Baby Massage Oil and Blackberry Sage Soap

Yes, I know I'm meant to be working on my Clay Masques, but my neice wants me to make her a Baby Massage oil. That doesn't require too much formulation or experimentation. I already make the essential oil blend for babies with chamomile and lavender, so it's just a bit of a play with different oil blends.
I'm planning to use almond and apricot kernel blended with coconut oil. I'll use the fractionated coconut since it's very light and non-greasy. I like the 250ml PET spritzer bottles, so will use those with a flip top. I'm ordering in some nice pumps to go with these bottles, available as a separate one-off purchase to be re-used.

I have taken a photo of the Blackberry Sage soap I made recently. It really is gorgeous, but a little too large. I'll have to modify the batch size for this new mould I have.

Glycerine

At the recent Wagin Woolorama a customer told me she liked to avoid anything nasty in her skin care products. I asked her for an example and she replied, "Glycerine".
I was taken aback as glycerine is simply a by-product of soap making and is a superb moisturiser.

"Glycerine or, as the American's spell it, glycerin, is one of the most versatile and valuable chemical substances known to man. It possesses a unique combination of physical and chemical properties that are utilized in myriad products. Glycerine has over 1,500 known end uses, including many applications as an ingredient or processing aid in cosmetics, toiletries, personal care, drugs, and food products. In addition, glycerin is highly stable under typical storage conditions, compatible with many other chemical materials, virtually non-toxic and non-irritating in its varied uses, and has no known negative environmental effects." www.cleaning101.com

Since it has a sweet taste, glycerine is used in commercial foods as well as things like toothpaste. It doesn't contain the calories of regular sugar, nor will it raise blood sugar. It's E number as listed in ingredient lists is E422.

Glycerine is a fantastic humectant. A humectant draws water to itself. If you left a container of glycerine in your bathroom for a week or so, it would attract water to the point where it would become 80% glycerine and 20% water.
It is for this reason that it is used in skincare products. Water is what keeps our skin supple and soft. As we age, our skin loses the ability to retain water and we can suffer from TEWL, trans epidermis water loss. This leads to dry skin, wrinkles and can be further aggravated by harsh detergents and poorly performing moisturisers.

Home made soap contains a high glycerine content. Commercial soaps have the glycerine removed in a complicated process where salt is added to the lye and oil mixture. The soap is then much harder, but also very drying to the skin.
Handmade soaps are slightly softer and may dissolve if left in water since the glycerine performs it's humectancy trick and absorbs water.

Perhaps it received a bad rap since it was mostly produced from commercial soaps which were generally made from beef tallow. Therefore, it was technically an animal by-product.
Commercial soaps are still made from tallow. If you check the ingredients label, it's listed as sodium tallowate. This means that the tallow has reacted with lye (sodium hydroxide) to become a new chemical.

These days, only vegetable glycerine is commercially available. Skinflint products that contain glycerine are:

Natural Balance and Pure Moisture Shampoos
Baby Bath
Replenish
Hand & Nail Cream
Mum2B Belly Butter
Shower Gel
Enriching and Clarifying Cleansers
Enriching and Claryifying Face Polishes

Glycerine is also a good solvent, better than water at dissolving many ingredients. This may be why it's a good cleaning agent.

You can also make a super cleaning product with bi-carb soda and glycerine. Add enough glycerine to moisten the bi-carb to make a paste. Use as a gentle scouring cleanser or apply to stains and leave for a while before rinsing off. Add some lemon juice if cleaning bathroom tiles. Put in a little Tea Tree essential oil if using as a disinfecting scrub for the shower.

Did you know you can make your own Magnaplasm? If you don't know what Magnaplasm is, it's a commercial preparation that is applied to boils to draw them to a head. Simply mix 2 parts magnesium sulphate (Epsom Salts) with one part glycerine. You can purchase glycerine at the supermarket.

Next time you notice glycerine as an ingredient in anything, you'll know it's a safe, non-toxic ingredient that is great for skin!

Pretty Soap

Finally made some soap today. A beautiful batch of Blackberry Sage. I used the second hand mould I got from a soaper on a forum that I subscribe to. It worked really well. I lined it with garbage bags, not the best, but all I had at the time. I hope to get some acetate to line it with in future.
The soap went straight into the freezer and looks fantastic! It smells divine too...
It popped out of the mould perfectly some 18 hours later looking superb - pure white with purple swirls. Can't wait until it cures. It takes 4 weeks, so I have a bit of a wait!
In the meantime, I'll be making a Choc Orange Truffle, then hopefully I'll be able to experiment with my new soap with the clear chunks. Just not sure of colours and fragrances yet. I may just go with a spearmint or peppermint, but not sure what to put with these...

