More Soap

My mom started using raw milk again. Because of this she collected some whey from making cottage cheese. She froze it for me and delivered so I could make a soap using whey.

This is what I came up with - a nice moisturizing soap with properties great for problem skin. I added Thieves oil, and it smells amazing!

I gave most of the bars back to her, hoping they would help keep my dad's eczema somewhat under control. Although not a cure, reports are its quite comfortable.

This one is Shea Butter and Lavender. I meant for it to be a purple color. I had used some goats milk in the process and when I added the red and blue coloring (to make purple) I ended up with a lovely shade of green ;)  

In the fall, Rob and I picked a bunch of rose hips. I thought it may be a great ingredient, infused into oil to add to a facial bar. So the Coconut Rose Facial Bar was created.

I had these individual molds with rose imprints and I thought it would be genius to use those for this soap. However, the releasing did not go quite as I had imagined and I ended up with really messy rose imprints. Oh well, they may not be display friendly but should work for at home just the same.

I wanted to try a recipe for Butters Soap. