Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Today both of us went non stop. Alison had the thankless job of catching up on cost calculations, information we need, but she had no fun sitting at a computer for 6 hours.
While Alison slogged away at the calculations, I put together two batches of HP soap.
Both of today's soaps, Orange Rosemary Goats Milk and Peace Out, Man! (Cannabis Flower & Sweet Patchouli) were very popular at our last show, so we are replenishing our supply for the Unicoi Wine Fest coming up in a couple of weeks.
I started the batches about 30 minutes apart so I would have time to get the first batch in the mold before the next one finished cooking.
Starting with the Peace Out, Man!
We are using the same color combination as we did on the first Peace Out batch, Ultramarine Pink and Fired up Fuchsia from +Bramble Berry , and for a bit of sparkle Icicle Mica from www.rusticescentuals.com.
We mixed the colors in a tablespoon of safflower oil
which looked like this when mixed (sorry it's a little blurry)
The fragrance in Peace Out, Man! is a combination of FO's from +Natures Garden.
Cannabis Flower, described as "shimmering green fern and cannabis notes unfold
to reveal a rich floral accord of violet and gardenia in this fantasy scent. A warm
blend of cashmere wood surrounds the floralcy, while sensual undertones
of musk and golden amber soften the scent from within."
With the Cannabis Flower we mixed Sweet Patchouli which NG describes as " an
earthy blend of Patchouli and Green Grass intertwined with Fresh Lavender and
hints of licorice with crisp notes of menthol softened by amber."
.
Oh boy, does this smell gooooooood!
We decided to add TD to the batter.
We hope it will lighten the batter a little and give us better definition with the colors.
We added the FO's to the batter, mixed them in really well, then removed about half the batter.
We add the mixed pink color to the batter remaining in the crock.
Adding the TD helped, the batter is a bright pink.
Now we add the reserved batter back to the pink and mix gently. We want the difference in colors to show up.
Perfectly blended
It may look like solid pink in the photo, but in person we can see
the lighter and darker colors.
Peace Out Man ready to cure for 24 hours.
Now on to batch number 2....
The Orange/Rosemary batch has 6 tablespoons of powdered Goats Milk mixed
into 3 ounces of distilled water. I placed the mixture into the freezer until
the soap finished cooking.
I cut up about 1/2 ounce of Tussah silk to dissolve it in the lye/water. I then added it to the oils (coconut, sweet almond, Castor, palm kernel flakes, olive, and avocado).
This recipe also calls for 1 TBSP honey mixed with 2 1/2 ounces of warm water. We always try to use local honey & no, Alison does not have bee hives. The name was coincidental.
The marvelous aroma in this soap comes from a mixture of EOs (essential oils) from +Lebermuth Co.
We knew the orange would color our batter a soft yellow/orange color.
A huge issue with using these two EOs in HP soaps is the Flash Point. One was 43C the other 49C (around 125F); that is really cool for HP soap.
To give our soap a hint of rosemary green, we added just a little bit of Enchanted Forest Mica from www.rusticescentuals.com
We mixed 1/2 tsp. into 1 tablespoon of safflower oil.
Once it was mixed we had that beautiful shimmer in the mixture.
Since we are all about shimmer, we added 3/4 tsp. of +Natures Garden Diamond Dust Mica to the base of the soap. We hope it will give the soap an extra dimension when cured.
Once the soap was finished (1-1/2 hours) we added the
honey/water to the batter and mixed it in.
Next I got the frozen Goats Milk from the freezer and added it
to the batter to help cool it down.
I removed about a cup of batter, unscented, and mixed the Enchanted Forest mica.
When the batter had cooled down enough, we added the Orange and
Rosemary EOsto the white portion of the soap.
Once the EOs were thoroughly mixed, we added the green (unscented) batter back in to the soap and swirled it gently.
If you look closely you can see the green swirls in the soap.
It represents the rosemary.
I slammed it and packed it down to (hopefully) prevent air bubbles.
One last pat and it was ready to cure 24 hours.
After scraping both bowls we have 2 bonus chunks of soap, great to use as testers.
The soap will be ready to remove from the molds on Wednesday.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Orange-Rosemary Goats Milk was ready to come out of the mold.
What a pretty loaf of soap!
And now several shots of the slices...
The fragrance of this soap is amazing
Next, we took the Peace Out, Man! from the mold. The bars are really beautiful, and the scent is almost intoxicating. We may need some Twinkies...
The Orange-Rosemary Goats Milk and the Peace Out, Man! will
be ready to use in one week.
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