A Touch of Sunset

Being Canadian means you live in one of the most wonderful countries in the world, but it also means you only get to enjoy warm weather five out of twelve months a year.  As the winter lazily drags to the end and the temperature climbs ever so slowly, I find myself craving the sunshine and the warm air.  

I like the look of gradients for soaps, in fact I've tried producing similar looks before but without much success.  I think I got it this time!  The key is liquid colorant and patience, lots of it.

These soaps have a slight hint of pink to them from buttermilk.  I started putting buttermilk in my soap when I was at the stage when everything I saw was potentially a soaping material.  As it turns out, buttermilk makes it to the list of my favorite ingredients.   Give it a try and you'll know why!

Lace

It took me more than a month to finish making these soaps.  I made my first two layers and then I ran out of lye.  Just when you need it the most!


This look is inspired by my last coffee soap.  Now instead of just simple coffee soaps, I came up with this "espresso with foamed milk and caramel drizzle" version.


My household has been battling sickness for the last two months.  Somehow we all take turns getting sick, and now it's my turn.  I hate being sick!!    I want to get back to soapmaking!

A Jolt of Java

I still remember the firs time I used coffee in my soap.


As naive (and ignorant) as a newbie can be, I was completely unprepared for the stink that was about to assault my nose as I poured my lye into my freshly brewed coffee.  The fragrant coffee aroma quickly turned into what I'd like to describe as the smell of deep-fried shrimps.   Not that I know what deep-fried shrimps (with shells!) smell like, but interestingly enough, some of my fellow soap friends all come up with the same description.  Deep fried shrimps.  With shells.

I stop adding coffee into my soaps after that horrible first attempt, but I never stop dreaming of soaps with natural coffee aroma (without using any fragrance oil).   With this recent attempt, I think I've got it!


I call these my Triple Shots - the oils are infused with fresh coffee grinds for 4 months, the water is replaced with super concentrated frozen coffee, and before the soap is pored into the mold, more coffee grinds!

The end result is this chocolate-like soap with a mild coffee scent - not the popular coffee fragrance, but the subtle smell of coffee grinds.   I love it!  Now I only hope that the scent stays and that I don't get brown suds with all these fine coffee grinds in the soap. ;)

Piano

One of my dearest friends from high school is expecting her first baby.   What do you, a confessed soap-addict, do when you hear good news like that?


Whip up a ton of soap of course!


These piano soaps are my tribute to my girlfriend's love for music.  She is aspired to be a music therapist because she believes in the power of music.  I know her baby will be the luckiest kid on earth!


The final product isn't exactly what I had in mind.  The "black keys" are kind of crooked, and the "white keys" aren't exactly white.   The yellowish tint comes from chamomile-infused olive oil, and I kind of like it this way because the color serves almost like a telling sign to my not-so-secret ingredient.

The infused olive oil sped up the thickening time and I only had very little time to put in the black keys.  I end up with only five of these piano soaps, but since I love them so much, I'll be sure to make more (so I can keep some to myself too!).

Lavender, what else?

Has it really been almost three months?

I've been so disconnected from my own blog that I don't know how to start writing again.   How about I start by saying, "how did I manage to blog on a regular basis before?"

The last three months have been both exciting and sad.

I travelled to visit my family and friends on the other side of the world, ate a lot of amazing food, and had tons of fun-filled conversations.   I made this soap for a dear friend who has been one of my most loyal customers from the very beginning.   She recently moved from Toronto to my hometown and would like me to make her soaps enough to last her a year.

On the sad note, my grandmother passed away during my visit.  She had been bedridden for years, and my family had known that this day would come eventually, but it was still extremely hard to let her go.   I was grateful that I was able to see her during her last days with us, I just couldn't imagine not being there.

Now that I'm back in T.O. again, life has slowly returned to normal.  However, I know I'll never be the same because grandma, who managed to give me one last lesson in life, taught me to live everyday to its fullest and to always show those I care about how much I love them.


So, to all my dear friends, I love you and thank you for being my friends.


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Charcoal Swirl with Hemp Seed Oil

Soap making is always full of unexpected surprises, and this time, the surprise is more than pleasant!


