More Soap!

Whew! I've been busy these last few days making soap.
Unfortunately, at the moment I'm totally out of three of the six fragrances in my range. I was caught short recently by some large orders.

A batch of Blackberry Sage and a batch of Lemongrass & Tea Tree are now sitting on their racks curing. Tomorrow I'll be making Peppermint Choc Truffle.
Handmade soap takes about 4 weeks to cure. Some of the water evaporates and the soap continues to saponify.

Soap is even better if it's left for 6 months or more. Recently, I found some of my experimental soap, made about 3 years ago. It's one of the best soaps I've used in ages. Rock hard, but still bubbly and creamy, we used it until it was a little sliver. The fragrance was divine, but I haven't got around to searching through my archived notes to find out what it was!

I will continue to make batches of soap over the next month or so to build up my stocks for Christmas. Soap is always a welcome gift for people of any age and handmade soap is even more welcome. People who can't use supermarket soap because of allergies and the dryness it causes can always use Skinflint Handmade Soap.

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.

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.

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.