Clay Soap: Kaolin Clay

Kaolin clay is a newer clay to me. When planning my clay soaps, I chose Kaolin to round out my line, but once I took a look at all of the benefits that Kaolin clay provides, I was so glad that I chose this clay to be my fourth clay soap!

Kaolin clay is a white to off-white clay, also known as China clay. It is known in the soap making community for proving amazing "razor slip" in shaving soaps, but it has wonderful benefits for the skin underneath the hair! Kaolin clay is wonderful for all skin types, helps promote circulation to the skin, removes dead skin cells, and helps balance sebum activity. Too much sebum leads to blackheads (sebum collecting at the surface of the skin) or whiteheads (sebum collecting underneath the skin). This leads Kaolin clay to be the most recommended clay to use on skin!

I love the essential oil that I used with my Kaolin clay soap: Bay essential oil! Bay is one of my favorite essential oils to use. I love the spicy, herbaceous notes!

Watch me make this soap here:

Best part is... this soap, as well as my Cedar/Chamomile Bentonite Clay soap, doubles as a shaving soap!

And with that, my clay soap experiments come to a close! I hope you have enjoyed a month's worth of clay information and soapy goodness!

Clay Soap: Moroccan Red Clay

My sister's favorite clay for her "normal" skin type is Moroccan Red Clay, also known as Rhassoul clay. This wonderful, earthy clay works beautifully in soap and gives amazing, natural color to soap bars.

Moroccan red clay is a special clay, coming only from the Atlas Mountains of northern Africa. This reddish-brown clay is good for combination skin, normal skin, or dry skin and is well known for its mineral-rich qualities. It's smooth and creamy texture fluffs when water is added and the clay works to rebalance dry skin and help with flakiness. It's also been known to sooth skin irritations.

For this soap, I was inspired by the red-brown color of the Moroccan clay and I wanted to use a "hot", earthy essential oil combination to round out the soap. I love the blend I used: Patchouli and Cinnamon leaf. The patchouli essential oil lends a strong, earthy aroma and the cinnamon leaf essential oil brings the "heat" of warm, rich cinnamon. The two balance each other and round each other out wonderfully.

This soap is now available on my Etsy shop! Click here to check it out!

Clay Soap: Bentonite Clay

My second clay in my clay soap series is my bentonite clay soap, scented with cedar and roman chamomile essential oils! Bentonite clay is a staple in my home and I've used it in loads of soaps prior to this experiment. I love this clay!

Bentonite clay, a gray clay that is derived from aged volcanic ash, is a wonderful clay highly concentrated with wonderful minerals for your skin. This clay will add missing minerals to your skin while drawing our oils and toxins. Bentonite clay is great for combination skin and oily skin. Beyond skin care, bentonite clay is said to have many uses for the body... read about them here!

When formulating my bentonite clay soap, I wanted to scent it with a soothing essential oil blend. I knew I wanted to use Cedarwood, and after much deliberation, I decided to blend the rich, earthy cedarwood with light, floral Roman Chamomile. The two essential oils make an amazingly light and rich scent when blended!

This soap will be available in my Etsy shop in late July, so check back soon!

Clay Soap: French Green Clay

Of all of the facial clays available, French Green Clay seems to be the most well known and popular, making it the obvious choice to start with when planning my clay soap series. I love this clay for my own skin, so I scented it with my favorite essential oil blend, Lemongrass and Peppermint.

Let's start out with some of the great, well-known benefits of French Green Clay!
French Green Clay, also known as Sea Clay, is a popular clay among spas and healthy skin-minded people. The clay is mined not only in France, but in the United States and China as well. The clay gets its green name from its light green color, but has been known to be gray as well. The clay is well known for its detoxifying properties and helps to draw impurities from the skin while remineralizing the skin.

French Green Clay is amazing for people, like me, who have oily skin. The clay also helps remove dead skin cells and promotes circulation under the skin when used.

Since this clay is the best clay for my skin, I decided to make a soap that I would love to use as well. This soap is scented with a blend of Lemongrass and Peppermint essential oils, giving it a fresh, clean mix of tart, soft lemon and peppy mint. This is a great essential oil blend to help awaken your senses in the morning! I love the pale-green color of the soap, naturally derived from the clay itself! Gorgeous!

This soap is available in my Etsy shop! Click Here to check it out!

Clay Soap: July Project

For the month of July, I have decided to embark on a new, month-long project filled with soaping with clay! When I made my Oatmeal Stout soap a few weeks ago, I added some french green clay and bentonite clay to the soap batter, and the bars turned out amazing! I love the clay soaps I have made in the past, so for the month of July, I have decided to dedicate myself and my blog to all things clay!

