Pineapple Ginger Salt Bars

Now that Christmas has come and gone, I'm actually starting to get low on soap for the first time in a while. I made several batches as gifts for family and friends - the holiday soaps are gone except for a few end pieces that I kept. And because I was saving the holiday soaps for Christmas, we used up most of our older bars.

Which means I can make more new batches! I try to stagger my soapmaking sessions so that we don't have too much soap around here. Christmas helps thin the herd some, as do birthdays and other gift-giving occasions. If I have more soap than I know what to do with, I'll pack a box to send off to my mom and dad. 

With a dwindling supply of soap, I am itching to experiment with some new techniques. Something I've been wanting to try for a while is making salt soap.I saw a wonderful tutorial on salt bars by Sarah from Ladybug Soapworks some time ago and I have been looking forward to trying it.

Making salt bars is similar to making regular soap, but the recipe is a bit different. Salt is usually included at somewhere between 50% - 100% of the oil weight when making salt bars. Suppose my total oil weight is 32 ounces - if I want my salt ratio at 100%, I would add 32 ounces of salt to my traced soap; if I want my salt ratio at 50%, I would use 16 ounces of salt.

Pink Himalayan Salt

Because salt is a lather-killer, the soap recipe must be adjusted. Salt bars are usually high in coconut oil, which is typically anywhere from 80% - 100% of the total oils in salt soap. Why coconut oil? Because it is the only oil that lathers well in salt water, making it perfect for salt bars. For my salt bars, I followed Sarah's recipe and used 80% coconut oil, 15% avocado oil, and 5% castor oil.

But won't all of that coconut oil be drying to the skin? After all, soapmakers normally use no more than 30% coconut oil in their recipes because the soap can be drying otherwise. The answer would seemingly be yes - unless you do a high superfat. Superfatting means that the soapmaker uses more oil than is necessary to react with the lye, leaving a portion of the oils unsaponified. The unsaponified oils create a mild, moisturizing bar, and they also assure that the soap is not lye-heavy by providing a buffer. (Superfatting is also sometimes referred to as a lye discount.) I usually factor a superfat of 7% into my regular soap recipes, meaning that 7% of the oils in the recipe do not react with the lye, leaving them unsaponified and sort of free-floating in the bar. But because coconut oil can be drying in high amounts, a higher superfat is needed. Most soapmakers go with a 15% - 20% superfat for salt bars. I went with a 20% superfat.

A slab mold with dividers keeps salt bars simple.

The kind of salt that you use is important, too. I have read that epsom or Dead Sea salts are NOT good choices for salt bars, as they draw moisture from the air and will cause the soap to "sweat" excessively. I found some pretty Pink Himalayan salt and used it at 65% of my oil weight (which worked out to be 21 ounces of salt to 32 ounces of oils). Why 65%? Because that was how much salt I happened to have. I wanted to try 70% to start, but just didn't have quite enough salt to get there. I'm betting that 65% will be wonderful, though, and I can try different ratios in future batches.

Another thing to keep in mind is that salt bars get rock hard very quickly.They need to be cut soon after molding, like within a few hours or less. If you wait too long to cut a loaf of salt soap, it will likely crumble and be generally difficult to deal with. To avoid the anxiety of cutting bars ("Do I cut now? Is it too soon? Or have I waited too long?"), I opted to use a slab mold with dividers so that I would not have to cut anything.

And for the scent? Salt bars seen kinda spa-like to me, so I chose something tropical. I settled on a yummy Pineapple Ginger fragrance oil from  Elements Bath & Body. Sadly, it appears that Elements no longer carries this scent, as I cannot find it on their website.

Here's a video of the making of my Pineapple Ginger salt bars:


What's so great about salt bars anyway? Well, I have never tried salt soap before, but I hear that it produces a creamy, lotion-like lather that leaves the skin feeling moisturized. My mom and I once visited a boutique in Sandestin, Florida that had a salt scrub that was apparently very popular. A shipment had just come in and the salespeople were pushing the scrub pretty hard, inviting customers to try it out in the store. We asked, "Won't the salt be drying?" The saleswoman said, "Oh, no, not at all. Come try some." And she did a little demo and let us try out the scrub ourselves. It left our hands surprisingly soft and smooth. We didn't buy any of the scrub (it was kinda pricey), but she told us that they can barely keep it in stock and that it sells out as quickly as it arrives. I'm wondering if salt soap performs similarly and can't wait to find out!