I've tried a few "in-the-pot swirls" before, but have never been one hundred percent satisfied with the look.  This time I'm actually pretty happy with the way it turns out, but when I made it, it looked so bad that I was even considering putting these in the "failed" box.

The reason why I thought it would turn out to be disastrous was because the soap came to trace literally in less than 3 minutes.  I turned around to grab my charcoal powder and that's when the soap caught me off guard.  I decided to move quickly and mix in the colour anyway because that was what I had promised to make.   By the time I had the colour ready, the soap was thicker than yogurt.  I scooped the soap into the mold and feared for the worst.  

I let out a small scream of joy after making the first cut.  Sooooo, THIS is how you make in-the-pot swirl!  No wonder I haven't been successfull.  I have to wait a little longer before I swirl!  Isn't it funny how we learn our lessons from the most unexpected "mistakes"?





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Goat's Milk Soap

I think I'm a picky soap maker.

There are ingredients I'll never use, there are soap shapes that will never be appealing to me, and I'm more than stubborn when it comes to minimum curing time.

There's also something else that I'm picky about - the season.  I only make milk soaps in the winter - weird, isn't it?

Well, since I have this obsession to make milk soaps as white as I possibly can without using any TD, I figure that I should avoid gel-ing the soap if I can help it.  So in addition to freezing the milk and slowly dissolving lye one teaspoon as a time, I also "refrigerate" my milk soap once it's set in the mold.   

Technically I can to this anytime of the year, but I prefer leaving my soap outdoors and let the Canadian winter do its trick.

I can't really explain why I like to leave them outside during winter.  

Is it because I don't like to crowd my fridge with something uneatable?  Is it because I'm afraid the lye being so close to something I plan on digesting?   Or maybe it's just because I need to put it out of sight so I won't have to fight the temptation to take it out  prematurely? 

Leaving the soap in the cold doesn't really ruin it, as some might believe.  These soap bars are nice and hard, and I know in a few months time, they'll charm me again in the shower!

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Rustic Sea Salt Bars

Salt bars have always been on my "to-make" list, not because I love the way they make my skin feel since I've never tried them, but because they way people talk about them.   Salt bar fans talk about these with a passion!  Where does the passion come from?  I need to know!


I did some reading before diving into the actual making process, and I increased the water ratio because of the high coconut content and sea salt (!).   Those who've made salt bars all stress on the importance of cutting soaps early.  Very early, like 4 hours after pouring early.  

So that's what I did.  I checked on it every hour and cut as soon as I found it hard and solid.  The soaps were still kind of soft and easy to cut, but somehow they always crumbled before I finished the cut.  Why is that?  I understand that soaps crumble when they're too hard to cut, but these were not hard at all...


And have I mentioned they sweated like crazy?  Luckily it only happened during the first few hours and I didn't have to wipe them every 30 minutes for days.   Now I know why some people only make salt bars in the winter!


I think I'll give it a few months before I try my first salt bar.  Should've made an HP salt bar instead!



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Funnel Swirl - Hot Pepper!

After my very first funnel swirl, I've had several questions constantly spinning in my head - what can I do to make it better?  What should I do differently to get that beautiful look I've been dreaming of?


I decided to take my next batch of laundry soap and "funnel it", and the results came out so different this time!  Instead of parallel parentheses, I got concentric circles.

I cut these soaps extra thin so I could get a better look at the way patterns form in this type of swirl.   I think I'm getting a better understanding of the funnel swirl secrets.  Now you all know what that means - have to make another one just to see if these ideas really work!

So, where's the hot pepper?


See the pinkish orangey colour?   That's from *real* hot peppers!  I once ordered a spicy dish at a restaurant and ended up getting a mountain of hot peppers.  I packed them up and rendered my pork lard with them.    The lard turned out to be this bright orange colour, and to my surprise, the colour survived the soaping process and became a soft, dreamy pinkish orange.  


The crazy scientist in my head has been dying to find out if the heat of hot peppers comes out in the shower.  Will this be a good soap for the cold cold Canadian winter?



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Lavender

It turns out my first batch after getting my soap room back isn't another HP after all.


