Right off the bat, sorry for the pic quality, I ran the battery down in the real camera and had to use my phone because I was too impatient to let the camera charge. 
My first batch turned out to be a homely dog-poo shade of brown and it reeks of too much cinnamon, so it's destined to become shavings and curls to add to later batches. No pics of it.
The second batch was goat milk, honey, and oatmeal (I read about using baby oatmeal here, and decided to use that to keep it from being too scratchy). I was nervous about the milk, but it went really well, no gross smells or colors, so I think it came out okay.
The bubble wrap "honeycomb" didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to, I think I'll try the itty bitty micro bubble wrap next time, just to see how it looks. That one is scented with ginger, orange, and a tiny bit each of clove and cinnamon EOs, plus I added just a little bit of ground cinnamon at trace. It smells a little bit like gingerbread to me.
The third batch just came out of the mold an hour or so ago, and I'm so happy. It's the batch that started to crack in the mold, but it turned out okay in spite of that. The crack pretty much sealed itself back up and is only faintly visible on top of a couple of the bars. Most of the batch went into a wood loaf mold, and the rest went into a Pringles can since I read about people using them on here. I looove the round bars!
The rectangular bars aren't horrible, but I definitely need to work on my cutting skills and/or buy a cutter, or at very least a miter box to help me keep the cuts straight.
I'm hoping I didn't get too carried away with the poppy seeds, and that they're not too scratchy. I saw recipes calling for 1 tablespoon per pound of oils, and added a little bit less than that to my batch.
That one's coconut milk, which caused my learning experience about overheating, and has orris root powder in it to see if that helps the EOs "stick". I've read that some people swear by it and others say it doesn't work, so decided to give it a shot. I put a tiny bit of spirulina powder in it, hoping for a light green color, but I'm afraid I didn't add enough. I was trying to avoid the really dark green color I've seen pics of, but I'll know next time to add a little more. It has lime and lemongrass EOs in it, at about a 2:1 ratio, I adore lime but thought that it might be nicer with a bit of lemongrass, and I really like how it smells so far.
Now for my question, all of the bars have sort of a faintly grainy texture along the cut edges, nothing drastic but it's definitely not the pristine smooth and glossy finish I see in a lot of soap pics. Is that something that's maybe caused my my lack of cutting equipment and expertise? I'm using a dough cutter/bench scraper for now, so I don't know if that's contributing or if it's something else entirely. Since the whole temperature control thing is still hit-or-miss, I wondered if maybe that's part of it, too.
In any case, those are my first presentable soaps. I still have a looong way to go and a ton to learn, but this is so very exciting and fun, it feels more like play than learning.
My first batch turned out to be a homely dog-poo shade of brown and it reeks of too much cinnamon, so it's destined to become shavings and curls to add to later batches. No pics of it.
The second batch was goat milk, honey, and oatmeal (I read about using baby oatmeal here, and decided to use that to keep it from being too scratchy). I was nervous about the milk, but it went really well, no gross smells or colors, so I think it came out okay.
The bubble wrap "honeycomb" didn't turn out quite how I wanted it to, I think I'll try the itty bitty micro bubble wrap next time, just to see how it looks. That one is scented with ginger, orange, and a tiny bit each of clove and cinnamon EOs, plus I added just a little bit of ground cinnamon at trace. It smells a little bit like gingerbread to me.
The third batch just came out of the mold an hour or so ago, and I'm so happy. It's the batch that started to crack in the mold, but it turned out okay in spite of that. The crack pretty much sealed itself back up and is only faintly visible on top of a couple of the bars. Most of the batch went into a wood loaf mold, and the rest went into a Pringles can since I read about people using them on here. I looove the round bars!
The rectangular bars aren't horrible, but I definitely need to work on my cutting skills and/or buy a cutter, or at very least a miter box to help me keep the cuts straight.
I'm hoping I didn't get too carried away with the poppy seeds, and that they're not too scratchy. I saw recipes calling for 1 tablespoon per pound of oils, and added a little bit less than that to my batch.
That one's coconut milk, which caused my learning experience about overheating, and has orris root powder in it to see if that helps the EOs "stick". I've read that some people swear by it and others say it doesn't work, so decided to give it a shot. I put a tiny bit of spirulina powder in it, hoping for a light green color, but I'm afraid I didn't add enough. I was trying to avoid the really dark green color I've seen pics of, but I'll know next time to add a little more. It has lime and lemongrass EOs in it, at about a 2:1 ratio, I adore lime but thought that it might be nicer with a bit of lemongrass, and I really like how it smells so far.
Now for my question, all of the bars have sort of a faintly grainy texture along the cut edges, nothing drastic but it's definitely not the pristine smooth and glossy finish I see in a lot of soap pics. Is that something that's maybe caused my my lack of cutting equipment and expertise? I'm using a dough cutter/bench scraper for now, so I don't know if that's contributing or if it's something else entirely. Since the whole temperature control thing is still hit-or-miss, I wondered if maybe that's part of it, too.
In any case, those are my first presentable soaps. I still have a looong way to go and a ton to learn, but this is so very exciting and fun, it feels more like play than learning.
