Back to Nature No. 1

Spring is here, allergy is taking over my sense of smell, naturally the first scent combination I come up with is something with Eucalyptus and Peppermint.  I never like the straight Eucalyptus and Mint smell, a bit too sharp for my taste.  I decided to let my right brain take over to do it's own thing and use whatever I have in the cabinet... is that even a good thing?!  By the time my left brain woke up again there are many bottles on the counter...  Let's see, Eucalyptus, Peppermint, Petitgrain, Bergamot, Geranium, Sweet Orange, Litsea Cubeba, and Patchouli... oh boy~  I used it anyway, can't waste all these expensive essential oils!  I also created a brand new formula for my back to nature line:

Coconut oil 92

Palm oil

Apricot kernel oil

Sesame oil

Pistachio oil

Olive oil

Castor oil

Unusual recipe, isn't?  I've obtained some harder to find oil such as Pistachio and Sesame few months back.  I was saving them for some special occasion, and now I think it's time.  I want this soap to be extra conditioning and less cleansing (I'm sure all that essential oil will do the job) without sacrificing suds. 

I soaped at low temperature, 36C for both lye water and oil.  Without knowing how this essential oil blend might react in this recipe I used the 1/2 lye 1/2 EO mixing method, meaning mixing 1/2 lye water with oil first, then pour in 1/2 EO, then repeat.  This is so to slow down the possible acceleration from any of the EO.  Either the method really works or the EO are well behaving in nature, nothing happened.  I'm partially relieved and partially disappointed... soap gremlins didn't come to visit, that's a surprise!  I added some Kaolin clay to my soap mixture to help prolong the staying power of the scent and separated a small portion to color with Echinacea powder I got long time ago.  Echinacea made that portion of mixture kind of mossy dark green.