Mediterranean Garden Spa Shaving Soap

Time to make more shaving soap for the hubby! I found David Fisher's shaving soap recipe on About.com and thought that it sounded nice.

The recipe calls for coconut and palm oils for a stable, creamy lather. Olive oil, sweet almond oil, and cocoa butter condition the skin and provide lots of luxury. Castor oil, which I usually use at around 3%-5% of the total oils, is bumped up to 10% for an extra boost of lather. And bentonite clay (about 1 Tablespoon per pound of oils) gives the soap some extra slip for shaving with the added benefit of being oh-so-good for skin.

(Tip: Mix the bentonite clay with a little bit of liquid glycerin before adding it to the soap to prevent clumping.)

Here's the recipe I used:

~ Coconut oil - 30% ~

~ Palm oil - 30% ~

~Castor oil - 10% ~

~ Sweet almond oil - 15% ~

~ Olive oil - 10% ~

~ Cocoa butter - 5% ~

I did tweak David's recipe a bit. His calls for sunflower oil, but I didn't have any so I substituted sweet almond oil in its place. (And I ran the new recipe through a lye calculator, of course!)

The first thing I noticed about this recipe is that 65% of the oils are hard oils. Olive oil accounts for only 10% of the total oils. Most of my soap recipes are fairly heavy on olive oil with it being about 40%-50% of the total oils. The last shaving soap I made was 45% olive oil. Also, 72% of the oils were soft oils in the last recipe, and palm was a mere 8% of the total oils. This new shaving soap recipe is kinda the opposite of the previous one, so I was very curious to try it.

Once I had settled on a recipe, it was off to the fragrance cabinet to find a clean, masculine scent. I had a one-ounce bottle of Mediterranean Garden Spa fragrance oil, which was perfect since I was using one pound of oils for my recipe.The scent smells very green, herbaceous, and outdoorsy to me. The colors blue and green came to mind, and I decided to do an in-the-pot swirl.

Soon after adding the fragrance oil, bentonite clay, and lye solution to the oils and stickblending for a bit, the soap batter thickened to a pudding-like consistency. I'm not sure what caused this, considering that many factors can contribute to trace acceleration. The batter was workable, though, so I continued on with my plan to swirl. I managed to get the soap colored and then swirled the colors together, but it just didn't pour fluidly, which is what you really need for a successful ITP swirl. I knew that the soap batter didn't have the right consistency for an ITP swirl, but I pig-headedly carried on. Perhaps I would have had better luck with an in-the-shaving-bowl swirl.

Here's a video of me making this soap:


The soap still turned out lovely manly, and I kinda like the textured look in the bowls. And as the soap gets used, the swirls start to reveal themselves more.

It has been a few months since I made this shaving soap, and my hubby has been using it for a while now. He says that it's his favorite shaving soap so far, and he really likes the recipe. Sounds like it's a keeper! I may go in search of a palm-free shaving soap recipe, too, and see how he likes that.

The soap seems to be lasting him a good while, too - I think we're working on month three now - and the soap stays nice and hard and dry in between uses, not gummy at all.

I'll bet this would make an awesome body bar, too! I usually use regular soap to shave with in the shower, but I should make a bigger batch of this and make bars out of it. Then I could enjoy this shaving soap recipe, too!

Do you like shaving soaps? Got a favorite recipe?

Orange Basil Swirled Hearts Soap

This project included a few firsts for me: a new technique, a new recipe genre, and a new butter.

I decided to try out the Swirled Heart technique. This method has been on my must-do list for a while, and I finally got around to it. (My must-do list is about as long as my arm and it just keeps growing. It is going to take a while to get through it, methinks.) I remember seeing Anne-Marie and Kristy demonstrate the Swirled Heart technique quite a while back, but you know how it goes. You see a new thing and think, "Oh, cool, I'm totally gonna get right on that!" Maybe you even print out the tutorial and file it away in your soaping folder. And then you get distracted with other projects and maybe forget about it for a while. And then one day you're going through your bookmarks or your folder and think, "Whatever happened to ...?" And then you commit to the project and wonder why you didn't do it sooner. The Swirled Heart technique is a fun method, and I definitely plan to utilize it again. (It would be especially great for Valentine's Day!)

