Smaller soaps, for samples, seemed like a nice idea, so here's a photo of my most current soaps, in sample form: Lemon Verbena, Hint-of-Chocolate Raspberry, Peppermint, Patchouli-Almond, Peach, Cinnamon-Clove, Coffee (good for removing onion and garlic odors from kitchen hands), Lavender, Balsam-Cedarwood.A couple naked cucumbers are huddled together in the refrigerator, for I stole their peel last night, put it in the dehydrator overnight, and today I pulverized it to put into Friday's soap, 'Cucumber-Aloe.' It's very exciting to pour a liquid into a log or box mold, wait the suspenseful 24 hours before unmolding it, then seeing what the resulting soap looks like. During one soap-making episode, I used a particular botanical and discovered that when the lye water mixed with it, it turned everything a horrid color. That didn't work out so well. Nevertheless, it's always an exciting venture, and I'm learning something about oils and lye.
When I mix the lye with the water, it gives off fumes - that fortunately dissipate once the lye is completely dissolved. Still, because I don't want the dogs to have to breathe the fumes during that short, choking interval, I mix the lye water outdoors. Sometimes I'll make a little nest in the snowbank where I can set the lye water to bring the temperature down more quickly.
Kevin made two molds for me: one is a box mold that I can use to turn out 44 bars of soap; the other is a log mold that I use for a 20-bar recipe.
3 comments:
Hi My Friend, I love the pic post today. Very pretty soaps. I can't wait to smell the cured bars. I can just hear the excitement in your writing about the process and joy of your soap making. :) By the way, the next time you are out and about you really should buy some clothes for your 2 naked cucumbers. No self respecting cucumbers lay around without their clothes. :)
I didn't know i removed the message I sent you Judy. Sorry about that. I don't know what I am doing with these blogs yet. sorry. And I still love your soaps.
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