I trimmed and labelled some soap today.
Strawberry Kiwi. Lovely fresh fragrance, lovely fresh colours.
Lavender Vanilla – do you like the flying-seagull shape the swirl in the top soap formed? I used the Brambleberry Black Amber Lavender fragrance oil for this one, and swirled in some unfragranced blue soap (because any vanilla-containing fragrance oil will discolour to brown – as you can see.)
Mulled Honey, an unfragranced uncoloured soap with hempseed oil and honey added.
Choconilla! Dark Rich Chocolate and Warm Vanilla Sugar fragrance oils in the dark brown layer, with cocoa for colour. The top layer is unfragranced, and has vanilla bean paste added.
Fruit tingle! This fragrance oil is strangely called ‘Ginger Fish’, but it smells for all the world like effervescent Fruit Tingles. A little orange ultramarine added for colour.
Baileys soap, a Mother’s Day special. This soap has vanilla-sugar fragrance and a little chocolate fragrance, Irish Whiskey, cream, and milk. Edible.
Juniper Bay: a dragon soap with juniperberry and bay laurel essential oils. Herbally-green.
I also put together a little photo tutorial on rebatching soap trimmings, at my livejournal.
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Okay that is IT. I NEED to learn how to make soap. Yours look positively edible. 😀
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Yum yum. That strawberry kiwi soap looks good enough to eat.
@ Anji
SNAP!
OMG they are yummy! literally mouth watering.
Do you sell the soaps Lauredhel?
Those are so beautiful.
I always wanted to learn how to make soap when I was a kid, but my parents didn’t really have the time or resources to teach me (which would have required them to learn for themselves, of course).
Do you sell these at markets?
They look gorgeous Lauredhel, I can practically smell them through the screen!
I don’t sell. For lots of reasons, including low volume, the fact that I’m not up to the activity involved, and all the legal restrictions and enormous set-up costs. I make for home use and gifts.
Beautiful work. I like the idea of the mulled honey, the choconilla and kiwi ones.
Yum…I didn’t know you were still making soaps?
That’s a wonderful skill to have. Do you have a favourite kind of soap you like to make?
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Cold process soap, occasionally with a little cool oven boost at the end just to force it through gel (never for milk or honey soaps, which heat themselves!). I can do melt and pour bars, too – interesting for added effects or for the odd shiny/transparent/embedded bar, but I don’t like the product anywhere near as much as CP.
I’m an olive oil soaper: olive oil component varies from 50-100% in my soaps most of the time. The rest, if any, is made up mostly with hard and luxury oils: usually coconut (usu 20-35%), sometimes some rice bran oil or macadamia oil, and a smaller component (usu 10-15%) of varying amounts of shea butter, mango butter, cocoa butter, avocado butter or oil, hempseed oil, apricot kernel oil, other bits and pieces. I’ve experimented with castor oil up to 5% for lather, which some people swear by, but I don’t like it. I occasionally throw in a bit of canola or something if it’s a large batch and I need a bit of fill. I used to use palm oil as part of the hard-oil component, but I don’t any more. And I really dislike soaps with a high level of palm/coconut – they’re cheap (these are the usual soaps you’ll find at markets), but I find them a bit drying and unpleasant to my skin. (YMMV.)
Is that what you meant?
For some really interesting soaping techniques, check out this Butterflies in the Mist soap tute, and the other stuff on Nizzy’s site.
I’m kinda the same way with coffee – I roast for home use, for work and to give to friends – even to trade for like products on occasion, but turning it into a business would take the fine out of a fine hobby. Those soaps look like a very fine hobby indeed.
If you’re ever in need of coffee I’d happily trade for soap!
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Oh, Grendel, I’ve been meaning to buzz you about the pandan contact you have. If your contact might be willing to trade plants for soap, maybe I could spot you a finder’s fee! I’m lauredhelhoyden at gmail, if you want to drop me a line.
If my pandan were pupping right now I’d offer you the shoot gratis, the contact I have can get more, but not until they pup next spring – sadly.
Grendel: next spring is fine – I can wait!
Truly beautiful, Lauredhel. I love to see how creativity manifests itself in different folks.
I especially love the mulled honey pic–available in bar, woman or pterodactyl form!
Oh, these look so lovely!
Handmade stuff always seems so decadent and lovely. My utopian daydreams often involve a world based on crafty people bartering items they made to each other.
The kiwi-strawberry looks positively amazing!
I make for home use and gifts.
I like making for gifts too, ‘though in my case it tends to be homemade sweets and pickles for end-of-year gifts for the children’s teachers, and anyone else we want to just touch base with. Partly it’s an expense thing, but partly it’s because a made-gift is both much greater, and much less threatening than bought gifts can be. It doesn’t seem to put the same reciprocity pressure on other people.
Having said that, there have been some years when I’ve just been too frantic at work to spend time making, so I’ve bought instead. And usually, bought lovely soap! Because it’s a little treat, and often not the sort of thing that people buy for themselves, but something they like to have. Well, that’s how I feel about it. ‘Though clearly my elder daughter has picked up all these ideas; last week she came home from a trip to the Adelaide hills with a little cake of lavender soap for me. I have it on top of my dressing table, where I sniff it from time to time, and sooner or later, I will start using it.
Lauredhel @12 – The sort of thing I meant was whatever occured to you so, yes, that is the sort of thing I meant. 🙂
Yes, like everyone else, I think those soaps look delicious. I reckon I can almost smell them…
Just. Gorgeous.
And such variety–a smell and color for every mood and season!
They are all so beautiful I couldn’t even pick a favorite.
I like to make my own shampoo, face wash, body wash, skin creams, etc. But the only soaps I have done have been melt-and-pour.
SKM: How do you make your face and body washes?
I haven’t been brave enough to make creams and lotions yet, only anhydrous body butters (no preservative system required). They’re great hair treatments, too.
SKM: How do you make your face and body washes?
I think I’ll do a post about this, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it today. When I do I’ll leave you a link. A quick tip: the easiest way to do a nice gentle facewash/bodywash is to take “natural” aloe vera gel (the kind from a health food or vitamin store) and add a surfactant, about 2 ml per 30 ml aloe gel. The gel should have some preservative already, so it’s very simple. You can add fragrance/color or not, as you wish.
Good sulfate-free surfactants include decyl glucoside and cocamidopropyl betaine; you can read about how to use them here at the Snowdrift Farm info pages.