Something else that was new for me was not using palm oil. With the exception of my Castile soap and salt bars, my recipes have usually included it. I'm nearly out of palm oil now, so I decided to seek out some palm-free recipes to see if I could do without it. I went poking around the interwebs and found a few that I liked the looks of. The Nova Studio shared three palm-free recipes on their blog. One of the recipes calls for mango butter, which appealed to me because I recently bought some mango butter and was looking for a reason to use it. I've never used mango butter before, but I've heard so many wonderful things about it. Mango butter reportedly has natural emollient and moisturizing properties. Sounds like it should make a pretty luxurious soap!

 Here is the recipe I used, from the Nova Studio's blog post:

~ Olive Oil - 41% ~

~ Coconut Oil - 25% ~

~ Mango Butter - 25% ~

~ Avocado Oil - 6% ~

~ Shea Butter - 3% ~

I was a little bit worried that such a high percentage of mango butter might accelerate trace, but this recipe had a nice, slow trace for me. (A slow trace is important for this type of project, so choose a well-behaved recipe and fragrance oil.) I soaped at around 104 degrees F and had plenty of time to work with the batter. The soap is about a week and a half old now. I tested a bar and the lather is wonderfully soft and fluffy. The soap performs well already, but after about five more weeks of curing time it should be even more amazing!

Orange Basil Swirled Hearts soap

For the fragrance, I chose a 10x Orange and Sweet Basil essential oil blend. (The 10x Orange is nice because it is more concentrated than regular orange EO and therefore sticks better in CP soap.) Choosing a scent is sometimes difficult when I'm gazing into a drawer full of a bajillion fragrance and essential oils. I was trying to decide on both a fragrance and color scheme. I remembered that I had some orange mica from Bramble Berry. I really love the carrot-orange color of this mica, but it appears that Bramble Berry no longer carries it, which gives me a sad. Once I settled on the orange mica, I started thinking about the scent. Orange essential oil is an obvious choice. It turns the soap a light orange, though, and I wanted to do a white layer for my hearts. So, what would go well with orange and not discolor? Basil essential oil. Which means green. Funny how sometimes the fragrance dictates the colors, and other times the colors dictate the fragrance.

Dotting the surface

The bottom layer is an orange and green in-the-pot swirl. I thought about just doing straight-up orange for the bottom layer, but decided that a swirl would be more interesting. After the swirly layer had set up a bit, I drizzled some white soap on top to check it. Then I spooned the white layer on to prevent break-through into the previous layer. The Swirled Heart technique requires plastic squeeze bottles, which I found at my local craft store in the baking/candymaking aisle. I snipped the tips of the squeeze bottles so the soap would come out easier and give me good dime-sized dollops. To make the swirled hearts, I filled one squeeze bottle with about 2-3 ounces of orange soap, and filled another bottle with green soap. I dotted the surface with alternating rows of green and orange, and then dragged a toothpick through the dots to make hearts. 

(Tip: To clean out the bottles, I filled them with warm water right after I was done soaping, gave each one a good shake, and then squeezed the soapy water out. I had to fill and shake the bottles a few times to get all of the soap and residue out.)

The orange soap is scented with the Orange 10x essential oil, and the white is scented with the basil essential oil. For simplicity's sake, I left the small amount of green soap unscented.

Here's a video of the process:

I'm super happy with how this soap turned out! Orange and basil is a fantastic scent combo, and the hearts are so cute. The recipe and the essential oils behaved exceptionally well. 

I'll be trying some more palm-free recipes in the future, but I think that this one is definitely a keeper!

What do you think of the Swirled Heart technique? Have you tried it yourself?

