I have been tinkering a bit behind the scenes with my soap making.
Trying new items that I have always been curious about but never had the nerve to try.
I decided it was time to put on my big girl pants and tackle them head on.
The beer soap is that nice white one. I received a bar of beer soap from a fellow soaper last year and my hubby just loved it. The draw was never really there for me to try to make one but once I tried her bar, I knew I would have to attempt it. You have to make sure the beer is good and flat otherwise you could have a bit of a problem when you add the lye. After two days of mixing the beer to make sure it was flat, the time had come to attempt the soap. I decided to use tangerine & grapefruit fragrance oil and could not wait to begin. All items were mixed/melted and it was now time to put it all together. I mixed items together, added the fo in and while mixing the fragrance in I noticed that I had not lined my mold.
Umm… just a wee bit of a problem. Not good...
I quickly whip out my parchment paper, run to the dining room to grab my mold, cut the paper to fit inside the mold and race back over to my pot of soap sitting in the sink.
To my horror, it was turning into mass of glop!
How could this be?
No time to add any fancy colors I wanted to play with. *pout*
I quickly grabbed the soap pot, a large spoon, and smushed the soap into the mold. Banged it a few times to get any bubbles out, put the lid on and crossed my fingers. After all that excitement, I could have sworn that it was not a fragrance that would accelerate trace; I mean I looked it over more than once. I went and double-checked and *blush* some how I misread the item. In the end, it has turned out to be a lovely bar of soap and a learning experience.
The coffee soap is turning out just as I had hoped it would. I used real coffee for the liquid– it was left over from a previous day – so no good coffee was wasted. I made sure to use a coffee fragrance oil so it has just been deepening as it cures. I removed some soap before I added the fragrance and added some liquid titanium dioxide.
Mmmm… great for those hard to wake up mornings.
side note: I never have enough patience to mix the powdered titanium dioxide or for that matter any oxide or mica into my soaps. I always, always, always end up with little flecks or dots in my end product and this frustrates me to no end. With the liquid dioxide, the frustration is removed and I can just continue with my project.
The fruity soap is simply yummy! The fruit fragrance is rounding out quite nicely and the color is just what I had wanted.
I’m quite proud of my new soaps and can’t wait to use them!
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