The Secrete Inside Snow White

Ready to see what Snow White's secrete is?!

Snow White, the drama princess

Usually you make the soap then you give it a name.  This time is the opposite.  The name came first, inspired by soaperstar's Snow Angel, challenged by Celine (aka soaperstar) from I am handmade.  The story is, Celine's Snow Angel gave her such a hard time soaping but we all thought it is as beautiful as its name and so worth all the trouble.  My comment to her is all beauty in history has her own drama, just like Snow White.  Celine then turned that around and challenged me to make a Snow White.  Ok, sure, I like a challenge!  Surprisingly it did not give me any fuzz during soaping and filming, smooth sailing all the way!  Then after editing the recording for my youtube channel airing, it mysteriously 'disappeared', meaning I can see the file name in my drive, but no way to open it or copy it or upload it...   She's being such a drama princess!  She really knows to pick the timing!  Took me another night to edit the whole video from the original again and now she's finally ready to tell her side of the story.

Soap, 2 Way

In Asian cooking, there's a lot of dishes we call out same main ingredient (usually a protein) cook in 2 or 3 or even 7 ways.  Maybe later on when I feel like I'm up there with Iron Chefs I'll make a 5 course soap!  But for now, I'm not that ambitious, 2 way is fine for me.

Color inspiration: Design Seeds Color Fuse

Spoon Swirl Style

(see my previous blog post video I Am No Actor)
Scented with essential oil blend of lavender, rosemary, patchouli, rosewood, cedar wood, and rose geranium, which somehow mostly disappeared to nothing.

Funnel Swirl Style

EO & FO mix of Bergomat, orange 10x, pink grapefruit FO, little bit of patchouli, vetiver, and geranium rose

Ombre Soap Reveal

Now I can show you the cutting video:

Ombre Layering

Since quit a few people asked me how in the world I make my Ombre layer style soap with just one color mixing bucket, I decided to make it into a video.  If I'm going to explain the process by writing, it would be a book long!  Watching me do it is definitely faster.  This batch I'm using

Obsession type fragrance oil mixed with Red Clover Tea type, oh you got to smell this, I'm totally obsessed!

A Personal Request from my Husband

Few days ago my honey (who cares nothing about toiletry, typical male) personally asked me to make him bath bombs, cuz he wants to take baths.  OMG... I was speechless for a good minute.  I asked him, honey, do you know what a bath bomb is????  No seriously, do you?!  He rolled his eyeballs at me and told me, YES, I want one of those huge big ball thing I see on Etsy!  And make it smell good please!  I made some already, it's in the bath room, you can use them now if you want, I told him.  I don't want the ones you use, they are pink hearts and smell like flowers, he replied.  Normally I would just flip out and start arguing with him, but this time I actually didn't mind at all!  I was just excited that he actually showed a tiny little interest in what I do!  So I made him 2 different scents, Eucalyptus Orange (essential oil) and Brown Sugar & Fig (fragrance oil).  He rejected my Brown Sugar & Fig, that's fine, I'll use it!

 The aqua colorant I added in the bombs actually made the tub water that lagoon ocean blue, very nice and soothing to the eyes.

Now the fun part, the big reveal

As promised, the reveal of the spoon swirl milk soap.  I had to film this in 2 different days and you will see why, not telling you now, you have to watch the video!

PS. the weird part is the essential oil blend I used to scent this batch is totally gone by now.  Cross my fingers it will return as the soap cures. 

I Am no Actor!

It just seems so effortless and easy when I watch youtube videos of people making soap. But when it comes to me making it, oh boy... I'm no actor for sure, you be the judge.  And I just noticed that I recorded this vertically instead of horizontal... oops.

A little background first, this recipe came along when I saw my rosehip and evening primrose oil sitting quietly in my fridge, being forgotten. Rosehip and evening primrose oils are said to contain extremely high in essential fatty acids and known to help treat dry, irritated, weathered or problematic skin. They can help sooth the inflammation and treat scar and burns.  I have never soap with these 2 oils before, this will be first.  I scented this soap lightly with essential oil blend of lavender, rosemary, patchouli, rosewood, cedar wood, and rose geranium.

Last note before you hit that play button, is it just me or any of you think yourself sound funny on the recording?  Do I really talk like that (I wonder)?!

PS. I will do a really short clip of me cutting this loaf later.

New vs. Old

It is said that soap is like a good wine, the older you cure, the better it gets.  Now, is that really true?  As curious as I am, of course I have to do an experiment to prove it right, or wrong.  I dog out a bar of soap which I made back in 7/18/2010 according to my soap log.  As far as I can remember, that's probably the first batch I ventured into mixing different fragrances.  It is a mixture of Indian Sandalwood and Tuberose Moss, both from Bramble Berry.  I opened up my old file of that soap recipe and made an exact batch again, with the same % of fragrance and superfat.  Well, I can't tell you which one is new and which one is old.  I will line up some testers.  I want true honest answer without any existing perceptions of any kind.  We shell see.

