What soapy thing have you done today?

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Today I managed to score 1 - yes - ONE piece of banana, that wasn`t dark lime-green....

50 pounds of banana in a tiny grocery isle and only one was yellow. I grabbed it before anyone else did. It will go into a test-batch of banana soap in a few days, after it has ripened a bit more and ready to turn into banana milk (regular milk or goat milk, haven`t decided yet.)

Not very exiting, soap wise, but at least I got a banana in the house now (Yay!)
 
Today I managed to score 1 - yes - ONE piece of banana, that wasn`t dark lime-green....

50 pounds of banana in a tiny grocery isle and only one was yellow. I grabbed it before anyone else did. It will go into a test-batch of banana soap in a few days, after it has ripened a bit more and ready to turn into banana milk (regular milk or goat milk, haven`t decided yet.)

Can't wait to hear how your banana milk soap works out. Sounds really interesting!
 
Yesterday's efforts:
1. Facial bar with green clay for my daughter
2. Some embeds for more soaps, and some samples from leftover batter
3. My eucalyptus soap with a zigzag freehand swirl - I keep messing this one up lately - soap has been soft and colours weird
4. My poor attempt at creating a heart-shaped berry design - I'll keep practising - I used 50:50 rosemary and spearmint for the first time and ... I think I'm in love!
5. Cucumber melon - I tried Swampy's swirl but my colours are a bit on the light side - first time using yellow clay as a colourant

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Made a batch of honey beeswax soap. First time doing honey to lye water method. Doesn't seem to gel although insulated (usually I don't even have to insulate this recipe to get full gel). It is slightly warm now I'm worrying of partial gel :think: maybe I should pop into oven? Maybe not :???:

Grrr! Let it be...partial gel can look nice too...rite?
 
Today I managed to score 1 - yes - ONE piece of banana, that wasn`t dark lime-green....

50 pounds of banana in a tiny grocery isle and only one was yellow. I grabbed it before anyone else did. It will go into a test-batch of banana soap in a few days, after it has ripened a bit more and ready to turn into banana milk (regular milk or goat milk, haven`t decided yet.)

Can't wait to hear how your banana milk soap works out. Sounds really interesting!

I will take pictures when it is done, and some after to see how it turns out. I would suspect it will turn a bit brown after a while. After all, bananas turn dark quite quickly. It`s like their job or something... : P
 
Three more soaps today:
1. I did a mix of 1:1:1 - BB's Frankincense & Myrrh FO, BB's Cinnamon Sticks FO and Mandarin EO. Oh my gosh it smells awesome.
2. Think I'll call her "Urban Rose" - BB's White Rose - it's upbeat, fresh and citrussy - first time using a long embed, can't wait to cut it
3. First time using activated charcoal, I think it may turn out grey rather than black even though I thought I used a lot. The top is soda ashy but I'll wash that off. It also has an embed - round with a red/yellow swirl hopefully. Sandalwood, Patch & Orange - one of my favourite combos - very sexy.

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I used a bar of my very first soap in the shower today. It's 1 year 5 months old and was lovely! The lather was big and fluffy and I can still smell the FO.

This soap was a nightmare! It riced on me so had to google to find out how to fix it! Ended up HPing it to bring it back together. It was also before I knew that too much coconut wasn't a good thing so it was 30%, the long cure it's had has made it a much nicer bar.
 
I tried the alkanet layers bar from the Brambleberry book on using natural colorants. Scented with lavender and fennel. I'm a big fan of eating licorice, but not sure how much I want my hands to smell like licorice. I may find another use for all that alkanet root powder left on the shelf. That's a lemon meringue pie soap in the background to amuse my grandson.

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I tried the alkanet layers bar from the Brambleberry book on using natural colorants. Scented with lavender and fennel. I'm a big fan of eating licorice, but not sure how much I want my hands to smell like licorice. I may find another use for all that alkanet root powder left on the shelf. That's a lemon meringue pie soap in the background to amuse my grandson.