I did try a bar from this batch about two weeks after making it, just to see how it compares to my regular soaps. The lather was creamy, rich, and dense and it left my hands feeling soft. "Lotion-like" is a good way to describe the lather. Not in the sense that the lather itself has the consistency of lotion, but in the sense that it felt like I had applied lotion to my hands after using the soap. The soap is nice now, but I'm sure that it will be even nicer after another four weeks or so of curing time!

Have you ever made or bought salt soap? How did you like it?

Shaving Soap, Then and Now

Melt-and-pour shaving soap that I made for Valentine's Day, 2010.

Let's go back to early 2010 for a moment. The Winter Olympics were about to start in Vancouver, a U.S. postage stamp cost 44 cents, and Steve Carell was still on "The Office." And I had been making melt-and-pour soap for about a year.

Valentine's Day was approaching and I wanted to give my hubby, Ken, something special. With Christmas over, I was fresh out of gift ideas. I decided to make something for him. In the past, I had baked him something sweet or made homemade pralines. In 2010, I realized that I could make something else:

Soap.

Yippee, right? I mean, we were drowning in soap. Why would anyone in my household get excited about, well, more soap?

Because this soap was just for him. See, I made him a shaving soap. I went out and bought a shaving kit, tossed the soap that came with it, and filled the bowl with my own. I used Bramble Berry's melt-and-pour shaving soap base, added one teaspoon of bentonite clay per pound of soap, and scented it with a Eucalyptus and Cedar fragrance oil. I even made some red soap hearts (created with a candy mold) to stick on the top.

Ken liked the shaving soap very much and asked that I keep making it for him. So I bought another shaving kit - so I'd have another bowl - and replenished his supply as needed.

Flash forward to the summer of 2012 when I made shaving soap from scratch for the first time. While the melt-and-pour shaving base is very nice, I wanted to create my own since I now knew how to make cold process soap.

Cold process shaving soap, July 2012

I found this shaving soap recipe courtesy of Steve from Soap Making Resource and decided to give it a try:

~ Olive oil (45% of total oils )
~ Coconut oil (20% of oils)
~ Castor oil (20% of oils)
~ Palm oil (8% of oils)
~ Sweet almond oil (7% of oils)

Steve's recipe makes five pounds of soap, but I needed only one pound to fill three of my shaving bowls. (I now have four bowls so I can make three more shaving soaps when Ken starts on his last one.) So I plugged the percentages of oils into SoapCalc to customize the recipe to my needs. (It's a good idea to run a recipe through a lye calculator to double-check it. And always run a recipe through a lye calculator if you make any changes to it.)

Steve also includes some additives in his recipe. I adjusted the amounts of the additives so they would fit into my parameters. I ended up using:

~ Bentonite clay (one Tablespoon per pound of oils)
~ Colloidal oats (one Tablespoon per pound of oils)

Bentonite clay adds a layer of protection to the skin and gives the blade some slip, and the colloidal oats (I used finely ground regular oats) make the soap extra soothing. I added the bentonite clay at trace and stickblended briefly to fully incorporate it into the batter. Then I stirred in the oats. Once the clay and oats are added, the batter gets pretty thick.

One thing worth noting is that bentonite clay has a tendency to clump. To get around this issue, I used a mini whisk to mix the clay with some liquid glycerin before adding it to my soap batter. I would think that mixing the clay with some oil would also work, although I have not tried that myself.

Grinding oats, mixing clay with glycerin, and pouring soap into shaving bowls

For the scent, I chose Bramble Berry's Blue Man fragrance oil, which behaves beautifully and smells great. The fragrance oil does discolor to a medium brown due to the vanilla notes, which make this scent a bit sweet but masculine.

