The 3rd and 4th batches of soap are scented using two of the sample size fragrance oils we bought from +Natures Garden. We both think the scents lean toward the masculine rather than feminine, so we will market them to men. We have really been wanting some great manly scents, and we are excited about how these smell. Too bad they won't be ready for Father's Day.
As you can see from the picture below, the first scent is Cool Water Type; the Natures Garden description is:
"Compare Natures Garden's Cool Water Type fragrance oil to the famous cologne for men. Cool Water is classified as a refreshing, spicy, lavender, ambery fragrance. This masculine scent possesses a blend of lavender, jasmine, oakmoss, musk and sandalwood."
Neither of us was familiar with "the famous cologne for men", but we did want to have some soap for men, and this scent sounded good.
We mixed the aqua pearl and 1982 blue micas from +Bramble Berry to get our color.
The fourth batch was a no brainer, with a name like Total Hot Man it had to be used in our manly soap. The description from +Natures Garden says:
"This fragrance oil by Natures Garden is the confident, enticing aroma for today's modern man. This fragrance is centered around a note of patchouli, balanced by fresh sage, crispy green notes, and freshly sliced mango; all sitting on base notes of earthy sandalwood and tonka bean."
We were looking for a "manly" color, so we decided on a Copper Sparkle mica from +Bramble Berry. We are not sure how manly it will look, but we were shooting for a fiery hot color to go with Total Hot Man.
Since we were using the Old Faithful recipe we mixed palm, olive, coconut and castor oils with the lye/water mix, the batter mixed quickly and as soon as we had a hint of a trace we divided the batter in fourths.
Kathy used two measuring cups for the Cool Water batch
And Alison used the soap pot and a measuring cup for the total hot man batch
We did things a bit differently this time and put the colorant right into the batter, we tried this method rather than pre-mixing the mica with oil as we have been doing.
This is the copper sparkle before Alison mixed it in to the batter.
Since we wanted to make this an in the pot swirl, we had to work fast, almost simultaneously.
Alison randomly poured the mixed copper sparkle batter back into the soap pot batter.
This is what it looked like once all the copper sparkle was added back to the batter in the soap pot.
Alison begins to lightly swirl the copper sparkle, we didn't want much mixing, just a tiny bit.
Now the copper sparkle is poured into the mold, you can see the swirl effect as Alison pours it in.
Meanwhile, Kathy is working on the cool water batch, unfortunately this batch was thickening a little faster than the copper sparkle did.
I tried to do the in the pot swirl, but soap was getting almost too thick, sometimes a specific scent will accelerate the tracing and make the batter thicken much faster.
It was really getting thick and became difficult to swirl, so I just poured it anyway.
This is what the batches looked like once we had tweaked the tops. We quickly squirted them with alcohol and put them in the curing box with the Vert and Kai batches we'd done earlier.
When we added the man soaps to the curing box, we noticed the first soaps were transforming. You can especially see it in the one on the top R that looks like it's turning deep beige. That is the soap going through one of the curing stages called gelling.
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It's now Wednesday and we have cut all of the 4 batches, Kai and The Vert are described on another post. Total Hot Man and Cool Water are shown in this post.
Nice isn't it? The swirling is perfect and even though it looks a little pink in the picture, it does have more of a coppery shade in person.
I present Total Hot Man soap!
We forgot to take a picture of the Cool Water soap log, so we took a random shot of the soap right after we cut it. Even though it was somewhat hard to pour, it looks good and smells great.
You can see the difference between taking a picture inside (fresh cut shot of soap) and this one, the soap is a nice combination of blue.
And smells as "cool" as it looks.
All four of these soaps will be cured in 6 weeks.
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