Oooh, I love how that turned out! Would love to know how you got those thin jagged lines of black to cross over. Looks complicated, probably way outside my skill set, but one can always dream.....
 
Oooh, I love how that turned out! Would love to know how you got those thin jagged lines of black to cross over. Looks complicated, probably way outside my skill set, but one can always dream.....

Not at all. It's very easy to do. Tilt the mold (I used wooden handle of my soap cutter for my 10" silicon loaf mold) and fill with the white soap batter then switch the wooden handle to other side to tilt the opposite way and fill with the blackish batter. Then I sprinkled a thin bit of dry alkanet root powder over the entire top. Repeat. I've done pencil lines with paprika and tumeric but you have to be careful with what you use as sometimes they can be irritating if you use to wash your face. Be careful how much powder (whether herb or mica) in your layer. Too much and you cause a separation barrier between soap layers.
 
I guess I joined the big leagues. I decided to assign lot numbers to all of my soaps. I did this after I wrapped some soaps and labeled them. Thanks snappyllama for the packaging and labeling inspiration.

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Second edit: I may have to rethink my lot number logic. I decided to make it simple, the date followed by the first three letters of the fragrance I use (in this format: YYYYMMDDFRA). That shouldn't be a problem right? Yeah. Unless my fragrance oil happens to be "Pooch Smooch." Tomorrow's soap is going to be "20160426POO." I'm sure everyone's gonna want a piece of that action!!

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Not at all. It's very easy to do. Tilt the mold (I used wooden handle of my soap cutter for my 10" silicon loaf mold) and fill with the white soap batter then switch the wooden handle to other side to tilt the opposite way and fill with the blackish batter. Then I sprinkled a thin bit of dry alkanet root powder over the entire top. Repeat. I've done pencil lines with paprika and tumeric but you have to be careful with what you use as sometimes they can be irritating if you use to wash your face. Be careful how much powder (whether herb or mica) in your layer. Too much and you cause a separation barrier between soap layers.

Thanks so much---that explains it. Must try soon!
 
I cut my soaps from yesterday. Using ACV as the liquid is a huge help. I also wet my cutter when I cut through them. That gave me clean cuts. I do have to buy a different cutter though. I've got the one from Hobby Lobby and I've noticed that it is warped a little bit. I need to get something that is more heavy duty. My soaps are bowed on one side and bulging on the other. They look like I was drunk when I cut them. Although, that's kind of an improvement over the previous cuts...

The batches both turned out very nice. I was really surprised at the cannabis flower and hemp oil one since it was such a disaster when I made it. However, I definitely won't be purchasing that fragrance again unless someone specifically requests it. To me, it smells like dead shrimp. My curing room stinks. Wow, yesterday I was annoyed that I didn't have enough fragrance oil and I couldn't smell it at all. Boy, I miss yesterday...

I've got to go open the window. I really hope this fragrance changes or morphs into something nice as it cures. It did not stink like dead shrimp OOB. If it had, I would not have soaped with it.
 
I've dubbed this week my official soap week. Hubs knows I'm not worrying about cooking (too much). It's on, soap!

Made a double batch of salt bars and a double batch of shampoo bars. De-beaned a bunch of vanilla beans for scrubs. Cut two previous double batches.
 
This week, I rebatched a huge soap fail and have it curing so that it can be grated up into laundry soap eventually. I also went on a long-awaited shopping spree! Money was so tight most of last year. I got a promotion to management at work and my handsome fellow got a job in his field immediately after graduation so we celebrated by doing a little shopping. :)

I splurged for several more bright, soap stable micas in ounce jars, a mold loaf with dividers, a small silicone pan mold that I can use as a tiny slab mold for now, two round silicone cake pan molds so that I can make cake and pie soaps, a silicone lace mat, the Scientific Soapmaking book, the Cosmetic and Soap Labeling book by Marie Gale (the exact proper title slips my mind at the moment).....and ...I think that is it, soapwise.


My books are here, and I have been slowly gathering all the supplies needed in the SS text and devouringvthe books while I impatiently wait for my other toys to arrive. I am really excited to try to make pie soap.
 

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