Looking back at my old recipe, now I have no idea what I was thinking, what a strange recipe I made...
Olive oil
Rice bran oil
Apricot kernel oil
 Palm kernel oil
Palm oil
Shea butter
Coconut oil
Castor oil

Gift Set Packaging

I finally finished packaging all my milk soap sets, phew!  That is very time consuming!  Thank God there's TV, or I would be bored to death!  Here they are, what do you think?

The Floral set: Euphoria, Lavender & Chamomile

The Autumn set: Orange Carrot, Oatmeal, Milk & Honey, and Madagascar

There are 2 more sets coming.

The Clay set: Refresh, Mediterranean, and Chamomile Neroli

The Spice set: Dark Star, Lemongrass Tea, and Frankincense & Myrrh

Red Palm Oil Trial

I've always been curious about red palm oil, not in cooking, but in soaping!  What we can find in the regular market is usually half red palm oil mixed with half canola oil, I'm guessing it's for the final product to stay in the liquid form (palm oil stays solid in room temperature)?!  It took me a while to adjust the new recipe as the more I want red palm oil in the recipe the more canola oil is also put into the equation at the same time and canola oil produces very soft soap.  Well, this new recipe certainly heats up fast, and this time I do not mind it gels, in fact, I kind of wish it would for the purpose of intensifying the colors.  I split some out to add active charcoal and copper penny mica and did an ITP ( in the pot) swirl.  This batch is scented with Frankincense & Kadota Fig plus Savannah Wind, kind of in season for the autumn, light fruity, warm, with a little citrus and spice, very yummy.

 

Oh I forgot to spray rubbing alcohol on top, look at the ash!  Can't even see the top swirl.

Let me show you how saturated the colors are under bright sunlight!

 

Update: washed off the ash on top

No More Power Oval!

How to not over heat my milk soap has been my biggest problem lately, though there's nothing wrong getting power oval all the time, it is certainly not perfect.  Oh I want creamy white bar of milk soap so badly!  So I finally decided to ditch my new stick blender, back to hand whisking.  And here it is, creamy white unscented soap, made with fresh cow milk!  Surprisingly smooth with no air bubbles, that's a first!

Color Inspiration Series - Twilight

Is anyone excited about the final Twilight movie like I do?!  I know, I'm far from being a teen, but I can't help it!  So, here's the final part of my experiment, made with mango butter instead of cocoa butter, scented with twilight inspired fragrance oil (light floral with white woods).

Under the bright sunlight, there's always the darkness, but it is so romantic!

Inspired by Design Seeds: berry bowl

Color Inspiration Series - Savannah Sunrise

If you have not seen part 1 of this 3 part experiment, click here first Color Inspiration Series - Cherry Blossom.

Part 2 is about the same awesome recipe except this time the cocoa butter is being replaced by same amount of shea butter and scented with Orange Grove + Savannah Wind.

I have no idea when this accelerating trace pattern is ever going to end... sigh...   Again, stick blended to very light trace, then added the fragrance oil, and... accelerated to a point to ruin my swirl plan...  And and, I have no idea what went wrong with the orange color, it is not orange at all, more light peach.  I used quit a bit of the discontinued TKB Pop mica plus a little copper penny to get a deeper tone and it turned out too light!
Is it my imagination or more new fragrance oil accelerates trace in cold process soap these days?  Look at all that air bubbles I trapped in the thick soap batter!

Inspired by Design Seeds: tangerine

Color Inspiration Series - Cherry Blossom

This is actually the part 1 of total 3 parts experiment.  Since I love soaperstar's Water Lily so much, I came up with my own interpretation of her recipe.  I also want to prove which butter, cocoa, shea, or mango is more superior in soap making.  This is like two birds killed by one stone kind of deal.  This first one is made with cocoa butter, the way soaperstar intended, scented by Cherry Blossom fragrance oil, and colored with shades of pinks!

Well, I stick blended it to very light trace, then Cherry Blossom went it... accelerated and riced a little on me.  Totally unexpected, because the website says this fragrance oil behaves well in cold process soap!  What happened here?!  Bye bye my planned ITP (in the pot) and ITM (in the mold) combo swirl... maybe see you next time????

Color inspiration from Design Seeds: pinked

Next batch will be the same recipe but substituting cocoa butter with the same amount of shea butter.

Soaperstar Soap in Action

Last post I showed you the soaps swap from soaperstar Welcome Home Package.  I have been using her soaps since I opened them.  I especially fell in love with her Water Lily, that's the batch she did when she ran out of avocado oil and had to readjust her usual recipe to replace the avocado oil.  According to her blog she increased the amount of sweet almond oil and cocoa butter to compensate the missing avocado oil.  Well, soaperstar, this is a keeper!  It lathers up rather quickly and turns into thick milk foam that lasts forever.  And her soap left my skin a slippery silky feel afterwards, I bet it's the silk she put in the soap!  Anyway, I sort of promised her I would show her how foamy her Water Lily can get, in a short video.  So here you go, my virgin talkie!  

PS. Please ignore the noise on the background.  That is my African Grey pet bird, Soba.  He has been screaming at the masks we bought from Venice, Italy for souvenir.  I guess in his perception they look like strangers in the house.