Soap, Soap, Soap

I finally got the chance to make some soap earlier this week. The holidays have kept me from it and I have missed it. Earlier this week I made some acne-fighting oatmeal and honey goat milk soap.


It has a very natural honey scent. This soap is as natural as it gets. I used ground oatmeal, goat milk from my Bella and honey from a local beekeeper.

And guess what's in here? I have been saving these plastic Kool-Aid containers for molds for awhile.


They were perfect for what I was wanting to make.


I decided to play with one of my new scents. I had some orange soap colorant and a bottle of orange essential oil.


I had to cut the plastic bottom off and use a can to push the soap out of the molds but it wasn't too hard.


Please excuse all the pics, I love this new lens. Look at that Bokeh! (the blur of the background).


and this soap smells so good! Only 4 weeks of curing and I can use it!


It's great to be making soap again. This week I'm making Fresh Rain. I'm hoping to make a blue and green swirl soap!

I also picked up all the supplies to make candles, my next adventure!!!

Don't forget about the Mary Jane's Farm magazine give away tomorrow morning!!!

Today I Play (January Give Away)

The new job went well yesterday. I did a lot of orientation, policy and procedure testing and staring at a computer screen. Thursday, I start some actual "job" stuff. I think I'll take today as a play day! It's been over a month since I made soap and I miss it!


A friend of mine sent me a box of essential and fragrance oils she found in a box of craft items from a yard sale so I decided to go through them this morning and see what I have. Lots and lots of different scents to play with. Some are labeled, some are not. The unlabeled are going in the "use for candle-making" pile. I haven't decided what scent I'm going with today but it will be a cold process soap and I will post the results on Friday.

My give away is for a year's subscription (6 issues) Mary Jane's Farm magazine.


(Photo property of Mary Jane's Farm magazine)

This is not sponsored by MJF magazine and I, in no way, benefit from this give away other than the good feeling I get from sharing it with my readers. I received an offer for a free issue a few weeks ago and took advantage of it. The magazine is full of wonderful ideas and articles on everything from gardening secrets to featured artists to growing organic foods. Check out the link above and see some of the wonderful things this magazine has to offer.

To enter, leave me a comment telling me you want to win! Contest ends Monday, January 10th at 9:00 a.m. central time!

Peppermint Mini Soaps

These turned out to be so cute and they smell so good!!

I made these using the hot process and the following recipe. I didn't have time for cold process to cure with Christmas coming up so quickly. I do plan on doing some of these with cold process next year way ahead of time!

5.122 ounces sodium hydroxide (lye)
12.54 ounces distilled water
8 ounces olive oil
10 ounces canola oil
14 ounces lard
6 ounces coconut oil
1 ounce vitamin E oil
Peppermint essential oil
Red sugar crystals

I mixed my lye/water solution. Please, please, please use your goggles and gloves when doing this and keep some white vinegar on hand to neutralize any spills. I combined my oils/solid oils in my crock-Pot and turned it on to melt them. When oils are completely melted, combine the pour lye/water solution into oils in the Crock-Pot. Using a stick blender with the Crock-pot turned off, mix to trace.
This is where hot process and cold process diverge. In cold process you pour into your mold, wrap and let saponification take place over the next 18 to 24 hours.

With hot process:
Turn the Crock-pot on low. You may have to adjust this to warm if your Crock-pot gets too hot. It took an hour for this soap to cook. The sides will roll up and it will take on the consistency of mashed potatoes and look waxy. Test your pH with strips or use the "tongue" test. Put a little on a spoon hold it close to your tongue. If you feel a zap...cook it a little longer. Turn the crock pot off. Add vitamin E oil and essential oil. Stir well. Spread into a wax paper lined medium sized cookie sheet. Bang the sheet a few times on the counter to get it settled. Let sit for just a few minutes then sprinkle with red sugar crystals. Take a sheet of wax paper and place on top. Using a small roller or your hands, smooth the top of the soap and press the sugar into it gently. Let cool completely. Use cute little cookie cutters and enjoy!

One medium cookie sheet makes 12 sets of these.

Don't forget about the Fix-It-and-Forget-About-It Give Away tomorrow!

Honey Almond and Oatmeal Mini Soaps

It's all Cindy's fault (Our Life Simplified)! I saw her's and could not resist making these cute little mini soaps!


These were made using the hot process. I didn't have enough time before Christmas to let them cure for the amount of time cold process needs.
I love snowmen....


and snowflakes....


and goat's milk soap!


