A Short Absence

      Hey y'all! I just wanted you to know that I won't be posting for a while. I am not sure for how long but my computer is broken so I either need to get it fixed or more likely get a new one. Today I am just using my phone but I  can't really post (good) photos and long post on a smart phone! So bye for now...... But hopefully not to long!

     (Ps would leave you with a cutepic or something but they are all on my computer, so ya...)

Spring Soap Crafting Club Part II∼ Coffee Ground Soap

     This month's (well May's) soap was the coffee ground soap scented with Turkish Mocha. I have been meaning to make a coffee soap ever since I started making soap but, I had never gotten around to it until now.  I replace five ounces of water with a strong brewed coffee and soaped the rest as normal.

     First thing is this soap has NO COLORANT!  that blackness is from the fragrance and the light brown is from a lesser concentration of the turkish mocha then the black half. I will say I do not like this scent at all it has some of that fake chocolate notes to it, but it looks like I was in the minority. I wish they gave us their new ecpresso scent, but it is not in the book but what are you going to do?

     This soap was super simple, to one half we added a touch of the FO and one Tbs of used coffee ground and to the other half was the rest of the FO. I swirled the divider but ended swirling it to the same position and the with a long skewer I did a few passes across the bar which gives it a similar look to a hanger swirl if you went across the bar(in a typical loaf mold), not up  and down like my last post.

*****Added 7/27/14

Thanks for stopping by and happy soaping!

Hanger Swirl Soap ∼ June Soap Challenge Club

 
Hey guys! today I will be doing a post on my first official soap challenge. Every one and a while I do the the months's design but I have never actually signed up.... Until this month. This month was the hanger swirl, but you could also do the feather swirl. I did the plain old hanger because there was no way I would be able to to a feather swirl under pressure, but one day(probably soon) I will try it. The soap I am showing you today though was not my first try. My first try was a dragon's blood soap that for some reason went faster then usual for me. So the hanger swirl didn't swirl, it does still look pretty cool so I will be doing a post on it next Man Soap Monday.

     Since the 4th of July is coming up very soon (in soapers time) I decided to do a patriotic soap! I had no "Patriotic" scents (but really what is a patriotic scent, apples???). So instead I went for lemongrass essential oil, since I know it doesn't speed up and it still kind of go with the theme. The colors. of course, are red, white, and blue. to achieve the colors I used titanium dioxide, ultramarine blue, and for the red I used a combo if red oxide and electric bubblegum  pigment.

     Now on how I got the look! I spit the batch into 3 about equal portions and colored them their assigned color. then I poured them into less then equal, not so straight layers. I then raked through my modified hanger in up and down, then side to side motions. Then I poured stripes of the extra colors on top, swirled them with a chopstick, and then to complete the soap I added some glitter ('cause what else screams USA).         

                                 

*****Added on 7/27/14

     

Thanks for stopping by and I will update y'all on how I did once I find out!

My First Lotion- a School Paper

 

    Hey everyone! I wanted to do a very quick post on lotion making. You may not know but I am in high school and recently had to do a paper on learning something new and writing instructions for it. I already had Bramble Berry's lotion making kit so I of course decided to learn how to make lotion! I thought I might as well share my paper with y'all but, remember I am no expert at all! So if you have made lotion I would love some feedback on the essay and if you haven't made lotion and want to I highly suggest going to the Point of Interest! blog which is such a wealth of info and where I looked to as a guide in my lotion making journey. Oh! and a very exciting side note is that after about a year and a half homeschooling due to chronic daily headaches I got accepted to a small privite school that I will hopefully attend next year!!!!

Now on to my paper:

PLEASE READ THRU ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE EVEN PREPARING FOR THIS RECIPE

Heated Water Phase (combine these in the ~16 oz Pyrex)
Amount	Ingredients
18 oz	DISTILLED Water

Heated oil phase (combine these in the ~32 oz Pyrex)
Amounts	Ingredients
1 oz	Stearic acid
1 oz	Avocado oil
1.2 oz	Shea butter
1.2 oz	Emulsifying wax (AKA E-wax)
1.7 oz	Sweet almond oil

Cool Down Phase (combine in one of the small bowl/ shot glass)
Amount	Ingredients	Optional
.2 oz	Phenonip (a Preservative)
.1 oz	Fragrance oil or essential oils	X
½ tsp	Mica or liquid color (NOT food coloring)	X

1.     Sanitize all tools that will make direct contact with any ingredients, lotion batter, or the final product (so basically every thing but the scale).

  ***To sanitize put all tools (except for bottles) in the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle. For the bottles spray or put a bit of at least 91% rubbing alcohol in the bottles and swish it around and then place the bottles upside down so the excess alcohol can run out and evaporate.