Stay tuned for the following blog posts:

July 7th: French Green Clay Soap with Lemongrass/Peppermint Essential Oils

July 14th: Bentonite Clay Soap with Cedar/Chamomile Essential Oils

July 21st: Red Moroccan Clay Soap with Patchouli/Cinnamon Leaf Essential Oils

July 28th: Kaolin Clay Soap with Bay Essential Oil

Learn all about each clay, including the benefits of using clays on skin, the wonders of each essential oil blend, and see the resulting soaps! Check back on Monday for the first of four posts!

Clay... Not just for faces!

Comeback: Production Week!

Last Thursday, I woke up feeling fabulous and got my booty in gear to FINALLY make some new soaps! The last new soap I made was back in February before my morning sickness forced everything to a grinding halt, and I've had a few soap ideas floating around in the back of my head all of this time. So, since I felt so great, kiddo was being super cooperative, and I had all of the supplies I needed, I got down to business to make two mini-loaves of soap!

My first batch of the day is a scent that I have been mulling over for a year: Tomato Vine and Raspberry. I love this scent because the tomato vine scent is so strong and the raspberry is more of a bottom note. Totally summer.
I started off the soap with a base of creamy yellow, then did a drop swirl with some rich chromium green and shimmering pink mica. I then swirled the three on the top for a nice color mix. The shimmering mica really helped to round out the bars.

My second batch is a restock of black raspberry vanilla with a new design. Black raspberry vanilla is a classic bath and body scent, and I just adore it! I think the name is a bit of a misnomer though, because I smell more blackberry than anything. ;o)
This batch of soap started off with a white base, then I added some pastel purple and bright blue in another drop swirl. For the top, I splattered the purple and blue in alternating angles and left them unswirled. I really love the splatter effect... I need to pull that one off more often!

Here's a pic of the wet soap headed to "bed", with black raspberry vanilla on the left and tomato vine/raspberry on the right:

Since these are new molds and I did not line them, it may be a few days before I get to unmold them and cut each bar. As soon as I cut the bars, I'll be uploading photos of the finished soaps... I am so excited to see how they will look in the end!

Ahh... It feels wonderful to be soaping again!

Making Orange Peel Powder

I don't know what was wrong with me… I must have been dangerously close to contracting scurvy over winter break because before I knew what I was doing, I was eating oranges like crazy! I think I ate my way through 3 bags of navel oranges in about 2 weeks. Crazy, right?

Well, in my craziness over that delicious citrus, I decided to start drying my orange peels and save them for soap additives! Want to give it a go too? Excellent! Grab a fresh orange and listen up!

What you will need:
-Oranges (yummm)
-A drying surface
-A coffee grinder
-A storage container

1. So, first start off by peeling your orange and eating all of the sweet, juicy goodness inside! (Bonus: You're fighting scurvy! Arr!)
2. Next, clean your orange peel with soap and water and scrape away the white pith underneath the peel.
3. Set your clean peels out to dry. You can either let them dry naturally in the open air or place them on a baking sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes.
4. Once the peels are completely dry (which should be 1-2 weeks in the open air), place them in a coffee grinder or food processor and blend to a powder.
5. Store your orange peel powder in an airtight container! 

Orange peel powder is an excellent additive in beauty products! You can add it to handmade soap to create texture and color, add it to clay face masks to provide exfoliation, or add it to bath water as an excellent citrus bath tea!

In regards to milk soap...

A few weeks ago, I posted this post about making soap with milk. In that tutorial, I talked about making milk soap using the rebatch method, which allows you to make soap without using lye.

I thought that I would post again on milk soap, but this time, instead of rebatching, we are making soap using the hot process method.

Hot process is a different way to make soap, and it is quite similar to cold process in the beginning. Instead of pouring your cold process soap into the mold to let it saponify, you introduce heat using a crock pot or double boiler. The heat essentially "cooks" the soap, making saponification happen quicker.

I like to use the hot process method when making milk soaps because I do not have to worry about accidentally cooking the milk, since I am deliberately cooking the milk! It takes some of the worry out of making milk soap.

Here's a video I made the last time I made goat's milk soap:

If you are interested in my milk soaps, you can find the Goat's Milk and Oatmeal soap HERE and the rest of my milk soaps HERE.

