I hadn't made soap since we moved here to our cabin, so wanted to do it again before I forgot how - and before all my oils and butters went bad since some were getting kind of old. Plus, I had only one bar left of the soaps I made... two years ago! I am impressed with how well they last - fragrance and all. They are the only soaps I use because I really like them! I'd thought I'd not have room here to spread out and create cold process soaps, but I just shuffled some things around and voila! I was able to squeeze everything into the kitchen. I now have three batches curing in the basement.
These aren't soaps to write home about or anything because I tend to lean towards more natural, rustic types of soaps. I'm not into bright colors or a manufactured look... I like my soap to be a little rough around the edges - just like I like my men! Ha! (Mike is definitely rough around the edges and one of the reasons I fell for him.) I color mine with clays and herbs and spices. I've not trimmed these up yet to neaten the edges.
This one has a lot of full fat coconut milk in it and some calendula petals, along with shea butter, virgin coconut oil, cocoa butter and a few other oils. And some yellow illite clay on the top layer. I can't wait to test it out.
And this one has rose colored kaolin clay in it for the color and extra "slip". It traced so quickly that by the time I was putting the soap into the mold it was starting to solidify, so the top is particularly bumpy and funky.
This last bar is two layers divided by some old soap that I had cut into small chunks. The colors are so similar they are hard to see, but it's a good way to use old soap pieces. It's made with coconut, olive, mango seed, babassu, hazelnut, castor and avocado oils plus cocoa butter. This is my "use up what I've got" soap. I would normally use the finer oils for face and body lotions, but they were getting old. So, while it's a plain looking thing and the cut is kinda rough on this bar, it's got lots of good stuff in it.
So there you have it... fun with soap. The basement smells luscious with them curing down there.
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