Orange + Ginger makes a great soap, add orange peel, orange tea and wow!

#orangejuicesoap #gingerjuice #soapchallenge #orangepeel #ginger pulp

Monday, October 12, 2015

It's October and time for us to try another of Amy Warden's Soap Challenges.  This time the challenge is ingredients - we have to use alternative liquids to make this soap!  We have made soap with coffee, and we have made soap with wine, but we wanted to try something different for this challenge.

Alison and I put on our thinking caps and after much discussion, visits to the juice section at our local market, and more discussions, we decided to try orange juice. I grew up in Florida and had orange trees in my yard, and we both love orange juice, but it had never occurred to us to use it in soap!

We picked up about 10 oranges and juiced them for our liquid. Oranges contain about 88% vitamin C, and we knew it was good for us. One of the sites we researched, Style Craze, had an extensive article listing the benefits of Vitamin C for the whole body (we should all be drinking it every day!!).  We were primarily interested in the benefits to the skin which include:  moisturizing, anti-aging, improves skin texture, helps with dark spots and blemishes, rejuvenates dull skin, treats acne.  All these years we've heard an apple a day.....you can add an orange a day to that one!

We juiced a hand of fresh ginger and added the juice to the orange juice.  Once we finished juicing we stick blended the left over ginger pulp into the oils to beef up the benefits of this great spice. We researched the benefits of ginger and were amazed at its goodness.  The Health Site had a great article extolling the benefits of ginger on the skin, they include the following:  a natural moisturizer, known to improve circulation, facial and skin cleanser, anti-aging and helps with acne and blemishes.  Ginger by it's self is full of great properties and both of us decided to start eating ginger much more often. 

The color of the soap is natural orange from the juice and the 5x orange EO we used.  The only other "colorant" we added was Bentonite clay which we mixed using a small amount of Orange spice tea.  We hoped that the clay would give us a dramatic color difference - it didn't, well at least not a dramatic difference.  But our use of dried orange peel did give us a little definition.  We tried using a mortar and pestle to grind the peelings into a fine powder, didn't work.  Then we tried the trusty Cuisinart, didn't work.  What finally did give us a little powder was our coffee grinder.  We sifted the dried orange peel powder between the layers of the soap then did a quick hanger swirl, and that's what gave us our design (we think it looks like prehistoric cave artwork found in France).  We sprinkled the remaining coarser pieces of orange peel on the top of the soap.

We hope you enjoy our video as we put together our Alternative Liquid soap for this month's Challenge.  Once again we've tried something we probably never would have and found it to be interesting and fun.

Final photos of the soap:

12/29/2015

We've had a question regarding how well this soap lathered up 

so tonight I grabbed a bar and fired it up.

Great lather and bubbles and a very silky smooth feeling left on my skin after I rinsed the soap off!

Soaping with Basil Essential Oil

#basilessentialoil #basilscentedsoap #soapexperiments

September 11, 2015

Basil....we both love it in tomato sauce, in a salad, just rubbing our hands on a plant. The smell and taste are intoxicating.  What is our natural progression with basil? Yep, you guessed it - in soap!  

Alison and I took the plunge and bought some Basil Essential Oil from New Directions Aromatics. Out of the bottle it is pretty strong and leaned a little towards Anise or Licorice. The Basil smell is there, it just doesn't smell like the plant in my yard.  Ok, we figure it will probably change somewhat when we make a batch of soap with it, but (isn't there always a but) what to mix it with?

We jumped online and found suggestions on what smells good with basil EO in several places; we made a list of the ones we actually had and then the fun started.

We had bottles of EOs and FOs all over the place,  and we tried all sorts of combinations.

If it was something we kind of liked we used cut up paper towels and dropped scent combinations on them.  1 drop of basil to 2 drops of peppercorn or 2 drops of basil to two drops of peppercorn, honestly it was crazy.

We let the fragrance combos dry out, smelled them again and finally narrowed it down to 4 combinations that we would try in test batches.

We got busy and mixed up our oils and lye/water, mixing to just emulsified, a really, really light trace.  Then we divided the batter into four separate containers; Alison and I both made two batches.