Next on my list is peppermint and then I want to try the new eucalyptus fragrance oil I bought yesterday. I'm wondering if I'll get them all done before Christmas. I may have to buy some different mini cookie cutters! They have them for other holidays as well!

A Soap Followup

Remember the cold process soap tutorial?
I made this the day after I made the Honey Almond.
This is Spicy Apple and it smells so good!

Spicy Apple Handmade Soap

I think it turned out very pretty!


And even better,


I have already sold ALL of it!

Honey Almond Soap

The soap from my cold process tutorial.


I wish I had added a little more fragrance in this one. You can smell the honey almond but it's faint. I like the way the swirls turned out though.


I also made a loaf of Spicy Apple.
It will be cut with my crinkle cutter in a couple of days. It came out of the mold a little soft so it needs a couple more days to harden.


I doubled the fragrance in this one and you can smell it when you walk in the front door.
Anyone made soap yet?

Cold Process Soap Tutorial

A couple of different people have asked me to make a tutorial for cold process soap. First, I think I'm terrible at writing tutorials and second, I haven't been at this soaping thing for very long but...

Here goes...
I have tried a few different soap recipes and I have settled with this one for most of my soap making. Why? It leaves my skin soft, it lathers well, it has a light color that's nice for adding swirls of color or just leaving plain.

This makes a batch that fills my homemade mold.


I'll weight this loaf when I take it out of the mold and see exactly how much it makes and update here.

Update: The soap has been unmolded and weighs in at 3.9999 pounds. So we'll just say this is a 4-pound soap recipe.

Materials: (make sure nothing is aluminum - aluminum and lye do not work well together)
Kitchen scales
Stick blender
1 large container
Container for mixing lye
Small disposable container for measuring lye
Goggles
Gloves
Any additives you want to use
Oils
Fragrance
Dyes
Sodium hydroxide (Lye)
Vinegar (for neutralizing spilled lye)
Soap Mold
Wax paper to line your mold
Towels
Spatulas/wooden spoons

Ingredients I use in my soap:
Canola oil - 10.4 ounces
Coconut oil - 10.4 ounces
Lard - 14 ounces
Crisco - 10.4 ounces
Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) - 6.242 ounces
Distilled water - 14.916 ounces


The first thing I do is measure my water in the container that I will be mixing the lye/water solution in.


Then I put on my goggles and my gloves (please wear these!)


And take my lye mixing container (which contains my distilled water), lye, wooden spoon, scales and lye cup to the front porch. I do this because I have little ones and if I don't open the lye bottle inside then there's no chance of getting it on the counter or utensils that they might be using or handling.


I pour my lye into a disposable cup for weighing.


Pour your LYE INTO THE WATER - never the other way around and throw away the disposable cup.
This mixture will heat up fast. You will feel the heat from this through your glove and in 40 degree weather this morning I even got a little smoke! Leave this on the porch to start cooling.

Measure out all your solids and oils.


Melt your solids in the microwave, about 30 seconds at a time until all melted. Pour you liquids in with your warm melted solids. Make sure they are in a big enough bowl to add your lye water and mix with your stick blender.

Check the temp on your lye solution.


You want it around 100 - 110 degrees. Mine's still way too warm. I am ready for this now so to speed things up, I took a large bowl and put ice and some water in it then sat the pitcher down into the ice. Make sure not to get the ice or water in the pitcher just use it as a ice bath to cool your lye from the outside. This took about 5 minutes to cool it down to 102.
You want your oils inside to be between 90 and 110. Mine were at 101 so here we go!


With your goggles and gloves still on, pour your lye solution into your oils.


This will start to turn an opaque color as soon as you start to blend. I pulse my blender on and off while blending. It may take a few minutes but your mixture will start to thicken like pudding. You are wanting to bring your soap to trace. Trace has been reached when you can lift the mixer (turned off) and drizzle some on top of the mixture and it stays for a few seconds. Add your color and fragrance, mix this in well and pour into your mold.

I was working with making a color blend which takes a couple more steps and when I added my fragrance (Honey Almond) it caused my soap to trace and thicken very quickly so I was working super fast at getting it mixed, swirled and poured into the mold before it got too hard so I don't have any pics from here until it is in the mold.


Bang the mold on your counter a few times to make sure all the bubbles are out and it's settled into the mold well.
Cover with cardboard


and wrap in towels.


The mixture will go through saponification over the next 18 - 24 hours. It will heat up and then return to room temperature.
When at room temperature, unmold and slice. Place on a rack for curing for about 4 weeks.
Here's a photo of my first swirl soap I made last week. This is lavender scented.


