Love These.....

There is something I love about these gorgeous new soaps from Future Primitave. These really caught my eye as I was looking at the Future Primitive Blog and I just wanted to share them.



The colours, texture and the lush ingredients, including unrefined shea butter (Mmmmm), scented with sweet orange, cardamom, ylang and cedarwood are fantastically and cleverly combined to produce this beautiful soap. I particularly love the topping how the colours and textures merge. Beautful :o)

Soap For Breakfast & The Best Of British

How exciting!! SoapyChica gorgeous Royal Crown soap has been included in an article featuring a range of British products. Well deserved SoapyChica. Royal Crown is just one work of art out of a whole range of visually perfect, stunning soaps.

Also, one of the members on The Melting Pot forum, from Saltwell Soap have put up a wonderful video, Hot Process Soap - The Really Quick Way, that is brilliant to watch. It is cleverly filmed in quick time, so the video is short, sweet and really interesting to watch all the stages in quick succession. Oh please go and have a look if you get a moment, it is great!!

Project Two (Day Two): Citrus & Spice Swirl (Cold Process)

After a pretty good success from my M&P experience, I was all fired up that evening in preparation for my CP experience. I had asked for some last minute advice/tips on the forum that night then set about looking for soap recipe. I eventually found one which was both too large and needed converting to metric.

So I halved the quantity and converted the measurements so, as I thought, I was all good to go the next morning. I must admit, I asked for the advice rather late the night before and got on task early the next morning so, as far as I was aware, no last minute tips to help get me on my way.

So, here is the recipe (the cinnamon swirl and the colouring was something I added in myself, as are the essential oils used + there was a bit of exchanging one ingredient for another)…

188ml Apricot kernel

157g Coconut oil

127ml Macadamia oil

86g Mango butter

100g Shea butter
71g Palm oil

190ml Sunflower oil
285ml Water (which I had brewed 2 Earl Grey tea bags in to colour the water)
120g Lye

The bit I added…

1st essential oil blend – 5 ml tangerine, 1ml mandarin, 2ml grapefruit, 1ml lemon
2nd essential oil blend – 2ml nutmeg, 3ml cedarwood
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Red wax crayon, black wax crayonI pulled up the tutorial that the Fee Fairy kindly put together on my computer screen so that I could keep making reference to it should I need to (it was my comforter)

I weighed out all the ingredients and cleared away any excess bottles & washed up any utensils used (I like to be organized)

With all the oils in a stainless steel bowl and a saucepan of hot water ready to go, I left these to one side while I set about preparing the lye, the bit I was dreading
I took the scales outside and got an old pot to weight the lye into(I also covered the scales surface in case any granules spilled over). My water I had prepared much earlier with boiled spring water and two tea bags, let it brew then set the bowl outside to cool (I did have to pop it in the fridge for a little while)

With the water at about room temperature and the lye weighed and ready (ooh, and me wearing thick rubber gloves and a mask – I looked gorgeous), I added the lye carefully to the water, keeping my face slightly turned away. I stirred carefully and before long, the steam began to rise in the cool morning air. Do you know, I didn’t get one whiff of the fumes at all!
When satisfied the lye was fully dissolved, I took the spoon used to mix it and ran it under the hose outside and left it outside for the time being. I then went inside to begin heating the oils (leaving the lye to cool outside)

When the oils had melted I fetched the lye in ready to add to the oils. I had intended to get them bnoth at around 65 degrees C but the oils were something like 75 degrees and the lye had cooled so much it was at about 55 degrees. I was tempted to cool the oils (in a bowl of cold water) but this would take time and the lye was cooling all the time. I wasn’t sure whether it mattered how cool the lye got or whether it could be heated again, I just went ahead and added the lye to the oils and got the stick blender in there.

I did intermittent power on, power off but after about five minutes, it started to look quite thick and did leave a ‘trace’. But I had heard about a false trace so I then went on to hand mix for the rest of the mixing period rather than blend with the stick blender. I was right, there was a clear trace. I did however add the essential oils at this point.

When it reached trace, I realized that I wanted to do the swirl but the mixture was far too cool to melt the crayons (yes I said crayons, I heard that these can be used and since I had no other colour pigments, they would have to do). So poured most of the mixture into the mould (which, and I know now that I made mistake here, was unlined – it was a non-stick teflon coated loaf tin I bought the day before – its all I could find the day before and would have preferred a SS one so sorry).

I saved some mixture back and quickly got another pot to melt the crayons in on the double boiler. They melted quickly (phew) but went all cloggy when added into the mixture I had saved back. I had no choice but to reheat the whole lot, soap and globby crayon bits. However, this was successful. I took it off the heat, added about 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon and stirred for a while to cool a little before adding the second essential oil blend.
I then dropped small amounts of this coloured mixture over the main soap mixture then used a small spoon to carefully swirl.

I covered this in cling film and wrapped it in a snug blanket (an old cot blanket – bless) and it has now been sitting there for well over 24 hours. I can’t help myself, but I do keep having a peek at it. I just can’t wait to demould it and slice it to see what it looks like.
Well, I am unable to report any further on this at the moment as it is still in the mould but just as soon as its out, I’ll report back!