Review: Birchwood Soap Mold from Brambleberry.com

One of my favorite soaps so far: Marigold Mint

At Christmas, I begged my husband for only one present: the 9 bar birchwood mold from Bramble Berry. The mold looked so slick and perfect, and I was dying to start making soaps with swirls and designs on top to match the fragrance within. And as soon as Christmas arrived, I became the proud owner of the 9 cavity mold!

The mold came with the wooden box, four outer walls, the four dividers that could be slid into place before or after pouring the soap, and a wooden top to help insulate the soap.

This mold has presented me with a few interesting challenges. First off, this mold was quite different from the silicone molds that I have been so accustomed to. I had to learn how to wrap the wooden mold in freezer paper to keep the soap batter from spoiling the wooden box. My first few attempts to wrap the mold where HUGE disasters! I learned quickly that when I added the walls after molding, I have to take care not to rip the paper, or else the soap batter will leak into the box and will ruin it.

After perfecting the art of wrapping the mold, it was time to make the soap. Using the mold is very easy and makes gorgeous soaps! I've been able to start making pretty swirls and flowers on the tops of my soaps, and I have been super pleased with my mold. I've actually ditched most of my loaf molds in favor of the birchwood mold. I love the new look and feel of my soaps!

Be sure to come back tomorrow and checkout a video that I made of soaping with the 9 bar birchwood mold!

___

Just a quick FYI, this is a personal review of this product. This review was not paid for in any way and I am not affiliated with Bramble berry or Brambleberry.com!

Making Sea Salt Soap

Yuzu Sea Salt Soap

Salt soap is a true luxury! A salt soap bar combines the gentle cleansing of cold process soap with the exfoliate and skin softening power of salt. The salt is embedded in the soap to create a hard, long lasting bar that is speckled with the salt crystals, which gives the soap a really unique look.

Making salt bars is quick and easy if you are already familiar with how to make cold process soap. If you are not familiar with cold process soap, or if you are just beginning, you may want to get a few batches of CP soap under your belt before you attempt salt soap.

Love Spell Salt Soap

Some quick tips:

• When using salt in cold process soap, you need to be aware that salt is a lather killer. In order to combat this problem, it is best to use a large percentage (80%+) of coconut oil. I prefer to use 90% coconut and 10% castor, which makes a stable, creamy lather with medium sized bubbles. You can use any percentage of oils that you like, but most soapers will advise you to use at least 80% coconut oil.
• Another tip is on superfatting. Most soap calculators default to 5% superfattening of your oils, but for salt soaps it is better to use between 15% to 20% superfat. This keeps the soap from being too drying on the skin and adds to the moisturizing properties. 
• One tip that I will strongly encourage is to use individual molds when making salt soap. Salt soap likes to set up quickly. I've heard of some soapers who are able to cut their salt soap within 2 hours of pouring the soap. However, if you cut your salt soap loaves too late, the soap will be dry and crumble easily. Individual molds keep you from worrying about this, since you do not have to cut them.
• The longer you let your soap cure, the better! Soaps tend to get better with age (like cheese and wine), and salt soaps are best used after a 6 week cure or longer.

Pipe Smoke Salt Soap with Nettle

Come back tomorrow and see my YouTube video on how to make sea salt soap! And make sure to comment below if you have any questions about anything! 

Hot Process Goat's Milk Soap (In Pictures)

Here's a quick picture tutorial for my hot process goat's milk soap! Super easy... Just remember to stick by it and keep an extra eye on the soap as it cooks!

Oils melting! I used olive, castor, and tallow.

First, you will start off like normal, melting your oils in your crock pot or double boiler. When you make your lye solution, you will keep out part of your water to substitute with milk. (For example, if you are supposed to use 12 ounces of water, just 8 ounces instead, and keep 4 ounces of milk to the side) Please take loads of CAUTION with your lye solution, because it will be stronger than a normal batch! Put your milk in the fridge to chill it.

You can use a stick blender or a whisk. It will trace fast!

Once the oils are melted, add your lye solution (BE VERY CAREFUL! It will be extra strong!) and mix until traced. Your soap will trace faster than usual, because of the water discount.

Add your goat's milk!

Now, slowly add your chilled milk and mix together. Your soap may take on a neon yellow or neon orange color. This is normal, dont panic! As the soap cooks in your double boiler or crock pot, keep a very close eye on it and stir it often. Your soap will take on a natural tan color as it cooks. Remember, oil separation is normal in the beginning stages of hot process soap, so no worries!

Almost ready! It needs to cook a little longer...