2.     In the larger Pyrex measure out your ingredients for the heated oil phase  (the ingredients you should put in here are labeled Heated oil Phase in ingredient list). You must do this by weight since fluid ounces are not accurate. Before adding the ingredients to the bowl you may want to measure them out individually in one of the small sanitized bowls before putting it in the larger bowl (because you can’t take away a certain liquid if its already mixed with another)

3.     In the smaller Pyrex (I used a 16oz model) measure out (again by weight) 18 oz of water. It has to be distilled bottled water; the lotion will go bad otherwise. PS, yes the 18 oz of H₂O will fit into the 16 oz Pyrex.

4.     Next you will heat up both the oil and water phase. To do this you will put them in pots half-full of water. The catch is they can’t touch the bottom of the pot. You can put a rack in the bottom of the pot, but I found that if I just hooked the handle over the edge of the pot they will not touch the bottom.

· You will heat them both up  

to 170^o F and then hold 

them at that temperature 

for 20 minutes; this step is called “Heat and hold”.

5.     While you are holding the heat on the oils and water phase, it is time to prepare the cool down phase. It is just as simple as steps 2 & 3, just measure out preservative, fragrance (I used sunny herb garden), and color in one of the sanitized small bowl. The main component of the cool down phase is the preservative. The others are optional. You cannot make a lotion without a real preservative!!! Vitamin E and grapefruit sees extract are not preservatives, they are antioxidants. It is unsafe, if you want an all-natural product you cannot make lotion safely.

6.     After your 20 minutes of holding is up take both Pyrex containers off the heat

7.     Slowly pour the water into the oils. To reduce air bubbles pour the water down the stick blender that is already submerged in the oils.

8.     Now stick blend this for three to five minutes and then let it sit for ten minutes and repeat the process until your lotion is under 122^oF

9.     Once the mixture is below 122^oF add the ingredients labeled cool down in the box above. It is important to wait until the mixture has cooled before adding these because these ingredients are heat sensitive.

10.  Insert the sanitized funnel into the bottles (be sure all the alcohol has evaporated out first) and fill the bottle with the lotion. Repeat this with the rest of the bottles

11.  Finally let the lotion cool to room temperature before adding the tops, which should have also been spayed with alcohol. You now have finished homemade lotion that is ready to use!!

********************************************

     So that is my paper the copy I am sending in has more pictures but I couldn't really get the paper on the blogger format easily but I think we all know what a scale and the ingredients look like, right? I will add a few notes here for just y'all, I used Bramble Berry's sunny herb garden fragrance oil, which is really light in the lotion at .1 oz. The mica I used was apple green from The Conservatorie and to be honest I did not actually measure out the amount I used I just used like half a spoon full or something like that. Well thanks for stopping by and feel free to give me feedback on this tutorial paper I wrote!

Man Soap Monday: Tobacco & Bay Leaf

from papa's tobacco plant last year

 

  I have been looking for a tobacco fragrance for a long time, so when I found thus I was so so happy! You may ask why I wanted a tobacco scent so bad and it is because of my grandfather. Growing up in rural Virginia my grandfather grew up on a tobacco farm. So he spent his time helping out on the farm, he even missed a year of collage because his dad needed help running the farm. Now at age 79 he still every summer gets a single tobacco plant (called the king of the garden) and grows, harvests it the proper way, and cures it, he doesn't do any thing with the cured tobacco he just likes doing so. For my grandfather's birthday I wanted to give him a soap with the scent of fresh/curing tobacco (not burning tobacco). So finally I found the Tobacco and bay leaf FO at Bramble Berry and I ordered it that very day and I am super happy with how it smelt and how turned out so let's hope he likes it too!



     For the colors I was inspired by the different shades of the tobacco plant during the curing process. Using my grandpa's plant as a color guide I chose green, a limey- yellow green and two shades of brown. Next was the design, after really thinking about it I decided on the funnel pour since I have only done it once and it results in beautiful bars. To get the highest contrast I alternated the brown(1) /green(1)/ brown(2) / green(2). Finally as an accent I added a mica swirl on top the actually resembled a gods eye. I started adding rings of mica starting in the center and then when complete with that i pulled the micas in, starting at the edge and ending in the center. After doing that around eight times I started to do the opposite, and in between the existing spires I started at the center and pulled out the mica this time.

Here's are some quick little hints when doing a funnel pour
    1. count out how long you are pouring each color, this will give you more even layers (I counted to three for this batch)
     2. have a steady base elevating  the funnel from the soap AND make sure the bottom of the funnel is above the mold. I use 2 duct-tape card board ring things(you know what I'm talkin about right?) on top of each other.
    3. use high contrast colors to get the most dramatic result! If you chose colors in the same color family it gets you an ombre effect.
     4. last but not least use a slow moving fragrance oil! thick soap clogs up the funnel and the final soap just doesn't seem to as look as good to me.