Soap Seize: Keep Calm and Panic On

You know how it goes. Some days you're making soap and everything is just clicking along perfectly. Every part of the process goes according exactly to plan and your soap even turns out just the way you wanted it to.

And other days you find that you have slipped into the Ninth Circle of Soaping Hell. Having your soap seize is the quickest way to get there.

So what is seizing? Seizing is a result of trace acceleration, meaning that the soap batter rapidly thickens, moving from trace to beyond very quickly. (Trace occurs when the soap batter is fully emulsified and will not separate.) Sometimes acceleration causes the batter to get thick like pudding or mashed potatoes, making it impossible to pour. Other times trace accelerates so rapidly that the soap "seizes" in the pot and becomes a hard mass. This is also known as soap-on-a-stick.

Yikes, amirite?

So, what causes trace acceleration and seizing? Many factors can play a role:

Fragrance and Essential Oils
Certain fragrance oils can cause acceleration and seizing, particularly floral or spice scents. Some essential oils - spice ones like clove or cinnamon - may sometimes cause issues. I'm not a chemistry whiz, but from what I understand, the components and compounds in some fragrance oils can speed trace along. (Something about eugenol.) Sometimes it helps to add your fragrance oil to the base oils instead of adding it at trace. And if you know that the fragrance or essential oil will act up, try using a whisk instead of a stickblender. Also, fragrances containing alcohol can cause acceleration and seizing. I've never tried it myself, but I hear that using perfume or cologne to scent soap is a great way to get soap-on-a-stick due to the alcohol content.

Alcohol
Which leads to another factor: Alcohol. Using a scent that contains alcohol is not a good idea. Using alcoholic beverages in soap can also cause seizing. But, wait, what about beer soap, or wine soap? How do soapmakers successfully replace the water in a soap recipe with beer or wine? The trick is to boil off the alcohol. When I use beer in soap, I bring it to a boil and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Then I pop it in the fridge overnight to let it get nice and cold. I've made several beer batches and not had any problems when I boil it first. (Some of the beer does evaporate, so I either simmer more than I need or simply use distilled water to make up the difference.) I haven't made wine soap yet, but from what I've read I would expect that it could be treated like beer.

Temperature
Soaping temperatures can also play a role. The warmer your lye solution and oils are, the faster your soap batter will accelerate. Conversely, cooler temperatures can help slow trace. I usually soap at about 100-110 degrees F. But if I am using a finicky fragrance oil or certain ingredients that contain sugars that may cause the soap to overheat (like milk, beer, honey, etc.), I'll soap cooler, maybe around 80-90 degrees F.

Recipe Formulation
Sometimes the recipe itself can cause acceleration. Recipes containing a high percentage of soft oils (like olive and avocado) tend to trace more slowly than recipes calling for a higher percentage of hard oils. For instance, Castile soap, which is made exclusively with olive oil, is notorious for taking a long time to trace. Using lots of hard oils - like coconut or palm, for example - may cause the soap to trace faster. I have heard that using too much of certain ingredients - like castor oil, jojoba oil, or beeswax - may contribute to seizes, but I cannot attest to this myself. I've never used jojoba oil or beeswax, but I have made two batches of shaving soap using 10%-20% castor oil without problems.

Another thing to consider when formulating your recipe is the amount of liquid used. You may hear soapmakers talk about a "water discount," which means that they use less water than the recipe calls for. If you use "full water," that means that your lye concentration is about 27% (meaning that 27% of your lye solution is sodium hydroxide and 73% of it is water), with water being 38% of the total oil weight. (I prefer to think in terms of lye concentration instead of percentage of oil weight because it's less confusing for me. Thinking in terms of water discounts is confusing for me, too. If someone says that they use a 20% water discount, I may not really know how much water that translates into if I don't know the water amount that the recipe started off with. And then there's the math. And sometimes I wonder if someone means that they used water as 20% of the oil weight instead, which confuses me even more. It's much easier for me to just think in terms of lye concentration because it seems more solid and easier for me to understand.) The less water you use, the stronger your lye solution will be. Soapmakers often use full water to minimize acceleration. Full water is a good idea if you are doing swirls or something that requires a light trace. Discounting water is a good idea if you want to speed along a slow-tracing recipe, like Castile. Recipes calling for lots of soft oils typically handle steeper water discounts better than those with lots of hard oils. And definitely use full water if you are using a problematic fragrance or essential oil.

