Back to Nature No. 3

I have doubt about using actual green tea in CP and how much of green tea's good stuff is going to survive through lye.  But I did it anyway, just for the heck of it!  It can't be called Lemongrass Green Tea if I didn't use it!  Same recipe, low temperature, this time with essential oil blend of Lemongrass, Peppermint, & Geranium.

I heated up the water and soaked in LOT of green tea lose leaves.  Then put the tea in my freezer to cool it down.  Warning, if you want to try this yourself, do not breath too hard while mixing green tea with lye, it really stinks!  Oh, and turned dark yucky brown...

EO caused slight acceleration, poured in a hurry, only gave me enough time to do texture top with my hand whisk.

Then my itchy hands cannot just stop right there, what else can I do to it?  Fine, sprinkle some grind oatmeal since I cannot use any artificial anything (mica I miss you so much already!).

Back to Nature No. 2

I got to say, soap gremlins must have found out that I'm having too much fun recently and decided to pay a visit!  Just as I was celebrating my success of taking my first big step back to nature,  soap gremlins pulled me down to hell from heaven!  Aaaahhhhh.....  My second round didn't go smoothly.  Same recipe as the first one, low temperature and everything, then the EO blend messed up the whole batch!  I should've known that anything floral is unpredictable.  This time I used the proprietary EO blend that replicates Aveda's Euphoric Aroma Oil, with the main notes of rose and jasmine.  This EO blend is one of my favorite and comes with a sticker price way too high.  Now you can see why I'm so angry at the soap gremlins.  The EO accelerated and I did not have any time to do the swirl as planned, here it is, just 2 color layered...  I used pink & black clay this time, very subtle soft coloring.

In case you are wondering about those little white speckles, they were caused by EO accelerating the trace and me using a hand whisk to mix clay into the soap, lots of air bubbles ended up trapped inside.

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.

 

Is it time to go back to the nature?

After making soap for so long, I get so caught up with the colors and of course the fragrance, it's like I've been dumped into Alice wonderland, there are so much to see and do and oh, endless possibilities.  Until one day... I looked back and realized maybe I need to take a step (or 2 or 3) back and get reconnected with the basics, the very bottom foundation of cold process soap making.  This is time for me to walk backwards, in order to prepare myself to move forward again.

Tonight, I started my road 'Back to the Future' so to speak, no more fancy micas, no more new and different fragrances to try out, well, at least for now.  I mentally locked all my "toys" in the closet and started looking for what nature has to offer.  I did my first batch, used only natural EO and herbal powder for colorants, will reveal soon. 

Lilac in Bloom

Spring is in the air, and so is my allergy...  Before my nose is going on a strike, I had to make this batch. The minute I took the log out of the mold, my nose started itching, sneezing none stop, very painful.  After so many batches of contracting bright color combination, this is refreshing to me.  I'm learning to tone down my passion for colors, vibrant vivid colors.  I'm trying... will take some time.

Coconut Oatmeal Milk Soap - part 2

The reveal!  I know it's not good lighting to shoot at east facing sunlight in my kitchen early in the morning, but this is the only time I'm available before I head to my office to start my whole day of work.  It's hard to see the sparkle mica I painted on the top under bright sunlight.  The soap top ashed, to fix the appearance I took a small paint brush and dusted light gold (gold mix with white) mica all over it.  Really sparkling in real life, too bad it doesn't show on photos.   The speckle in the soap is grind oatmeal for light exfoliation, mix of fine and medium grind.

Coconut Oatmeal Milk Soap - part 1

After cooking a meal of Indian curry, I need to use up the left over coconut milk in my fridge.  So into the soap it went.  Oh~ why not!  Add some grinned oatmeal!  Since I'm using fragrance oil called Sage & Citrus from Wholesale Supplies Plus, I colored the mixture orange, the citrus part.  You'll see me dropping in green soap balls soon, that's the sage part.  That's the theme for tonight's soap.

Ok, now I had to let the left over mixture sit for awhile to let it go to heavy trace.  As restless as I am, I went ahead and washed all my tools, put all my supplies back to where they belong, and even made some paper rabbits (that's for a baby shower I soon to host for my maid of honor) while watching TV.  20 min. later, ready to spoon it.

 Keep on piling up.

 Did a little swirly with my spoon, the restless way.

 Why not?!  Sprinkled some oat on the top, not too much, I don't want to clog anyone's drain!  Voila!