Thanks for stopping by and look out for more Man Soap Mondays!

Spring Soap Crafting Club Part I: Black and White Soap + a Bonus Soap!

     Hey guys! Sorry it has been a while but the last few weeks have been very busy. Tonight won't be a long post so let's just dive right in!

     So I got my first package from the summer Soap crafting club (for more info on the SCC go here), and I was super excited because it came with Bramble Berry's vertical mold! This months soap soap was simply called the back and white soap (for obvious reasons) and was scented with pepperberry (the white side) and a 50/50 blend of cream cheese frosting and cinnamon sugar (black side). Out of the bottle I didn't think I would like it, the pepperberry smells like something during christmas (can't put my finger on it) and the cream cheese frosting and cinnamon sugar blend smelled like a pumpkin spice cake factory exploded and its fumes bottled. But, after I soaped it this soap smells devine! Even my mother, who hates food scents love the smell of this bar, it is spicy and rich and just oh so yummy! I won't really go into the design today because on Monday or Tuesday I will be posting the making video and you can get all the juicy details on this soap!



     I also wanted to share some pictures of a soap I made with my friend a while back as a little bonus soap since this was such a short post!

     We made this super fast so it isn't my best work but I still like it! The black (well grey) portions are scented with warm vanilla from Wholesale Supplies plus and the gold and black mica is from the Conservatorie. The white portion is unscented so the vanilla content won't discolor it and the little black spots are poppy seed, to represent the vanilla seeds.

     Even though it had been about four weeks after cutting when I took these pictures you can see only the tops have discoloured. I was just wondering if y'all have experienced this because my other soaps brown faster and more evenly then this. A side note on this batch is it will also have a video.... a very interesting video, let's just say it is best for me to soap alone :).

Happy soaping and look out for a new series coming next Monday!

Soaping videos!

    Since I was at the beach with good internet I went ahead and uploaded all the videos of soaps I have already blogged about (and maybe one ore two more, but you will have to subscribe to my channel to see;) ). I am going to do the videos from newest to oldest. I will link the videos to their corosponding blog post , which the videos are now a part of the post. Now I won't make you wait any longer so here are the videos!

Here is the post the goes with the making/cutting video of the summer rain soap.

Here is the post that goes to the making/cutting video of the Georgia O'Keeffe inspired soap

Here is the post that goes to the makingvideo of the tie-dye that seized on me so watch that if you haven't seen a seized soap before.

Here is the post that goes to the making/cutting video of the orange sapphire soap

Surplus Honeysuckle Soap

Hi guys! I am the beach this week and have an old soap I forgot to post to share with y'all. My mom's birthday was in the beginning of April so I made a soap for her 4 weeks early to allow cure (yes I am that late). While I mentioned it I will say the beach is great and I would show you pictures but I left my memory card for the camera at home :(. I will say I haven't been spending much on the beach since I am a red-head and on the first day I got my back totally fried so I am just staying a way from the sun like a little vampire.

 

  So for my mom's special batch I made a batch with one of her favorite scents, honeysuckle. Living in the south and in the country we have wild plants every where, and if you didn't grow up or live down here you may not know that not only do they smell good but every summer we drink that little drop of nectar in the flower and it reminds my mom of her childhood.  I use surplus honeysuckle from BB which smells so good and a bonus it is also very cheap (around $8.50 for 8 oz)! For colors I wanted it to looks like the honeysuckle flowers on the bush so I used green as the base and for the 'flowers' I used three different colors, the off-white and yellow are different shades that the wild (and tasty) flowers  come in, and the red (which was supposed lighter) represents a decretive honeysuckle plant in our garden.

    I used a new technique I thought of, I guess you may consider it kind of a drop swirl?? You can see how I do it in my video (yes I can upload videos at the beach house!), but I will tell you here a brief description of what I did.  So I split off a third of the soap maybe and divided it among three squeeze bottles with and mixed the three flower colors into them and then colored the left over 2/3 soap batter green. I poured the green about a quarter of the way up the mold and then squirted the three colors in an up and motion with three or four passes of each color, and then repeated this method around three more times or until the mold is full. Then on the top T squirted the left over soap in the squirt bottles on top and swirled with a chop stick! I like how this method turned out but I may try it again with a very slow FO because while surplus honeysuckle isn't like really fast it still set up enough so the the accent colors didn't penetrate the green as much as I wanted it to so it left the colors in lines and not distributed throughout the whole bar.

     Here is the making video so you have a better idea of how I did it