Emerald Shimmer Bamboo

I can’t believe I didn’t post this last week!  I guess gardening, you know.  I thought this time I would try the green mica.  I knew that would be really pale, so I picked the bamboo scent I had to go with it.

Mixing the white French clay with the green mica.

It turns out like this once you make a slurry with some of the soaping oils.  Looks pretty bold and bright, doesn’t it?  And it would probably stay that way if I was using something like a clear melt and pour soap base.

But, I’m doing what’s called cold process soaping, which goes through a saponification process because I’m combing oils of my own choosing with a lye-water solution.  That process generates heat, which can impact the pigments you use.  Also, cold process soap is opaque, so things like shimmery micas don’t have any light to reflect, like the clear melt and pour soap bases do.  Still, you can get a nice light shade of soap using a mica.  That can be a good thing, because I don’t think people want to feel like their soap is going to stain their shower stall, lol.

This is how it looked going into the mold.

And this is how it looked coming out!  It’s so pretty and delicate, with a light bamboo scent.

cross-posted on my daily blog.

Filed under: Soap Tagged: Soap, Soaping

Pale Orchid Soap

Purple Haze mica, Orchid Fragrance Oil, White French Clay.  I’m going for a pale lavender color and a delicate scent.

First, while my oils were melting and the lye solution was cooling, I blended my dry ingredients.

I pre-mix my dry stuff with a bit of the oils so that they blend into the soap solution better without clumping.  This is the slurry.  Bright, huh? 

Once everything is mixed, I poured it into my mold.  I love this little mold.  I get 8 bars, roughly 3 oz each, from a 1 lb oil solution.  The lye solution is about 6 or 7 oz so total I have about 24 oz of soap mixture.

Usually I unmold after 24 hours, but this time I waited 48, to see if that had any impact on how hard or soft the bars are.  It didn’t.  If I pressed hard, it would dent the soap, because they have to cure for about a month, give or take a week.  They will harden during that time as the moisture evaporates.  At this stage, they are still sticky, and if I did The Zap Test, (where you touch the tip of your tongue to the soap to test it) I would get zapped, because lye is still present.  Once the lye solution is fully saponified, The Zap Test won’t zap you and the soap is safe to use.  Testing homemade soap made with natural oils and essential oils isn’t nearly as gross as it may sound.  While I do sometimes use fragrance oils (or man-made scents) in some of my soaps, I use about half the recommended amount, as I prefer soaps that are not strongly scented. 

Don’t try this with commercially made soaps!  LOL  *gagspitptooey*

The close up glamour shot, ha!

Filed under: Soap Tagged: Soap, Soaping

Blueberry Pancake Soap

I got some lovely peacock mica in the sample pigment package I got, and I thought it would go nicely with the Blueberry Pancake Fragrance Oil I have.  I added in some French White clay to make the soap more luxurious.

As you can see, micas don’t work super well in cold process soaps, like they do in melt and pour clear soap base.  Mica has shimmers in it that work best in the transparent bases, but cold process soap is opaque and naturally ivory colored.  Oxides actually work better for coloring cold process soaps.  The sample package I got had bits of both micas and oxides so I thought I’d play.

As you can see, the color lightened up considerably and has a slight blue-green tint to it, as a result of the natural ivory color.

Still, it’s actually pretty close to what I was expecting, and I rather like the color.  Next time I use this color though, I think I’ll go with a more watery type of scent, like rain or ocean or something like that, and I plan on getting some more colors also, including some blues that might work better with Blueberry Pancake fragrance.

Filed under: Soap Tagged: Soap, Soaping