A very good friend of mine has asked me to make her some soaps scented with lavender essential oil.  Lavender is her favorite and she'd love to give them out as Christmas gifts.

Anchoring natural scents has been every soap maker's ongoing quest.  Some talk about adding the eo before mixing in the lye ("wrapping eo with regular oil to protect it from lye"), some insist that adding the eo after trace helps ("good trace = less lye").    I've tried so many different things but most of the time I can't really tell whether they help or not, but I do find that a well-balanced blend and keeping the soap at a low temperature help retaining the scent.  

I love the blue color this time!  It wasn't meant to be blue, was aiming for purple.  I added some alkanet-infused oil, but then decided to sprinkle in some indigo powder "just in case alkanet doesn't produce enough purple".  I ended up having this beautiful, elegant dark blue, what a lovely surprise!  Doesn't it just add a little bit of mediterranean touch to the soap?



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Almost There!

It's been.... let's see... three months since hubby and I started our flooring project.  Our place has been in a state of extreme chaos - it's a miracle that we haven't tripped over something on the floor and cursed until we run out of vocabulary.


But I have good news!  Our flooring contractor will be coming in early November and save us from our misery.  Yippee!


My love for making soap has been forced to come to a complete halt because my materials are buried deep in an unknown corner and I don't really have space to cure the cut soaps.  However, I dig out some of the materials and made a small batch two weeks ago for someone at my dentist's office.   She needed some soaps but I didn't have anything for her, so I decided to make her some instead, or so was the excuse I gave myself to make soap again.

I decided to go for HP soap this time partly because I only had a week to make, cut, and wrap the soaps, and partly because I had been thinking about giving it a shot ever since I got Becky's almond soap.


I had so much fun making HP soaps that I know my first pot after getting my soap room back will be another HP too.  Being able to use the soap right away (and clean the tools on the same day) is another incentive.   However, I do notice that HP soaps still can't compare to soaps that have been cured for months, even though their pH level might be similar.  I guess I've been spoiled by nicely cured soaps!


Ok now, what's my next pot going to be?



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Herbal Shampoo Bar

Have you tried Chinese acupuncture?  Or Chinese herbs?

When I was little, I suffered from severe allergies, and it was Chinese herbs that helped me get my life back to normal.   My very wise mother knows everything there is to know about herbs when it comes to taking care of a family.  I often see medicinal herbs added to our daily meals, or take specific medicine on a specific day for various reasons.  When my brother or I get sick, she'll always brew a huge pot of ginger tea to "chase away the cold", as she'd put it.

The herb I used here is called polygonum multiflorum - sorry for this academic nonsense, I can't find a more commonly used term for it  flowery knotweed.  In Chinese medicine, it's believed to be beneficial to scalps and hair.

Some claim that this herb can slow down the greying process, some believe that it can stop hair loss.  Personally, I haven't reached the point where I have to worry about these two problems (knock on wood!), so I can't really vouch for the claims.   The only reason I add them to my shampoo bars is very simple: it makes me feel good inside.  ;)  I don't know much herbs survive the soaping process, but after finishing using one bar, my hair feels softer and shinier!   But then, it could be the fact that I modified the formula slightly this time..

In any case, I'll be using this herb again!



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Biting More Than I Can Chew

September has been a busy month for me.

I started a new job, and I decided to go for a big exam at the end of the month.  Both the new job and the exam require lots and lots of studying, and I find myself wishing I was young again.  Oh how much we could learn when we were teenagers!

Having been an "executive personal assistant" to my hubby for many years, getting back to work while studying for a test has proven to be more time-consuming than I originally thought.  I miss taking my time to whip up a nice batch of soap, or testing out a new recipe from the latest magazine issue.

I made these  soap discs a while back, when I still lived in my previous place and had a very small fridge to store all my tallow.  In order to create my perfectly even layers, I opted to heat the soap in the oven (to speed up the hardening process) while I whipped up the next layer.