Probably one of the first things you'll notice about this recipe is that it has a high percentage of castor oil. This is to help create a rich lather for shaving. It does make a soft soap initially - I had some batter left over that I poured into individual molds and the soap bars were quite soft when I unmolded them a few days later. After a few weeks of curing time, though, the water evaporates out and the soap hardens nicely.

I actually made this soap several months ago, but I decided to save this post until now because I have been focused on holiday soaps the last few months. So, Ken has had some time to use this shaving soap, and he enjoys it very much. He reports that it feels good on the skin and that the lather is creamy and dense. The shaving soap lasts quite a while, too - he's been using the same soap for about three months now and still has a bit to go before it's gone. And he's got another bowl of shaving soap from the same batch waiting to be used. I figure the pound of shaving soap I make for him will last him somewhere between 9-12 months.

Are you a fan of shaving soaps? Do you make or buy them for yourself or someone else? Got a favorite recipe?

Flashback 2012

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday! My husband and I went home to Florida for Christmas and spent time with family and friends. We visited some of our favorite hangouts, caught up with people we haven't seen in a while, and just enjoyed some down time. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were full of gifts, soap, and food. And I ate. A lot.

And I got an early Christmas surprise from Bramble Berry - my Christmas Cheer soap was selected as a winner in their Make-It-Monday: Christmas Schwag challenge! I am thrilled that my soap was included among so many other gorgeous soapy creations. Thank you to Bramble Berry for choosing and featuring my soap!

It's hard to believe that 2012 is almost gone. As New Year's Day approaches, I find myself reflecting on the past year. In a lot of ways, things haven't changed much. In other ways, things have changed very much.

It's also hard to believe that I have been writing this little blog for almost a year now. I published my first post last January, hoping to share my little corner of the interwebs with other soaping enthusiasts. I am so grateful for all of the support from all of you who read this blog and follow my adventures on Facebook, Google+, and my YouTube channel.

As the year draws to a close and a new year approaches, I thought it would be fun to look back at all of the soaps that I have made and blogged about over the past year.

Left to right, from top to bottom:

Carrot, Orange, and Ginger

Cucumber Melon

Eucalyptus Clove

Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey

Honey

Clean Cotton

Orange Patchouli

Castile

Left to right, from top to bottom:

Christmas Cheer

Fresh Snow

Sweet Pumpkin

Black & Tan Beer

Peppermint Funnel Swirl

Gingersnap

Hot Cocoa

Tomato Leaf

Wasabi





Thank you again to all of you for coming along on this adventure with me. I am so happy with how this little blog has grown, and how it has allowed me to meet so many new soapy friends. I am looking forward to seeing what the coming year will bring!

Happy New Year, everyone! Have a wonderful 2013! And happy soaping to you all ...

Christmas Cheer Soap

Whew, the past couple of weeks have been so hectic! I've been out of town a lot lately and trying to get ready for the holidays. Over the last few days, I've been making my list and checking it twice ... to make sure that I get everything on it done before Christmas!

Every year, it seems like the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas just flies right by despite my efforts to slow it down. Sometimes I can almost hear a swooshing sound as the time rushes past me. The holidays really snuck up on me this year, though. I usually like to start shopping in October or November, and then have all of my presents wrapped as soon after Thanksgiving as I can. I put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving while my husband washes and waxes our cars (it's our goofy little tradition), and I enjoy seeing it decked out with gifts for as long as possible.

Our little Christmas tree

That didn't happen this year. The part about getting the gifts wrapped and under the tree early, I mean.

I just got most of the presents wrapped a couple of days ago, and I've still got all of my soapy gift bags to put together. I haven't even labeled the soaps yet, and you all know how long that can take. The best thing about being able to make my own soaps, though, is that it makes gifting easy. Soap for everybody, yay!

And I think everybody on my list will like this soap. I call it "Christmas Cheer," and it is scented with Rocky Mountain Christmas fragrance oil, which smells like a freshly-cut tree.