Below we will show you how each scent combination turned out from picking the colors to finished pictures.

We are hopeful that we won't confuse you to much.

Mixed the lye water and oils

First:  Basil & Lemon Verbena

#1 Basil EO mixed with Lemon Verbena FO from +Rustic Escentuals, 

for color we decided on Pistachio and Buttercup Micas also from Rustic.

We figured lemon (yellow) basil (green) duh!

freshly poured into the mold and swirled a bit

24 hours later, yes we had ash

what it looked like after we steamed the ash off

Here are the 4 cut bars. They do have a swirly thing going on, but it sure wasn't what I had planned.

It smells great, but it's a little Basil-heavy. We will wait and see if it morphs out as it cures, but if not we probably won't use as much basil next time.

We put the left over batter in some of our silicone molds to get the butterfly and rose.

Second:  Basil and Peppercorn

#2 is Basil EO mixed with Peppercorn FO

Obviously the Aborigine Amber Mica from +Rustic Escentuals is the brown of the pepper. The Caribbean Kiss Mica (from Rustic) is the, well, we just liked the combination.

Freshly poured, I swirled the inside and then added the remaining soap and did a little foo foo swirl on the top.

After 24 hours, ash again

After we steamed the ash off

And here are the 4 bars of Basil Peppercorn soap

Here are the "overflow" pieces for this one.

I was happy to see my inner swirling kind of worked. It made for an interesting soap.

Third:  Basil, Litsea Cubeba and Tangerine

#3 is a combination of 3 EOs, Basil, Litsea Cubeba from +Lebermuth Co.  and Tangerine from +Bramble Berry.  You are probably wondering, "How in the world did they come up with that combination???" Go back and look at the first picture!

We decided against using the green in this one. There was too much going on, and the soap was thickening too fast.

This is what it looked like freshly poured and after Alison had layered the inside and swirled the top.

Once again ash after 24 hours curing.

And after we steamed and right before we cut it.

Nice bright bars of soap, once again the Basil is the dominant smell. We hope with time it will calm down. 

Overflow batter pieces.

I think it looks pretty even if we skipped the green.

Fourth:  Basil and Clove Bud 

#4 - We went back to two EOs, the Basil mixed with Clove Bud from +Natures Garden, the colors are Moss Green Mica from Nurture Soaps to represent the basil and  Passionata Mica from +Rustic Escentuals to represent the clove bud. 

Alison left some of her batter uncolored and designed her soap with swirling in mind.

Once again ash, easily removed with steam.

How Alison's soap looked after curing 24 hours and after we steamed it.

Beautifully swirled soap.

Once again we discovered that a little Basil goes a long way.  Next time we will use a lot less Basil, but these bars are still lovely and smell terrific.

They will be cured October 23, 2015

Basil - not just for Caprese Salads!

We Try 4 New Scents

#coldprocesssoap #patchoulirain #frenchvanillaoak #havananights #madampresident

#testingnewfragrances

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Over the past year, we have amassed quite a few samples of different fragrance oils that we just haven't gotten around to using yet.  Today was a testing day - yay!  We have so much fun trying new things. The four FOs we tested are scents that we really LOVE, L-O-V-E, straight out of the bottle, so we were eager to see if we would still love them in CP soap.

Back in February we purchased four small silicone molds from +Bramble Berry with the idea that we would use them for test batches. They are the perfect size - 4 x 3 1/2 x 2 3/4 H. 

We have formulated a soap recipe that, when divided evenly into four parts, will contain enough oils for 1 oz of FO in each portion.  Once we reach light trace, we weigh our mixing bucket, then subtract the weight of the bucket to get the total of just the soap batter.  We divided that number by 4 to know exactly how much soap batter we would pour into each portion.

Yay for math!

To make it easier on the eyes we've divided the blog into 4 separate sections, one for each scent. 

Ready?  Here we go!

#1 - French Vanilla Oak is from +Natures Garden. They describe the fragrance as a sensual fragrance of creamy vanilla and warm amber which mingle with oak moss and sandalwood, anchored by patchouli and musk. It sounds like a lot going on, but the blend is quite wonderful. It has a 4.5% vanilla content so we went into it knowing this soap would discolor.  We have made candles with this FO also, and they smell fabulous cold as well as hot.