Once the soap takes on a mashed potatoes-like consistency, you can add any fragrances or additives and toss the soap in your favorite mold. I added some ground oatmeal to this batch for some scrub!  Once cooled, your soap can be cut! Some folks like to use hot process soap right away, but I still let mine cure for 4-6 weeks.

Goat's Milk Soap with Oatmeal

Enjoy!! It may take a few times to get it right, but hot process goat's milk soap is fun, fantastic, and addictive!

Hot Process Goats Milk: mystery revealed!

Every soap maker, from the newbies to the seasoned soapers, either loves or loathes making goats milk soap. The milk can separate, curdle, cook, discolor, or stink! It is a big pain in the booty, but the outcome is so lovely! Goats milk soap is truly worth all of the sweat and tears!

After just a few craft shows under my belt, I began receiving more and more requests for these tricky suds. So, one evening, after apparently losing my mind, I attempted to make goats milk soap with disastrous results! My soap stank, looked bright orange, and was just a mess... So, bound and determined, I set out to perfect the art of making soap with milk, while hot processing!

Keep on the lookout for my tutorial!

Felted Soap

I've been seeing a lot of felted soap lately. I've seen it on Etsy, and I saw TreatMeBathandBody felting soap on Instagram. What finally pushed me over the edge to try it was having more than two people asking about felted soap at Heritage Days last weekend. So, I grabbed a few skeins of wool yarn and some stray bars of soap, and went to town!

I started first by cutting the yarn and pulling the strands of fibers loose. I laid them flat and pressed them into "sheets", similar to the fibers that I've seen others using on YouTube. I then felted my soaps by using hot water and my hands... and voila!

Felted soaps! They look like mossy rocks!

I'm in love with the felted soaps! I am hoping to start listing them on Etsy before November, and I am going to have them for sale at the Greeneville Woman's Christmas Expo and Craft Bazaar the first weekend in November.

Happy Creating!

S.O.A.P. Testing Reveals!

Here's the reveal!!

Enjoy!!

Brambleberry S.O.A.P. Team, Fall/Winter 2012

I am so excited to announce that I have been chosen to be part of the S.O.A.P. testers team for Brambleberry.com! I was over-the-moon excited about getting chosen... To be part of such an elite group really validates me as a soap artisan!

Brambleberry sent me a huge package of 10 mystery fragrance oils, all smelling like the delicious smells of autumn and winter. My job was to evaluate the fragrances at first sniff, then test them out in a few different mediums, like cold process soap, bath bombs, or candles, and report back on the fragrances (how they performed, scent changes, my favorites, etc.).

So, after loads of thought, I decided to test out my fragrances in cold process soap, and I took video of the entire process!

Part One of Three: Making my base soap

Part Two of Three: Fragrance Oils #1 - #5

Part Three of Three: Fragrance Oils #6 - #10

I've been taking photographs of the different soaps as they cure, and I made a small bar of soap off-camera to act as my control bar to compare each fragrance to. I plan on making a fourth video in the next few days to see the results of my tests... I cant wait to see the final products!!

Stick Blender Goodness

I have finally broke down and got myself a stick blender!

However, it is not what you would think. I have actually been given a used stick blender from my dad! Even though the stick blender is second hand, it works really well with soapmaking. I have already used it once, and it looks like I am never going back to the whisk!

My new to me stick blender is a Braun 200 W blender. It also came with a chop attachment, which is convenient! The bottom P's of the blender comes off and is dishwasher safe, which makes it great for cleanup.

When using a stick blender to make soap, you want to make sure that you "burp" the blender before you start using it. When you burp the blender, you tap the blender in the oils lightly to bring out any air bubbles. This prevents any splashing made by the blender. Always make sure to "burp" your stick blender before mixing!

Green Thumb

It is Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and with the warming weather, my mind has turned to gardening... We live near a wooded area and I am already planning on picking lots of honeysuckles and blackberry leaves... and there are hundreds of dandelions and nettles all around us in Tennessee... But I've always wanted a big garden, but apartment life isnt really suited for it.

Loofah seeds!

However, a month or so ago, I ordered some loofah seeds from Amazon, determined to get those little suckers to grow. I soaked them for two days in water before wrapping them up in a wet paper towel with a little bit of potting soil. After just a day in the paper towel, all of my little seeds had germinated and were ready to plant!

Four little sprouts!

My little loofah sprouts have all popped up from the soil and are looking green and strong! I'll keep them in this starter pot for the next few weeks, then separate them into their own, individual pots, and put tomato cages with the plants so that the vines can crawl! They need well-draining soil and lots of sun...

I am hoping to have a good crop of loofahs, so I can use them in my soap!