Paranormal Activity
And sometimes the soap gremlins are just bored and mischievous. Try bribing them with cookies and beer. Don't know if that works on them, but it would work on me if I were a soap gremlin. (Make it good beer, though. Something classy. Any kind of cookie is fine.)

***

Wanna see an epic seize? I was filming when one of my batches went from normal to - BAM! - soap-on-a-stick within moments. Not 100% certain what happened here, so I don't want to attribute the seize to any one thing. It could have been one or more of the aforementioned factors. Enjoy:




Pretty cool (and terrifying), huh?

So now you know some of the causes of seizing, what a seize looks like, and how to avoid it. But sometimes bad things happen to good soapers. What can you do if your soap does seize?

If you are confident that your soap batter was blended well before it seized, you might be able to mash it up and glop it into your mold like I did in the video above. Or you can wait for the soap to gel in the bowl so that it is softer and more pliable. Once the soap has gelled  from one side of the bowl to the other (insulate if necessary and peek at it after about 20 minutes), scoop it into your mold. Be extremely careful if you do this! The soap will be very hot and caustic. Wear your safety gear (goggles, gloves, long sleeves and pants, etc.)!

If the soap is too hard to mash up, or if you don't think you got everything mixed before it turned into cement, you still have a couple of options.

Grab your crock pot or stainless steel pot and get the soap into it. Heat the soap and stir it until it has the consistency of oatmeal or applesauce. All of your lye and oils are in the soap, assuming that your measurements are correct, but they're just aren't mixed enough. Heating the soap will liquefy it (although it most likely won't become smooth and pourable), allowing you to finish mixing. Monitor the heat, though, and be careful not to scorch the soap. You may want to use a double boiler if you are using the stovetop. Once the soap reaches the right consistency, glop it into your mold and let it sit for 24-48 hours before cutting. This is also known as the "hot process" method. Although hot process soap is technically ready to use as soon as it is unmolded - since the soap has been cooked down to a pH of about 9 - it is best to let it cure for at least a week or two. It's even better to let it cure for the full 4-6 weeks to allow the water to evaporate for harder, longer-lasting bars. Check out Soap Queen's Hot Process Hero and Crock Pot Camo tutorials for more info on hot process soapmaking.

Or you can wait until the next day to rebatch the soap. Chop or grate the soap (if it's solid enough), put it into a stainless steel pot or crock pot, and add a little bit of distilled water, starting with a couple of Tablespoons and adding more as necessary to get the right consistency. Then proceed as described above.

A seized batch is definitely a bummer, but it doesn't mean that the soap has to be a total loss. Seizing risks can be minimized, and the soap can usually be saved even if those precautions fail.

Soapmakers, have you had a batch seize on you? What has been your biggest soap fail so far?

Updated to clarify info about water discounts and recipe formulations.

My Soap Swap Box Has Arrived!

My Wasabi Swirl soaps, ready for the mail!

You may remember my post a few weeks back about getting ready for the Bramble Berry soap swap. How did the swap work? Participants made twelve bars of soap (using Bramble Berry fragrance or essential oils), sent them in to BB HQ, and then BB sent each participant twelve bars back, each made by a different soapmaker. For my contribution, I chose to use BB's Wasabi fragrance oil, one of my faves.

As anyone who personally knows me can imagine, I obsessed about packing my soap bars so that they would successfully withstand cross-country travel. Let's just say that there was a lot of bubble wrap involved. I was reassured and thrilled when I saw my soap included in this photo collage on the Soap Queen blog - they had made the trip okay! (My soap is the second one down on the far right column. I was honored to have my soap featured alongside so many other gorgeous soaps!)