What I did not anticipate was how heat also expanded those tiny air pockets on the silicon surface.  Those tiny air bubbles gave these discs a sponge-looking texture, and I was so disappointed! I had to take one and run it under the tab to rub off that sponge-looking layer.   Now, that looks better.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who has also experienced the same "bubbling effect" when doing CPOP with silicon molds.. or is it just my mold?

Oh by the way...  Courtney, I still remember my promise to you!  I've postponed my stamp making date till sometime next month ( really need to catch up on all the reading I've managed to procrastinate).  Hopefully when things slowly settle down, I'll be able to sit down and make more stamps!



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Not So Pretty

Last weekend is a sad reminder for me that our flooring project has stretched from one long weekend to another - has it really been more than a month?


Hubby and I were so positive that everything would go as planned and we could have our living space back in less than 2 weeks.  Not quite so.   The contractor postponed twice and was impossible to track down.  We decided to go with someone else, and before we knew, we already wasted one month time waiting.


Now that the project has finally started to move ahead, albeit slow, we can at least dream of the day when everything is back to where it belongs.  We moved things out of our bedrooms (my soap room included) in order to work on flooring, and our living and dinning areas are filled with clutter.   I haven't been pleased with the sight, and I guess it shows in my soaps...

I tried swirling, but it didn't come out very pretty.  I tried to create a nice purple color, didn't happen either.  I wanted to give it a nice texture on top, but apparently I need a lot more practice.    But one comforting thing I love about soap making is, no matter how ugly the soap turns out, I know at the end of the day it's still a nice bar of soap I can enjoy in the shower.   Now all it takes is time to transform these babies into something wonderful!
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The Evolution of Swiss Rolls

Hubby's co-worker is expecting a baby girl in four months, and what gift is better than 100% olive oil handmade soap?  

Since I've been planning on making swiss roll soaps, I figured that I could give it a try.  It should be easy, right?  After all, it's just rolling up CP soap.    

Oh I couldn't be more wrong!

This is my first attempt.  My original plan is simply to make 2 layers and roll them up - one with cocoa powder ("chocolate cake") and one with pink clay ("raspberry cream").   But they're both too thick for rolling, and the end result doesn't look like a swiss roll at all.  Rather, it looks like ... I can't even describe what it looks like.

And then there's my second attempt.

I've learned my lesson: keep the layers thin and wait for the soap to set up properly before rolling.

They look a lot like swiss rolls this time, but rolling is still not easy.  I have a hard time keeping the whole thing round, and the surface is not as smooth as I'd like to see.  I'm happy with my second try though.  At least I know what I can do next time to make it even better!

Second Attempt

I tried making cake-like soaps again.   Instead of spending hours on creating different layers to imitate cakes, I cheated a little this time by using individual cake molds.

The soaps turned out better than I expected, but they look more like flavored white chocolate.  Hmmm.... Maybe I should've swirled with cocoa powder instead.  That'd really fool people!


I put in lots of lard (one of my favorite ingredients) in to the recipe this time.  I rendered the lard a few months ago and have been keeping jars of them in the freezer.  Rendering my own lard is time consuming but well worth it.  In my opinion, the best way to render lard is the "oven method". 


Basically you cut pork fat into tiny pieces and immerse them with water in an oven-safe pot.  Leave the pot in the oven overnight at a relatively low temperature and the next morning you'll find a thick layer of pork fat floating on top of the water.  This oven method gives you really clean and white lard, but it's relatively soft compared to the hydrogenated lard you can find at regular grocery stores.


Making cake-like soaps is kind of addicting!  Up next, I'm going to create CP swiss rolls!

Chocolate Square

I love baseball.

But I'm not what you call a baseball fanatic.   I enjoy watching baseball games, but don't ask me about last Friday's game because I usually forget everything by the next morning.  But today, I find myself still replaying yesterday's game in my head.

I went to the ball park with a girlfriend yesterday.  The weather was perfect - sunny with occasional clouds, warm but not too hot.  The pitchers from both teams had a hard time keeping the bats quiet, lots of hits and lots of runs.  The final score?  17 - 11!   The home team was hitting homers left and right, and the balls were like pop corns popping from the home plate.    The long balls definitely entertained the crowd, and I had never been to a ball game with so much thrill!  By the end of the game, my hands were red from clapping too much too hard.

