Autumn Soaps, Handcrafted, Vegan Soaps

Natural, Handcrafted Vegan Soaps

Buy Any Five, Get One FREE

 

Clockwise, starting with upper left:

Lemongrass & Eucalyptus (Tranquility)

Sandalwood & Vanilla

Frosted Apple Spice

Pumpkin Spice

Morning Brew (Coffee)

Green Tea & Ginger

...and many more! Check out all my handcrafted soaps at

HomemadeSoapNSuch

and at

Our ETSY Shop 

 Country Lane in Autumn
Just off 18th Street 

 

This post may be linked to one or more of the following: Mop it Up Monday  and Mosaic Monday and Barn Hop and  Get in My Tummy and  Cure for the Common Monday and  Clever Chicks Blog Hop and  Barn Charm and  The Marketplace  and  Mix it up Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and    Making the World Cuter Mondays and Make the Scene Monday and  Something I Whipped Up Monday and  Motivate Me Monday and  Making Monday Marvelous and Get Your Craft On and Efforts and Assets and Blog Shop and   You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Knick of Time Tuesday and  Creative Showcase and Memories by the Mile and Crafty Texas Girls and  Tweak it Tuesday and  Coastal Charm Tuesday and  Take a Look Tuesday and  Tasty Tuesday  and Love Bakes Good Cakes and Mom on TimeOut  and Adorned from Above and Wildcrafting Wednesday and   Cast Party Wednesday and  We Did it Wednesday  and Whatever Goes Wednesday and  All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday  and The Girl Creative, Thursday and  Creative Things Thursday and Be Inspired and Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Friday Fences and  Thursday's Inspiration and  The Self-sufficient Home Acre and  I'm Lovin' it Thursday and Creative Things Thursday and   Mandatory Mooch   and Foodie Friends Friday and Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and Junkin' Joe and  Serenity Saturday and Get Schooled Saturday  and Inspiration Friday(ThursNite) and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and Share Your Creativity and   A Favorite Thing Saturday and Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday and  Market Yourself Monday and  Saturday Nite Specia

GIVEAWAY WINNER ANNOUNCED!

Congratulations to Melanie from Bear Rabbit Bear, winner of the HomemadeSoapnSuch Christmas GIVEAWAY!!  Rafflecopter winner chosen by Random.org.

Thanks so much to all who entered!

***

HomemadeSoapnSuch

Christmas Collection

Natural, Vegan, Handcrafted, Luxury Soaps

...and more! Check out all our handcrafted soaps at

HomemadeSoapNSuch

and at

our ETSY store 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Waiting for the Cure

I think the shelves are now full. We moved the 19th century wicker perambulator (yes, that's what my mom called those contraptions when I was a kid - and no, I wasn't alive in the 19th century) out of our bedroom to make room for soap-drying shelves. I needed a place for the soaps to cure without being surrounded by airborne dog hair or ash from our wood-burning stove.

The upstairs seemed like a good idea, for the dogs have been gated from the upstairs so long that when the gate is left open, they don't remember that they can actually walk up the steps to kill the cats who live there - Lionel and Tuppence. Miraculously, the cats have been ignoring the soaps, rather than walking among them, knocking them over, or batting them about the floor like hockey pucks - or more likely, mice.

These are generous slices of lemon verbena, fresh out of the mold. At this stage, they are very soft. If I had a stamp that read 'Cranberry Morning,' rather than 'Library of Judy Masrud,' I would stamp my soaps at this stage.

We've got only a few more weeks before the first soaps are fully cured. Then I can put labels on them and push them out into the big, cruel world. I can hardly wait.

Today I'm going to try to swirl two colors of soap together. I think it's like making a marble cake, only scarier.

Do you have a project for the day?

Soap Samples

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.