Last week, I received my swap box filled with goodies from twelve soapmakers! I participated in the cold process category, so I got cold process soaps in return. And now I have a bunch of lovely soap to use! Sure, I've got plenty of my own soap to use, but it is fun to try other people's soaps and a swap is a great opportunity to do so.

Here's my haul:
 

Clockwise from left: English Rose by Costa Productions, Lavender by Gingerleaf Creative, and Passionfruit Rose by Pure Alchemy Soaps

The beautiful pink gradient layer soap comes from Costa Productions, and is scented with English Rose fragrance oil. I love the gradient layer technique, and the scent is a soft, true rose. This soap has lots of wonderful butters (shea, cocoa, mango), and it also contains coconut milk and buttermilk. Both coconut milk and buttermilk are on my list of ingredients to try, too, and I imagine that they are wonderful together.

Gingerleaf Creative made a gorgeous soap scented with lavender essential oil. Lavender is one of my favorite essential oils - it's so fresh and soothing. Lavender buds adorn the top, and bits of ground lavender are speckled throughout the rest of this pretty purple bar.

Next is a Passionfruit Rose soap by Pure Alchemy Soaps. What a great scent! It has floral and fruity notes, but it also has a touch of earthiness. The pretty burnt orange color of this soap matches the scent beautifully. And there are many luxurious oils and butters in the soap - macadamia nut, avocado, hempseed, and walnut oils; and cocoa, mango, and shea butters.

Left to right: Lemon Verbena /Energy blend by Hilda B., "Heirloom Melon" by Mary S., and Creamsicle (round) by Sarah B.

Summer always makes me think of citrusy scents, and Hilda's soap is just perfect for summer! Her blend of Lemon Verbena and Energy fragrance oils is refreshing and energizing. I smell lots of bright citrus (lemon, lime, grapefruit), with a touch of fruitiness and a splash of champagne. And the little yellow flowers on top of the soap are so pretty!

Summer also means that watermelons are in season! Mary's "Heirloom Melon" is a mix of Watermelon and Pearberry fragrance oils. The scent is a lovely, soft watermelon with hints of pear, apple, peach, and raspberry. And look how pretty the pink and green swirls are!

Know what else summer makes me think of? Ice cream! Remember Creamsicles? Well, Sarah's soap captures the scent of that favorite summertime treat. The Creamsicle fragrance oil smells like sparkling orange blended with warm vanilla. I like the subtle swirls in this round soap.

Clockwise from left: "Whisper" by Amy B., Wake Up Rosemary by Wyldewood Soap Works, and Almond by Lori S.

As I mentioned, I love citrus scents. Amy's "Whisper" soap is scented with Lime fragrance oil, and it is wonderfully sweet and tart. This soap also contains cream, cane sugar, and kaolin clay. Those ingredients sound very luxurious! And the green swirls are so pretty!

Another soap with gorgeous green swirls is Wake Up Rosemary by Wyldewood Soap Works. It appears that perhaps BB no longer carries Wake Up Rosemary, as I can't find it on their website. But I did find a description - the scent is made up of 30% essential oils (peppermint, cornmint, and rosemary) with hints of lavender, eucalyptus, lily of the valley, and musk. And, boy, does it live up to its name - what an eye-opener! This one will be very refreshing in the shower. And it's made with goat's milk, too, which is one of my favorite ingredients. And look how pretty the packaging is!

Lori's soap is scented with Almond fragrance oil. Man, does it smell delicious! It is a strong almond scent with a touch of vanilla sweetness. And I love the rustic look of this bar. Lori wrapped her soap in the handmade crocheted washcloth in the photo above. What a gorgeous way to package a bar of soap while adding a lovely personal touch!

