Luffa soaps!

[Mouse]

White Tea and Ginger

By mousehouse at 2011-10-04

Energy

By mousehouse at 2011-10-04

 

[Dragonkaz]

Mouse both these soaps look gorgeous ... and the smells sound wonderful!

 

[trishwosere]

Mouse those look amazing! I must ask though how did you incorporate the loofah please?

 

[Mouse]

I used PVC for a mold, slipped the whole luffa into the PVC, and poured the soap right over that.

 

[trishwosere]

I used PVC for a mold, slipped the whole luffa into the PVC, and poured the soap right over that.

Excellent Idea, thank you for sharing

 

[dieSpinne]

I am also curious how did you CUT them? Was your knife serrated? Or was it just a tough cut? Loofah can be pretty fibrous.

 

[Mouse]

It was AWFUL to cut...I think I did use a serrated knife. One thing that I read after the fact was to make sure the luffa is thouroughly damp before inserting it in the PVC, which I didn't do and somehow think it would have made my life easier.

 

[saltydog]

Those look so inviting, i especially like the green one, just perfect!

 

[dixilee]

they look lovely

 

[Soapy Gurl]

Great soap! I did this once in a pringles can and swore never again, lol. Cutting it was horrible, but yours look good, much better than mine. Your soap will shrink inwards around the loofah as it dries, just an fyi.

 

[Mouse]

I actually made these ones for Christmas last year; all of the ones I've posted so far except for the green swirl (that's brand-spanking new) are of soaps I've made in the last year. I'm ramping up production of this year's Christmas soaps, and was looking over stuff I did last year, so I thought I would post photos of some of them, since I'm new to the forum and wanted to share some of my work.
I'll probably post some more photos of what I'm currently working on, since I don't want to post Christmas gifts on Facebook!

I did notice some shrinkage around the green Energy luffas I had left...the white ones didn't last long enough for me to ever know if this happened

Is there shrinkage even if you do a water discount? I don't think I am doing luffas this year; I've been concentrating on swirl techniques, new colors, and matching design to scent. But when I do them again, this would be a good thing to know.

 

[FreeRabbit]

I do LOTS of lufah soaps they are a big hit, I pre-cut the lufah to soap size pieces otherwise it's hell to cut, then I pour small amount of soap in the mold, arrange the lufah pieces (on the soap "glue") and pour the rest of the soap on every lufah piece to make sure the little lufah holes will be filled with soap and there won't be air bubbles

 

[Mouse]

I got the idea from this lady:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2BoN9y/bi ... orial.html

I can't find the original blog posting. I'm not sure she makes soap anymore at all; her etsy shop is closed. She really inspired me a lot when I first started my soaping journey-especially her gorgeous anise soaps. And her website is beautiful. I liked her idea of using uncut loofahs stuffed in a PVC; it's kind of a PITA to cut, but for some reason it sounds like more of a pain to pour soap into individual molds over individual looafahs

Mine didn't turn out as pretty as hers, though...

 

[FreeRabbit]

I've seen/ did more messing around with soaps without lufah so I don't mind the extra trouble, also when I didn't do it and left bigger pieces of lufah- the cuts never came out the way I wanted them and since I'm a perfectionist I prefer my system

 

[Soapy Gurl]

At that point I was soaping with the standard water discount soapcal gives, I now do 25%. I got major shrinkage. I think a water discount will help.

How do you find the proper place to cut the pre-cut pieces?

 

[Mouse]

It don't pre-cut; the pre-cuts would be impossible to find. I just slide the whole luffa into the PVC and cut bars with a very sharp knife.

 

[Maythorn]

Nice work and I love those scents! Did they both come from Brambleberry? I would really like to try making a loofa soap one day. Very pretty.