I started out by adding my fragrance oil to my cooled oils and then stickblending in the lye solution. Once I reached a light trace, I portioned off one cup of soap into three plastic measuring cups, which I had prepped by mixing my colorants with a bit of liquid glycerin. To my main batch, I added some titanium dioxide to whiten the soap. The fragrance oil has a bit of a yellowish tinge, so my soap turned out more of a creamy white than a bright white. For my other colorants, I used Bramble Berry's Gold Sparkle mica, Brick Red oxide, and Green Chrome oxide.

I poured my main white batch into my mold and then added the gold, red, and green soap. To get the teardrop effect, I poured the colored soap from high up, which allows the soap to sink well into the main base. I started by pouring some of the gold, and then the green, and then the red. Then I repeated the pattern again, alternating the colors. For the tops, I scooped out the remaining soap in alternating colors.

Here is a video showing how I made my Christmas Cheer soap:


My soap got a bit thicker than I would have liked, but it seems that the design did not suffer for it. My pours penetrated the surface of the soap nicely, and the thickness of the soap allowed me to play with texturizing the tops (which is not my strong suit). I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I cut into the soap, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful it was inside! I am very proud of this soap and thrilled with how it turned out.

The only thing I was worried about was that maybe I had used a bit too much red oxide. When I cut into the loaf, the red dragged through the bars a bit. I cut the soap on its side to minimize the drag, but it made me think that I had overdone it with the red. After a few weeks of curing time, I tried a bar. The lather has a slightly pink tinge to it, but nothing major. I'll just have to warn everyone not to use their Dolce & Gabbana washcloths with this soap.

I'm looking forward to heading home next week and relaxing a bit before Christmas. What are you all doing for the holidays? Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope that you have a wonderful time with family and friends. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

(Oh, and remember my posts about Bramble Berry's "Givember" event thoroughout November? Well, Bramble Berry has announced the winners of the gift certificates! Congratulations to the winners!)

Fresh Snow Gradient Layer Soap

Winter is almost officially here. When I think of winter, I think of clear big-blue-sky days and clean, chilly air. I also think of snow, but mostly in a romanticized kind of way. Having lived my whole life in either Florida or Louisiana (or Hawaii, if my four-month stint there counts), I don't have much experience with snow. Sure, we get flurries from time to time and it's a super-huge deal. I've been in snow before, though. When my husband and I visited New York City in March 2007, we arrived just in time for a freak snowstorm. And we experienced more snow in Boise, ID in December 2010.

Snow can be magnificent when it first falls - powdery flakes floating all around, covering everything with a blanket of shimmering white. Colors pop like never before all around you, and the air feels crisp and clean. Those first few hours of snowfall make you grab your camera and brave the cold. Over the next couple of days, though, the snow turns gray and slushy. Walking becomes difficult as you trudge through dirty snow puddles, and driving becomes dangerous. That's when you start thinking that maybe the snow isn't so great.

Downtown Boise, ID after a snowfall, Dec. 2010

In my imagination, snowfalls are always beautiful, and the sky is always a flawless bright blue. I wanted to create a soap that captures my idea of a perfect snow day. And so I chose to do a blue-to-white gradient layer soap scented with Bramble Berry's Fresh Snow fragrance oil. (This fragrance oil soaps like a dream and behaves absolutely beautifully in cold process soap. It has a nice, slow trace that allows for plenty of time to work, and it doesn't discolor at all. It also smells fantastic, its scent reminiscent of a cold wintery day.)

The gradient layer technique is also known as the gradated, graduated, or Ombre layer technique. The goal is to create layers that become progressively lighter in color as you move from the bottom to the top of the soap. Gradient layers can be made using a single color or several colors.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember my first attempt at creating gradient layers - a green-to-gold Cucumber Melon soap. Overall, I was pleased with the soap, although I wished that my layers were a bit more uniform. I had poured my layers over the back of a spoon to prevent the soap from breaking through the previous layer, but I had some break through anyway. I decided that the next time I did a gradient layer soap, I would spoon the soap batter instead of pouring it.

