If You Love to Make Soap....

.... then you'll LOVE this book : The Art of Soap by Debbie Chialtas.

Debbie is known to the soap world for her stunning and creative works, such as her award-winning Typography Soap and these unbelievably delicious PB&J Marshmallows.  (I'm still scratching my head, "How did she do it?")  

Debbie is in the process of putting together this book that features 24 soap artisans and their wonderful soap creations.  I don't know about you, but for someone whose mind is always wondering what kind of soap to make next, I just can't wait to get my hands on it!

Ok, ok, there's another reason why I'm so excited about this book.  Just check out this update from Debbie and you'll see why. 

The Art of Soap will be available this fall.  In the meantime, subscribe to her newsletter for occasional sneak peeks and updates!

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!