If I have learned anything about soap-making, it's that it gets easier and you will want to try new recipes/fragrances/colors and additives.
If you are looking for a vegan soap you can change any of the oils/fats above but make sure to run them through a lye calculator to get your exact measurements before mixing.
I use the lye calculator at Bramble Berry.


Keep some vinegar handy for neutralizing any lye spills and for wiping down your counters after making soap.
You can find lots of recipes on the web to make homemade soap using all different kinds of oil combinations.
My soap is saponifying on the counter as I type. I'll post tomorrow with pics of the unmolded loaf! If you have any questions or suggestions, please post them. Join us on Facebook at our Soap-making for Beginners page to find lots of links to great soap-making pages.

Sugar Scrub Cubes

OH NO!! Yet another addiction!

I have made Peppermint and put them in cute little Christmas tins and I have Apple Blossom scented ones that I need to find containers for.
They are so easy and cute! You just take one cube into the shower with you, wet it, sort of squish it in your hand and scrub away.

Here's what I used:
6 oz. melt and pour glycerin soap
6 oz. sweet almond oil (you can use other oils as well)
18 oz. white sugar
A few drops of vitamin E oil (poke a hole in the vitamin E gel capsules and squeeze out the oil).
Fragrance and color.
Melt your soap in microwave (about 30 seconds). Add oils and stir. Add sugar and stir. If it starts to get too thick, reheat again. Add you fragrance and color. I had to reheat a couple of times to be able to pour it into the molds. Don't overheat or the sugar will melt. If it still seems too dry after reheating you can add more melted glycerin or oil. Pour into molds let harden for about an hour. Pop out of molds and cut into small squares.I used the rectangular shaped soap bar molds. I cut each bar into 6 cubes. Store cubes in an air tight container in a dry place.

Apple Blossom Sugar Scrub Cubes

The first batch I made came out of the molds dry and crumbly. I just remelted it and added more glycerin soap the second time and they turned out great. I think the amount of soap can depend on what oil you use and you can adjust it to get the right pouring consistency. If it's too runny, add more sugar.

Have fun!!
Peppermint Sugar Scrub Cubes

I found these tins at the Dollar General store for $1, added clear cellophane and candy cane ribbons.

My First Cold Process Soap

I made my first cold process goat milk soap a couple of days ago. It's a recipe of my own so I get to name it. I am calling it Grandma's Kitchen because the ingredients remind so much of being in my grandmothers kitchen helping her cook.

I used a lye calculator that lets you put in whole ounces for your fats and it measures the amount of lye and liquid you need. Here's the recipe I used:

Grandma's Kitchen Goat Milk Soap
8 ounces almond oil
10 ounces coconut oil
17 ounces lard
10 ounces olive oil
6.226 ounces lye
14.85 ounces goat milk
1 cup ground oatmeal
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tbs. honey
Vanilla beans scrapings from 1 vanilla bean (not sure what it's called. You cut the bean lengthwise and scrape the insides of a vanilla bean and add the tiny black seeds to the soap mix.)

You can add vanilla fragrance but I liked the smell the soap already had. A natural sugary vanilla smell.

I melted my oils together and removed it from the heat to let cool. I put on my gloves and goggles and headed to the front porch to mix my lye and icy slush goat's milk. Pour the lye into the frozen milk about a tsp at a time, mixing after each addition. Add your lye over about a ten minute period. The slower you go the less "yellow" your milk will turn. Set the container with lye into a larger container with ice to help cool it. When the oils and the lye mixture both reach the 90 to 110 degree range, they can be mixed.

Using a stick blender, mix until trace. Trace is when you can draw a line across the top of the soap mixture with you stick blender and it remains for a few seconds. It should be like a thick gravy or pudding. Add the remaining ingredients and mix just until blended. Pour soap into molds and wrap with towels. Let sit for 12 - 18 hours and unwrap. Make sure you use your gloves for this process until you have checked the pH of your soap and know that it is safe to touch. Wet a tiny spot on your soap, rub a bit and put your test strip in it. The reading on your pH strip should be between 7 and 10. Cut your soap and place it on a wire rack to dry/cure for about 4 weeks. I can't wait to try this one.

I purchased a soap cutter on eBay and it's fun and easy to use. I love my pretty soap bars! This recipe made 20 1-inch bars.

So now I can't decide if I like cold process or hot process better. Cold process makes a prettier soap but hot process is usable as soon as you make it and seemed to take a little less time to trace but only a few minutes difference. It's going to be hard to wait 4 weeks to try this one! For those of you making soap, which do you prefer??