Clockwise from left: Summer Fling by N4you Soaps, Crisp Apple Rose by Abby's Handmade Soap, and "Sweet Tart" by Abundance Soaps

Nyota from N4you Soaps used some sparkly ribbon and a cute little pouch to package her Summer Fling soap. This scent is fruity and floral with a hint of musk. Peaches and raspberries are front-and-center in this fragrance oil, and the pretty peach and purple swirls are perfect for this scent! Yum!

I adore the delicate swirls in Abby's soap! And the scent is fantastic, like a breeze across an apple orchard. Abby used Crisp Apple Rose fragrance oil, and it is a perfect blend of Granny Smith apples and rose blossoms. Abby's soap contains silk, which is an ingredient that I love but have yet to use in my own soaps. I have experienced silk in bars made by others, though, and it is a wonderful addition!

The final soap is a shampoo and body bar from  Abundance Soaps. It is called "Sweet Tart" and is scented with tea tree, patchouli, and pink grapefruit essential oils. I have not tried to make my own shampoo bars, but I am curious about them. This soap contains Rhassoul clay, which is supposed to absorb oils and impurities from skin and hair. Both my skin and hair are oily, so this should be a wonderful ingredient for me! The bar is a beautiful natural creamy color with brown swirls on top. The label is cute, too!

And those are the soaps I got in the swap! Each bar is beautiful and made with love. I am looking forward to trying them all out. A big thank you goes out to everyone who participated, and a big thank you goes out to our friends at Bramble Berry for hosting the swap!

(Psst ... if you are looking for a swap to participate in, Bramble Berry is sponsoring another one this summer. Soaps are due for this swap in August. Check out the details here if you are interested!)

Did any of you join this past swap? What was your haul like? Anyone planning to participate in the next swap?

Castile Soap Revisited

Almost a year and a half ago, I made my first batch of Castile soap. Traditionally, Castile is made with only one oil - olive. Just olive oil, lye, and water. This simple recipe creates a creamy, luxurious bar of soap.

Castile soap benefits from a long cure. Typical soaps are ready to go after about 4-6 weeks, although I think they get better, too, with age. As you can see from this post about my Castile's progress over weeks and months, I wasn't quite sure what to think of it at first. The soap had to sit for quite a while before I started liking it. I wasn't particularly impressed at weeks 6 and 12 - the lather was minimal and slimy. I started to notice a change in the lather around week 18, though. By then, the lather seemed less slippery and a bit more bubbly. After six months, it was even better. And now that the batch is over a year old, it is fantastic. Castile may never have big, fluffy bubbles, but the lather does become creamy and dense over time. (I like to use a  mesh shower poof to help kick up a nice lather.)

Swirling mica/oil drizzled on top.

Because Castile requires a very long cure time and I have only a few bars left from the last batch, I figured that I better make more now so it can sit for a while.

I made this batch with a classic olive oil, lye, distilled water, and essential oils of lavender and peppermint. (I have a difficult time leaving things unscented.) And because the soap recipe is so simple, I decided to jazz things up by attempting a technique that I have been wanting to try for a while now - mica oil swirled tops. To make mica oil swirls, mica is mixed with a small amount of oil, drizzled over the soap, and then swirled. The oil saponifies along with the rest of the soap, leaving the shimmery mica swirls behind.

 Here is a video I made of the process:


I had some challenges with this batch. As you can see in the video, the soap turned out really soft. Even after sitting for a week, it was like prying room-temperature butter away from the mold. I tore the side of one bar trying to slide the side away, and bits of the soap stuck to the bottom. When I made my first batch of Castile, I used a log mold. The soap was soft when I went to cut it, but I don't remember it being as soft as this new batch was.