The soap has nothing to do with the game or baseball.  I just like to get the last bit of excitement out of me and turn it into words. ;)

The original plan for this batch was to create two smooth lines and embed squares (cut from my Chocolate Soap) between the lines.  Everything went as planned, and I even started to giggle a little by the time I finished pouring the last drop of soap when I saw the bottle of castor oil sitting quietly at the corner.  Yes, you guess it right, I forgot to put in castor oil and this beautifully molded soap was lye-heavy!!  By this time the mixture was already at heavy trace, but I forced myself to suck it up and dig everything out. I weighted the oil, remixed everything, poured again, and I was so stubborn that I had to re-create the original look.  Of course it didn't come out right, but somehow I'm happy with the look anyway.  

Maybe it's the sweetness of saving a bad batch that makes me love these soaps so much.

Ingredients:
Olive oil, Tallow, Coconut oil, Almond oil, Corn oil, Castor oil

John's Soap

The weather in Toronto lately has been hot and sometimes humid.   Me being a spoiled Torontonian, I find myself missing the pre-summer days when it's dry and cool.  (But we ALL complain about the cold for the rest of the year!)

When it's hot and sticky, I go to my summer soaps, and this one is By Far my favorite!

I call it John's Soap because Hubby's co-worker John asks for the same one every once a while.  I don't blame him for not interested in trying my other soaps, because I'm in love with these soaps too!  

I just love the way they lather on my skin, so rich and so bubbly!  When I first started making soaps, I thought I would have to put up with the notirously poor lathering power of handmade soaps, and the first time I used these bars, I said to myself, "I'll have to make them again!"  

Now that these bars are almost 8 months old, they are even more amazing to use in the shower.  But I'll be a little skeptic in terms of using them in the winter.  The winter here is pretty dry, and I'll have to wait and see how moisturizing they can be.  Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy the bubbles!

Lavender Facial Soap

Jennifer, a very creative soap maker, has recently made a bunch of alkanet experiments to see how alkanet affects soap colors.  Her experiments are not only interesting to follow, they're also extremely informative.   I admire her scientific spirit and her patience!

Meanwhile, I'm still a victim of alkanet's unpredictable nature.  This herbal root offers such a bright and luscious red color, but after you add lye to the oil, the color turns either gray, purple, blue, or sometimes black.   Tricky! 

I'm not as patient as Jennifer, so I just take whatever I get, and this time, I got dark purple.  While I love this color, I know it'll fade in time, and there's no guarantee that I can reproduce the same shade again.   Maybe this is why alkanet is so fascinating to play with.  You never know what you'll get next time!

Hubby and I just spent about a week on Prince Edward Island.  They call themselves the Gentle Island for a reason!   We enjoyed our trip by visiting various beautiful beaches, sampling fresh and succulent oysters, devouring the world-famous Cows ice cream, and taking in the picturesque scenery.   

Everything looks beautiful there, even the wild flowers there look so much better than the ones we have here in the city!

If you know Anne of Green Gables, you'll know PEI is known to be the land of Anne.  But Hubby had made it clear that there'd be no "Anne stuff" for our trip, we managed to stay away from the main tourist attractions.   

It was a very relaxing and enjoyable trip, and I'm already dreaming of going back to PEI again!

Chocolate Soap

Can you say chooooooocolate?

I made this one with my hubby in mind.  He loves food,  especially sweet food.  I went out and bought a 90% chocolate for this soap, and I put in lots of it.   The soaps are not scented, but I can smell that distinct chocolate fragrance!  Yummy!

The chocolate gives these bars such a shiny texture and they look (and smell) just like the real ones.  But I got scared a little the first time I used it.  The chocolate actually translated into brown suds!  I thought I got a big cut somewhere and the brown color actually came from my blood.   It took me a few seconds to realize that I got tricked by my own soap.

These soaps leave my skin nice and soft, I'd definitely make them again.  As for hubby, he's intrigued by them, but he said he'd much prefer eating the chocolate rather than showering with it.

I n g r e d i e n t s :

Coconut oil, Castor oil, Corn oil, Lard