Two Days Later

After a couple of days, I sought some advice on the forum as to when it would be ok to demould and cut the soap. From my description, it was suggested that it was probably ready (yipee!). I was advised to pop it into the freezer and, if necessary, blast the hairdryer over the bottom of the mould. Turns out, 10 minutes of freezing and presto, out it came.
{mosimage}However, the surface of the soap loaf was covered in bubbles (I wonder what caused that and I wonder if it could be prevented?). So I set about cutting it (I was cautious of the raw soap, in case it would burn so I picked up a small piece, rubbed it in to a small area of skin and waited to see what happened - fortunately nothing happened).

To cut the soap I started with a smooth edged knife but wasn't brave enough to go bull at a gate at it and was maybe too cautious as I ended up shaving of a small, thin slice that rolled up like those decorative chocolate swirls - Fantastic I thought, so shaved off a whole load of others. This also gave me some confidence to just cut into it.

I cut it into slices and tidied the edges. They are now sitting on a rack curing (on paper as advised by one of the forum members as this is a metal rack).

I had a lot of odds and ends left so decided I was going make these into a soap ball (for the kids). As the soap was still very soft, I chopped it into really smally pieces, wet my hands and began moulding it all into a ball. The result really looks funny. It looks like a baked spud!

The most wonderful part of all this was when I can to wash all the soap from my hands, it created the richest lather (believe me, I would have been happy with just a couple of bubbles). Little old me had created bubbles and from scratch! I could hardly believe my eyes!! It was such a proud moment =o)

Melt & Pour: Project One (First Ever Attempt)

Admittedly, apart from a getting some guidance on one or two essentials, this was more or less made up as I went along.

Here's the recipe....

750g Clear M&P soap base
30g Cocoa butter
25g Ground coffee
10ml Apricot kernel oil
2.5ml Vanilla Extract
1.5ml Orange EO

Melted everything in a double boiler except the essential oils. When completely melted, removed from the heat and stirred and stirred until it went puddingy and had cooled a little. Added the essential oils and poured into a mould. Presto!! I made soap!!

Constructive Criticism….

I have to be honest though, I didn't use the quantity of essential oils in my original recipe because they are too expensive to waste if it all went bit wrong. Therefore, not much aroma happening except for coffee and the cocoa comes through a little too. However, it does foam up lovely and the grounds are exfoliating. It's a great body bar and coffee is used for its many beneficial properties in quite a few high end salon beauty treatments.

I would have liked to have given the colour some oomph (to give it a more creamed coffee appearance) but the cocoa still has time to lighten. I think if I was to try this again, I will go with some kaolin as this will also add to exfoliating/refining action as well as give the colour a bit of 'background'. This said, the colour is rich and dark and would be great for a wintertime product. I would also have liked to have a creamy white top that mingles into the soap (darker at the bottom), but didn't know how to do it, lol

Some other points were made by more experienced soap makers such as suggestions on layering; to pour first portion of soap and allow it to develop a skin then spritz the surface and pour on the next layer. This would give a fairly defined layer. To get a more blended effect where the line was less defined could be to pierce the skin of the first layer at various points to allow some liquid to escape before adding another layer or to scatter coffee grounds after spritzing which may colour the lighter layer slightly.

Regarding the recipe, it was suggested that I was probably at the limits for the butter (too much butter may affect lather quality). It was thought that I had maybe used too much coffee grounds and that 15g rather than the 25g I used may have been more appropriate. I have to agree, it was very dark and I noticed today that the soap dish has developed a brown soapy puddle from the drips. All in all, this first time experience was a fantastic one.

Another thing this experience has done for me is to really look around at all the possibilities for this method of soap making. I was genuinely amazed at the number of wonderful effects that can be created with this clean and safe method. The possibilities are endless, however, somehow I think I should learn some of the basics first before even entertaining some of the extravagant methods that many of the members have used, just look in their galleries. These are a real source of inspiration!

This concludes my first ever experience of making soap but something tells me, its not going to be the last. I’ve already got a few ideas from a gallery that was added to the Fresholi site. Funnily enough, these ideas involve chopping up my Mocha-Orange soap :O)

The Weekend I Lost My Soap Virginity

I was a self confessed soap virgin (no, before you start thinking, I do use soap). I had never made soap before. But listening to fellow members discuss and share their experiences and seeing photos of their finished soap projects in the forum and the gallery made me very curious indeed. I wanted to feel a little bit of the magic so many others feel so often. Please keep in mind that these experiments took place a year ago...

I woke up yesterday morning and had it my mind that this weekend was the weekend that I going to loose my virginity and make soap. I set in my mind to do two types; Day one: melt and pour; Day Two: Cold Process.

Obviously much of the ingredients were to hand, except caustic soda and colouring. After asking one or two questions on the forum, I was told where to go for caustic soda (oh and I got a loaf tin while I was at it for the mould – although I was tempted to consume an entire tube of Pringles as a number of forum members do, for the mould of course). So follows my reports...