Soap Balls

If your mind went in the gutter, please remove it now! :)

Ever wonder what to do with your homemade or even bought soap scraps? Make soap balls! They looks so cute on your bathroom counter in a little basket. Just grab one and wash your hands. I made these yesterday using my scraps from making soap and a bar of plain old homemade lye soap I bought at the Amish variety store. You can use all scraps, I just didn't have enough.

Grate your soap scraps so they are in small pieces. You will need about a cup full. Put in a microwave safe bowl. Add 1/8 to 1/4 cup of water and stir. You don't want it runny but enough to soften the soap pieces. Place in microwave for about a minute, stirring occasionally until soap is melted. This ensures that all soap is melted and additives get mixed well especially if you are adding color. (Please see addendum for alternate ways to soften your soap). Add fragrance, color, ground oatmeal, whatever additives you want and stir. If it's too dry add a tiny bit more water. Let sit until the soap starts to cool and you can roll it into balls. Place on wax paper to harden. Make sure your kids know it's soap, not candy because it looks good enough to eat. Let them sit for a couple of days or longer to dry out some (or stick them in your dehydrator for an hour like I did!)

Editing to add:
After doing some more research on making soap balls, it is suggested that you use similar colors and similar scents for your soap balls so you don't end up with ugly colored soap or some weird perfume-like smell (or) buy plain white bars of soap and add your own additives to your soap balls.

I have also found many tutorials that skip the microwave step all together and I will definitely be trying this method as well. Grate your soap, add about a tablespoon of water and let sit for 15 minutes to soften. Add your scent, color and additives if you want to add them (or leave the soap as is). You may need to add more water if too dry or wait a little longer if too wet to get soap to ball-forming consistency. Roll into balls, put on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet. Allow soap balls to dry. This could take up to 2 weeks but generally takes about 2 days. Reshape the balls once a day so they keep their round shape.

So there are your alternatives. Either way you have soap balls!
Have fun making them!

Rosemary Soap

ROSEMARY SOAP
Crisco — 16 ounces
Lard — 10.56 ounces
Coconut oil — 5.44 ounces
Distilled water— 12.16 ounces
Lye — 4.455 ounces
1 Tbsp. ground rosemary (optional)
Rosemary essential oil

I used the hot process for this soap. I loved the color of it BEFORE I added the ground rosemary. It was a beautiful creamy light beige. The rosemary gave it a brownish/green tint. The ground rosemary is optional since you are using the essential oil. It's up to you!

I used the Pampered Chef scalloped baking tube to make these flower-shaped soap. I also have the star and heart. I sprayed the tube really well with vegetable oil. You will need a thick piece of wax paper between the bottom and the cap that fits the bottom. If not, the soap will leak out when you're banging it on your counter to get the air bubbles out. I know this for a fact! When you're ready to remove the soap from the tube, stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Use your vegetable spray can to push the soap out of the baking tube. It may take a little muscle to get it started but then it comes right out.

I still love the rustic look of using a simple old cardboard box as a mold as well. Anyone else a newbie at soap-making? Don't forget about the new Facebook Soap-making for Beginner's page!
The rosemary recipe makes this much soap...

This recipe is adapted from Suzanne's Milk and Basil Soap recipe at Chickens in the Road.
Thank you Suzanne!

As Promised, SOAP!

RUSTIC PEPPERMINT GOAT MILK SOAP

It took me a little longer to get this posted than I had planned. My first batch of soap came out as soap but I didn't like it at all. I didn't like the color or the smell. My second batch I am much happier with. It's Peppermint Milk Soap. It smells wonderful, lathers well and makes my skin all soft and smooth!

PEPPERMINT GOAT MILK SOAP

I wish the color was a little lighter but it's about as light as I can get it with the hot process of soap making. I think I'll try cold process at least once to see which method I prefer.

The recipe I used made this much. I had 8 bar molds and did the rustic looking ones in a cardboard mold.

I'm just excited to be able to say "I made soap!!"

My sister and I will be leaving for a little get together/reunion in Oklahoma with friends on Wednesday and will be back Sunday. I'll post more about soapmaking after I get back and have time to really get into trying different scents/blends/techniques, etc.

This trip has all my emotions going crazy. I haven't seen these ladies since last year when they came here for our annual reunion (which was the 5th reunion but the 1st that I had attended) and I am so excited to be able to attend again BUT I've never left my boys for more than overnight. I have no worries about my husband taking care of them but I'm going to miss them so much!!! We have the web cams set up so I can tell them goodnight each night. Then, of course, I'll have a good cry and then spend the next day enjoying myself with the best of friends and I'll be home before I know it making more soap!