gold Sparkle mica and Hydrated Chrome Green pigment with a bit of glycerin to work out the clumps. After splitting the batch in half, I colored one portion gold and the other green. Then I poured the gold soap into one side of the vertical mold and the green into the other. (I find it works best to pour both colors into the mold simultaneously to prevent any soap from creeping over onto the other side.) When I removed the divider, I twisted it round and round as I pulled it up and out, making swirls.

Here is a video of the making of the Wasabi Vertical Twist Soap:

I think this batch turned out pretty cool! Every bar looks different. Some are very swirly, others look kinda like yin-yangs, and one bar even has a zig-zag look. 

Check out all of the different looks from the same batch!

And I love the Wasabi fragrance oil! It behaves well in cold process soap and it smells great! It may sound like an odd scent, but, trust me, it is uhmazing. To me, it smells very green, like fresh-cut grass, with a hint of peppermint and ginger in the background. Definitely very refreshing, invigorating, and unique! It's one of my all-time faves. Hopefully, I'll be able to introduce it to someone who hasn't tried it yet through the swap. I first encountered the Wasabi FO as a free sample in one of my Bramble Berry orders. One sniff and I had to get more. That's the great thing about free samples - you discover new fragrances that you might not have ever bought on your own. Plus, they're FREE!

If you want to participate in the soap swap, there's still time if you step lively. Soaps are due at Bramble Berry HQ by May 6, so they recommend mailing them no later than April 30. The categories are melt-and-pour or cold process soaps. If you want to make cold process soap but worry that it won't cure in time, you can put a note indicating the cure date on your soap if you're cutting it short. Or you could do hot process. And make sure you email Bramble Berry to let them know what you're planning! Get all of the details here.

Are any of you participating in this swap? If so, what are your plans for your soap?

Peppermint Lemongrass Sage Swirl Soap

If you have been following this blog for a while, you may remember that I bought a bunch of essential oils last year and vowed to play around with more EO combinations.

I haven't done too much experimenting yet, but I did recently make a batch with lemongrass, peppermint, and sage EOs.

With spring coming, I wanted something fresh, clean, and light. And I wanted bright, outdoorsy colors. Peppermint is one of my all-time favorite essential oils, and I also love anything lemony. (Spring always gets me thinking about lemons.) I figured peppermint and lemongrass would be very nice together, and sage goes hand-in-hand with lemongrass.

So peppermint, lemongrass, and sage it was. And the colors would be bright yellow and green. I had been itching to use my vertical mold again, and I thought the yellow and green would look beautiful side-by-side.

I've also been wanting to experiment with some new recipes, too. I remembered that my blogger friend Cee Gee shared one of her recipes on her blog, Oil & Butter. I adore Cee Gee's soaps and was eager to try her formulation. I did not have mango butter, but that did not deter me from trying the Mango Butter soap recipe. I substituted shea butter instead, but I will have to obtain some mango butter (which I plan to do soon) because I have heard so many wonderful things about it. And, of course, since I changed the recipe, I ran it through a lye calculator to get the correct amount of sodium hydroxide for that particular list of ingredients.

For the essential oils, I chose a 1:1 ratio for the peppermint and lemongrass, and I used half as much sage. Lemongrass sticks pretty strongly, and I wanted the peppermint to come through as well. I didn't want to overdo it with the sage - I was going for a subtle hint of greenness, so I opted for half as much sage as peppermint or lemongrass.

It was hard for me to imagine any other colors than yellow and green for this scent profile. And I wanted the colors to be bold and bright. So I chose Bramble Berry's Fizzy Lemonade and Hydrated Chrome Green colorants. To make things a little more interesting, I decided to do two in-the-pot swirls - one green with yellow swirls, and one yellow with green swirls - and pour them into either side of the mold.

Here is a video I made of the process:


Overall, I am very pleased with how this batch turned out! I was hoping that the soap would be more swirly. Perhaps I was a bit too light-handed with the swirl colors. But the effect is still gorgeous. I think a vertical twist swirl would have been fabulous, too. I will definitely have to try this technique in the future as well.

The scent combo is nice. I mostly smell lemongrass, with peppermint coming in right on its heels. The sage is not as strong, but it lends a bit of herbal earthiness in the background.

The soap has been curing for about seven weeks now and I have been using a bar in the shower. Cee Gee's recipe gets two enthusiastic thumbs up! The soap has a bubbly, creamy lather and it feels great on the skin. Thanks for sharing your recipe, Cee Gee!


The Peppermint Lemongrass Sage soap looks and smells like happiness. It will be perfect for spring!

What kinds of scents, colors, and themes do you enjoy in the springtime? Anything in particular that says "spring" to you, soap- or otherwise?