Soap Lily: Christmas in July? sort of!

July 25, 2014

Either we are crazy or all the new "fall- winter" fragrances and colorants are kicking us into trying new things. In June, Alison was in the community theater play "Christmas Belles," and we have been noticing advertisements in Clarkesville the last few weeks that say, "Christmas in July!"

"Ha!" we said. "It's almost 90 degrees. No way!" But upon the arrival of a box of new fragrance oils, we are joining in the parade and creating soaps that definitely say fall/winter.

We have plenty of lighter spring/summer soap, and even though it's only mid summer, as we all know the holidays will be here in a blink. In the soap making world, if using the CP (cold process) method, the soap must cure for six weeks, and that brings us to September 5th. Yikes! At that point it is only around 111 days till you know what! So, we dove into the fall pool today making two split batches of soap.

Some of the new (and old) colors we used for these scents.

Alison and I decided to use four of the new FO (fragrance oils) that we just received from Fragrance Buddy and Rustic Escentuals, as well as several of the new colorants we bought from Rustic Escentuals.

We decided to make two batches of our almost invincible Old Faithful recipe using the CP (cold process method), dividing each batch into two for four different varieties of soap.

We added titanium dioxide to the batter to keep it as light in color as possible. We know ahead of time that some of these scents have vanilla which tends to turn the soap a little brown.

You can see the TD blending into the batter.

We stick blended the batter until we were at light/medium trace, then divided it in half and added the scents to each.

For some reason we forgot to take pictures of the Sugared Spruce 1/2 batch. I don't really know why except that we were just too preoccupied, I guess.

At any rate we used half of the TD lightened batter and colored it with a combination of the dark green Patina Sheen, Enchanted Forest, and light gold mica sparkle. We layered the colors and did a hanger swirl.

We did remember to take a few pictures of the Amish Harvest batch!

This is the Amish Harvest scent mixing into the batter, I had decided to do a hanger swirl so used only white batter and what you see in the next picture.

This is one of our new colors, Aborigine Amber mixed in a little safflower oil, we added a pinch of mica sparkle to jazz it up a little.

The Sugared Spruce batch is on the top and Amish Harvest on the bottom, here we have just added a layer of the colored batter, which we have be alternating with white.

This is what the Sugared Spruce looked like once it was finished, I had finished swirling and then added the remaining white batter so the top could be "artfully" tweaked.

The is the Amish Harvest batch, but I forgot to do the hanger swirl! We don't think it will make too much of a difference. The soap will still look good, and we know it will smell good.

Alison took over at this point and made two 1/2 batches with the second batch of Old Faithful. The FO's she used were Cranberry Salsa and Harvest Gathering.

Emma "Googled" cranberry salsa for me so we could choose colors that

would at least hint at cranberry salsa. We kept seeing cranberries, of course,

onions (or green onions), jalapenos, cilantro, sometimes cucumber or

celery, and a variety of liquors. We decided to use a cranberry color, an onion yellow color

and then sprinkle hints of green here and there. It did not occur to me until

we had poured the layers that these colors look like

ketchup and mustard.

Kathy and I decided to create layers of the colors and then use the hanger swirl technique. We have gotten a bit attached to that swirling method recently. We alternated the cranberry and onion colors with the white soap batter base.

First the layer of white, then a layer of cranberry.

Next, another layer of white followed by the yellow.

After the yellow, more white,

then a layer with a sprinkling of Enchanted Forest green.

Followed by another layer of white.

Another layer of cranberry (not ketchup!)

Then another layer of onion yellow (not mustard!) topped

off with a layer of white.

Next came some hanger swirling action.

With a final layer of white to top off the swirl.

Kathy gave it a little artistic tweak, and it the Cranberry Salsa was ready to cure.

My second fragrance was the Harvest Gathering. It is a delicious spicy apple blend. When I added the oil to the soap batter, it had a nice autumnal shade.

I wanted colors that had that an autumn feeling. With a fragrance like "Harvest Gathering," the colors had to be right. I used our new micas from Rustic Escentuals as shown below.

Kathy and I lined up the colors so they would be handy for the mica

swirl I had planned for this soap.

As I poured the layers of soap batter, Kathy sprinkled the different mica layers.

We started with the Enchanted Forest green.

After another layer of white, it was time for a layer of

Desert Sunbeam mica.

Next came another layer of white,

followed by a layer of 24 Karat Gold Mica.

That is the name of the color. We cannot guarantee that

the mica is actual 24 karat gold...

Next came another white layer, then Aborigine Amber and

another white layer.

Hanger swirl time!

When I had swirled the mica layers, I put one more layer of white on top, then Kathy sprinkled a mixture of Desert Sunset and 24 Karat Gold on top. We put both of the molds in the curing room until we could unmold them on Monday.

Monday's here!! July 28