Skinflint Toner

Well I finally got some time to get into my workshop and make some products today!
I made 6 litres of Toner, 3 of each sort. Skinflint Toners are a beautiful blend of natural essential oil distillates, the water left from the production of essential oils. Enriching Toner has a blend of neroli and rose hydrosols, while Clarifying Toner is a blend of tea tree and lavender hydrosols. I also include herbal extracts and sodium lactate.

Many people ask me if toner is a necessary part of the everyday skin regime. My answer is that it's adding extra water soluble goodies to your skin. Sodium Lactate is a fantastic humectant and the herbal and plant extracts have different qualities they bring to the skin.

Toner also helps remove any left over dissolved dirt and cleanser that may remain on the skin and prepares it for moisturiser.If you dampen a cotton pad with toner and wipe your neck after a day's work, you'll be amazed at the dirt that's collected.

New Soap Mould

I went all out and bought a large mould in January so I can make larger batches of soap. My soap has been proving very popular and I sold out of pretty much everything over Christmas.

I made a 4kg batch of Black Tea & Clay, my shaving soap for men. All went well until it was time to unmould. It would not budge. I tried everything to remove the perspex dividers. In the end, I had to get Steve, my husband to chip it all away. Because the soap has a high coconut percentage, it gets hard fairly quickly and this made it difficult to remove from the mould. He ended up breaking one of the dividers. I was annoyed that the mould wasn't what I expected and emailed the manufacturer. After a bit of back and forth, with photos, they finally agreed that it shouldn't have happened and sent me four new dividers for free.



I then made my Oatmeal, Milk & Honey in the mould. This one popped out easily! I think the fact that I put it in the freezer to prevent gelling made all the difference.
Gelling occurs when the soap goes through its chemical change. It heats up and turns opaque. I don't gel my OMH because the buttermilk causes the soap to overheat.

In the meantime, I'd contacted an Aussie soapmaker who makes and sells soap moulds. Nizzy is based in NSW and has a website: http://nizzymoulds.com. I told him my sad tale and he was absolutely brilliant, giving me a discount on the making of his special dividers to go into my wooden mould.

So then I made my Lavender & Green Tea, which doesn't go in the freezer, but is quite a soft soap due to it's high olive oil content. I left this in the mould for a while because of it's softness. Nizzy's dividers didn't quite fit and some of the soap leaked underneath, making it a bit difficult to remove the dividers, but nothing like the trouble I had previously.

I had mentioned on my favourite Soapmaking Forum about my issues and one of the Aussie girls offered to sell her Nizzy moulds to me. I took up the offer on one of them:



I hope to make my soap later today or perhaps tomorrow in this mould.

Wrapping Soap

That's what I have to do today. I have two lots of soap that need to be wrapped and labelled for sale. It's a real pain because it takes so long, but I love to look at a big pile of cellophane wrapped soaps!
I also need to photograph them since the shape has changed now I'm using a new mould. I'm really useless at photography, but thought I might sit them on a philodendron leaf.

Here's an Oatmeal, Milk & Honey photo:


Then I'll make up a lye solution for another batch of Blackberry Sage soap. This soap is one of my best sellers. Each of my different soaps has a different formula and the BBSage one is high in coconut, providing great bubbles and hardness, but with enough olive to make it skin softening.

Office Renovations

This is what's been keeping me busy and out of my workshop:



Carpet being pulled up


Tiling completed, new mat.

It's pretty much completed now, just need a computer desk then I can put my laptop out there. At the moment, I'm in the living area at the dining table.
Should only be another week. Then we go to Albany to pick up our bedroom furniture and the office desk. Still a sofa bed to come.
I've had a ball buying bits and pieces for the bedroom and the office.

But, I MUST get into my workshop! I have a few things to make that are either in low quantities or completely run out. Clarifying Face Polish has now sold out, so I'll be making a 4 litre batch of this. All out of the 125ml Replenish and nearly out of the Hand & Nail Cream. Also totally out of both Toners. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to get in there this weekend.

Finding time to experiment

It's so hard to find the time to make my products, let alone experiment!

I'm really desperate to make more soap, but am too busy getting my house back into order after having the office renovated and bedroom carpeted and painted.
I have a second hand Nizzy soap mould from a soaper on the Soapdish Forum. I just haven't had a chance to make some soap and use it.

I'd like to try a soap with some clear swirls in it. That would mean making a cold process soap and then pouring some clear melt and pour through it. I've seen some soaps like this and they look great.

I'm also experimenting with fizzing bath salts designed just for feet. I'm having trouble keeping the fizz after the epsom salt has been added. I may just use sea salt instead. If there's no salt in it, the mixture clumps, like a bath bomb. Jess, my daughter, suggested I make bath bombs instead.