That's what I did for my Fresh Snow soap, and the layers did turn out much more distinct. For this soap, I used olive oil, coconut oil, sustainable palm oil, castor oil, and shea butter.

Fresh Snow soap, sprinkled with sparkly glitter

My recipe makes about 44 ounces of soap batter, so I decided to have six 6-ounce layers of blue and one 8-ounce layer of white. I added my FO to my cooled oils before adding the lye solution. Once I added the lye and stickblended the batch to a light trace, I portioned off 12 ounces of soap into a plastic measuring cup. To whiten the rest of the batch, I added some titanium dioxide (mixed with liquid glycerin), reserving some for later.

I added some ultramarine blue oxide (again, mixed with a bit of liquid glycerin) to the 12-ounce portion and then poured half of the blue soap into my mold. Then I mixed 6 ounces of the white soap into the remaining blue soap, and spooned half of that portion for my second layer. Because I added some white soap to the blue, the second layer was a shade lighter. I repeated this pattern for the first five layers, making each layer progressively lighter.

For the sixth blue layer, I added a bit of the reserved titanium dioxide to lighten the soap instead of adding more white soap. I spooned the remaining blue soap (which was very light blue by this point) into the mold and then spooned the remaining white soap on top of it. A mini whisk helped me create some texture on top of my loaf, and I finished the soap off with a sprinkling of shredded iridescent glitter to mimic freshly-fallen snow glinting in the sunlight.

Here is a video I made of the process:


When making gradient layers, it is important that the previous layer is set up enough to support the next layer. It helps to bring your soap to a medium trace and to test the previous layer by drizzling a bit of soap on top of it to make sure it doesn't sink.

I am very happy with how this soap turned out, and I like how distinct each layer is. Spooning the soap definitely worked out better than pouring over the back of a spoon this time. I think these will make beautiful Christmas gifts! (Although I may have to keep a bar for myself!)

One more thing - last call for Bramble Berry's "Givember" event, which continues through the end of November! 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!

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!

Black and Tan Beer Soap ... and a Surprise from Bramble Berry!

My Black and Tan Beer soap

One of my favorite soapmaking suppliers is Bramble Berry - they have just about everything a soapmaker could ever need, want, or hope to have. Although I do purchase supplies from several sources, I turn to Bramble Berry again and again as my main go-to vendor because I know I can count on great service and convenient one-stop shopping. And Anne-Marie and her team are committed to helping soap and toiletry makers not only through their products, but also through the Soap Queen blog, Soap Queen TV, Teach Soap, and the Teach Soap forum.

A couple of months ago, I got a lovely message from Kristen at Bramble Berry, telling me how much Team Bramble Berry enjoys my blog and YouTube channel. (Little ol' me? Aww, shucks!) Kristen asked me if I would be willing to pick out some Bramble Berry products gratis, give them a try, and then blog about it.

My "Givember" haul from BB

What did I say? Um ... heck yes!

I took a look at BB's Cold Process Kits and carefully considered my options. It was difficult to choose, but I settled on the Black and Tan Beer Soap Kit. It looked like a cool project, and I adore beer soap. (And I had also been coveting BB's vertical mold, which is included in the kit.)

A couple of weeks ago, I received my box of goodies. Opening the package was like opening a present. Pretty pink tissue paper and a note from Team Bramble Berry greeted me when I pulled open the box flaps. (And Bramble Berry has also offered a special treat to you, dear readers! More on that in a moment, so keep reading.)

After inspecting my new toys and sniffing my new fragrance oils, I put them away until the next opportunity to make soap.

On a quiet Sunday afternoon, I got busy on my project. I decided to follow Anne-Marie's Black and Tan Beer Soap tutorial so that my soap would turn out as fabulously as hers did. After all, I want to make Bramble Berry proud!