For the French Vanilla Oak FO, we decided to keep it relatively simple.  We used micas from +Rustic Escentuals: copper sparkle mica and light gold mica.  We left the rest of the batter without any added color so we could see how much it would darken as it cured.  

We poured a small portion of the uncolored batter into the bottom of the mold, then a layer of  batter colored with the copper sparkle, then a layer of the light gold mica colored batter, then topped it with the remaining uncolored batter.

Our curing room is also Kathy's laundry room, and occasionally we have mishaps! And the photo below shows you, well, this is what happens to a bar of soap when it's curing too close to the washing machine.....and, you put a big load of sheets in and accidentally wash the soap with the sheets!!! 

That load of sheets smelled fantastic!

#2 - Madam President is also from +Natures Garden. This has been a favorite fragrance of both of ours since the first time we opened the bottle.  We hope we love it as much after it cures in CP soap!  For this scent, NG has "combined fresh, zesty citrus notes of charisma and charm, balanced out by feminine florals of jasmine, white rose, and freesia. The nuances of brilliant musks and ozonic notes are backed by a respected and humble hint of sweet vanilla; ending with a kind hearted, warm amber base." This FO has .5% vanilla, so we expect it to darken as it cures.

All of the micas for this scent came from +Rustic Escentuals. We mixed a small amount of batter with Arctic White, Bordeaux, and Bewitched mica.  Starting with uncolored batter we layered each color then finished with the remaining uncolored batter.  

The colors we used "almost" seemed patriotic, leaning towards a red, white and blue look.

#3 - Patchouli Rain is from +Rustic Escentuals. RE says the fragrance is "rich, deep, and mysterious. This fragrance oil is a fresh rain and earthy patchouli with notes of lily of the valley, cyclamen, fresh ozone, earthen moss, and hints of sweet citrus."  This is definitely a fresh, sweet, version of a patchouli scent. There is no vanilla, so we could be more creative with our colors on this one.

We used an assortment of blue micas, from +Bramble Berry 1982 Blue Mica (which they don't sell anymore - at least we can't find it when we do a search) and Antique Blue Mica.  And from +Nurture Soap Supplies we used Blue Vibrance Mica.

We pulled out about a 1/2 cup batter for each color and left the remaining batter uncolored.

We poured the colored batter into the mold with no plan then did a quick swirl with a skewer just to give it a little drama.

The colors are pretty together, and the scent is wonderful; we just wished there had been a little more swirling action.

The last batch.....

#4 - Havana Nights is also from +Rustic Escentuals. RE's description says that the FO is "a sultry and provocative blend reminiscent of a hot summer's night in a beautiful, mysterious land. Havana Nights is a spicy floral with notes of spiced citrus, fresh water lily, sensual jasmine petals, cedar, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla, dark musk, and amber."  Out of the bottle, this oil made us long for a beach vacation.  The vanilla content is .98%, so some discoloration might be a consideration.

We used +Bramble Berry Aqua Pearl Mica mixed with +Rustic Escentuals Clementine Pop Mica, both bright vivid colors that would convey the essence of the tropics.

Not so tropical. Unfortunately I (Kathy), after carefully layering in the colors, realized I'd forgotten to add the fragrance oil - big ooopsie.

So the lovely planned swirl went out the window when I mixed the scent into the batter.

Luckily you can still see remnant of a design, so it's not all for nothing. 

And this smell, oh my goodness, it is amazing!

Here is what the four test batches looked like after curing overnight. We had some ash.

We did not experience any acceleration or ricing from these FOs.

Here they are freshly out of the molds.

And once they are cut, nice light colored soaps.

Wait until you see how they looked 2 weeks later.

Not so bright, are they?

The vanilla content rears its darkening head and changes the color somewhat.

They all smell great, and I don't think either of us has a favorite. We want to make larger batches of all of these.

And that definitely isn't what was supposed to happen. We were trying to eliminate some of our fragrance stash....not add to it!

These will be cured and ready to go on Tuesday, October 6.