Could be a couple of things. First, I probably need to do a much steeper water discount with Castile batches. I usually use full water in my regular recipes, with the water being 38% of the oil weight (which gives me a lye concentration of about 27%). For the Castile, I bumped the water down to 33% of the water weight - which, honestly, isn't much - and I think I need to bump it down even more. My first batch did okay at these ratios, although it was a bit soft initially. I don't know why this batch seemed so much more softer. Maybe it didn't gel in the slab mold? I'm not sure that my first batch of Castile gelled, though. I didn't see either batch gel. (I usually peek after insulating and often catch my soap gelling. It's so cool-looking!) Methinks the water is the problem, though. I've been doing some reading and it seems that a lye concentration that's closer to 40%-50% would be better. Regardless, it should still cure into nice, hard bars, especially since I'm going to let it sit for 6-12 months!

I also wonder if the additional oil for my mica swirls had anything to do with it. Probably not, since I used so little oil to mix the micas. I doubt it was enough to dramatically alter the soap.

Overall, I am happy with how this batch turned out, although I wish that my swirls were prettier. I still need some practice with that. But I do like how the oil/mica mixture worked out, leaving the shimmery mica behind on top. It's such a fun and easy way to dress up bars! The mica swirls can give lots of fun color to a bar, or give some personality to a batch that discolors dark brown due to the fragrance oil.


I'm glad that I have another batch of Castile waiting for me! It will still take some time to get through my last batch. And I've got other soaps besides the Castile to use, too! It's always so fun to go into my soap room and pick out a new bar!

Bacon Soap

Yep, bacon soap!

I don't usually eat bacon. I tend to stay away from red meat and pork. Occasionally, I'll eat poultry or seafood. But I remember bacon. And it was good, especially when crisp. Soggy, fatty bacon is disappointing. And gross. But then, life is full of disappointing, gross things. But I digress.

So, anyway, this former bacon-eater was cruising around the Nature's Garden website one day and noticed that they had a bacon fragrance oil. Now, I probably shouldn't be buying fragrance oils because I already have so many that I still need to use. But I couldn't pass up bacon FO. And if I bought 10 one-ounce bottles, I could get 50 cents off each one.

You know where this is headed. I bought a bunch of fragrance oils. But I limited myself to ten and told myself that I had done a very good thing.

Out-of-the-bottle, the bacon FO smells just like frying bacon - smoky and meaty. It kinda reminds me of beef jerky. The scent holds up fantastically in soap, and it is very strong. The soap is sitting on my curing shelf now, and I can smell it from a room away.

I wondered, though, would anyone really want to use bacon-scented soap? Is it a novelty thing?

So, I asked my husband, Ken, "Would you use a soap that smells like bacon?"

"Sure," he said. "I'd use it."

"What if the neighborhood dogs start following you around?"

"That's okay. I like dogs."

Hopefully, we won't be attracting dogs. Especially since I don't need any help attracting dogs - they already love me and they will follow me to the edge of the world. If I charm any more dogs, I'll look like I'm leading a big, slobbering canine parade. They'll follow me home in droves and it will look like Dr. Dolittle up in here.

And how to best convey bacon through soap? I decided to use the tiger stripe technique, figuring that it would give me those wavy lines that you see on bacon strips. To do the tiger stripe, you split your batch into two or more colors and then pour lines of soap down the center of the mold, one on top of the other while alternating colors. For my soap, I lightly colored one portion with brick red oxide and left the other portion uncolored.

I used a recipe that would allow for a nice, slow trace: 45% olive oil, 29% coconut oil, 17% palm oil, 6% avocado oil, and 3% castor oil. The fragrance oil behaved beautifully - no ricing or acceleration, and I had plenty of time to work.

Here is a video of me making the Bacon soap:


I'm very pleased with how it turned out! I tried to use the brick red oxide a little sparingly, and it mellowed into a lovely reddish-pink color. And the fragrance oil discolored the uncolored soap to a perfect bacon-colored light beige.

And the scent is spot-on and sticks very well.

This seems like a guy soap, and I'll bet my dad and brother will get a kick out of it when I take some home soon. I just hope that my brother's dog doesn't eat the soap. Or him.

So whaddaya think? Pretty cool, huh? Have you or would you use bacon soap? Who do you think it would most appeal to?

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?