Black and Tan beer made with Bass and Guinness

The day before making the soap, I boiled two bottles of dark beer to cook off the alcohol (so the soap wouldn't seize), and then chilled the beer overnight in the fridge. (Some of the beer evaporates when it boils, so that is why I used two bottles. Mine were 11.2-oz. bottles.) I was able to replace nearly all of my water with beer, but I did use a little bit of distilled water to make up the difference. Using beer in a soap recipe requires a little bit of preparation in advance, but it is worth it. I love beer in soap - the natural sugars in the beer increase the lather and create a bubbly, luxurious bar.

The idea behind this soap was to create bars that resemble Black and Tan beer. You may be familiar with Black and Tans -  they are traditionally a mix of a pale ale or lager (like Bass or Harp) with a dark porter or stout (often Guinness). The stout is carefully poured over the ale. Because the stout is less dense, it floats on top of the ale. Thus, the drink is called a "Black and Tan" due to the two distinct layers of beer.

For the scent, I used Oatmeal Stout and Almond Biscotti fragrance oils, both provided by Bramble Berry. For my four-pound batch, I mixed three ounces of Oatmeal Stout with one ounce of Almond Biscotti. The scent combo smelled to me like Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. Yum! (Of course, I wanted Oatmeal Creme Pies for the rest of the day, and I still kinda want one now.)

A view inside BB's vertical mold

The vertical mold is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Sturdy plastic lines the inside of the wooden mold (and the plastic sides pull apart easily, as does the side of the wooden mold, for easy unmolding), and a removable plastic divider evenly splits one side from the other. The plan for this project was to pour a lighter colored soap into one side (for the tan), and a darker soap into the other (for the black).

To make my lye-beer solution, I slowly added my lye flakes to my beer, stirring constantly. Then I placed my lye pitcher in an ice bath to keep things from overheating. (The natural sugars in the beer can heat up, causing problems like scorching or lye volcanoes.) When the lye was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit, I added it to my oils, which were approximately the same temperature.

After I stickblended my soap to a light trace, I split the batch into two equal parts. To one portion, I added a heaping Tablespoon of Super Pearly White mica (which Bramble Berry also provided) and only one ounce of my fragrance oil combination to keep the soap a lighter tan color. To the other portion, I added the remaining three ounces of the fragrance combo, which will cause the soap to discolor to a dark brown.

Once I brought my soap to a medium trace, I poured the "tan" soap into one side of the vertical mold, and the "black" soap into the other. (I think next time I will try to pour both sides simultaneously because a little bit of my tan soap crept into the black soap's side near the bottom of the divider.) Once both soaps were poured, I carefully pulled the divider up out of its nook at the bottom of the mold, and then twisted it at a 25-degree angle while pulling it up and out, creating a slant through the middle of the bars.

Check out this video I made of the process:


I left the soap in the mold for about four days before unmolding it. I did use sodium lactate at about 1% (1 teaspoon per pound of oils) in this batch to not only help with unmolding, but also to create a harder and longer-lasting bar. I think the sodium lactate helped because the plastic sides pulled away from the soap very easily. It also looks like Anne-Marie's recipe creates a hard bar, too.

Sodium lactate is not an ingredient in the original recipe in the tutorial, but I like to add it to all of my batches now. The only other thing I did differently from Anne-Marie is that I used the full water amount - it looks like she did a little bit of a water discount.

When I cut the bars, one side was darker than the other. Over the next couple of days, the colors of the soap deepened, and soon one side was a medium tan and the other became a very dark brown. As of this writing, the soap is just over a week old, and I think it might darken even more as it cures.

I think that my soap turned out a lot like Anne-Marie's did, don't you? I love how it looks (and smells), and I can't wait to use a bar!

Okay, so now here's the treat for you that I alluded to earlier: During the month of November, Bramble Berry is doing a little something called "Givember" to thank their customers for their support. Included in my box of goodies was a special offer and coupon code for me to pass on to you, my wonderful blog readers! Any Bramble Berry order placed during the month of November that includes the code GIVEMBER50 will get you entered in 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!

I want to say a big thank you again to Bramble Berry for the free goodies and for sponsoring Givember! I love the vertical mold, and see the two of us having a very happy life together. Have fun shopping, everyone, and best of luck in the drawing!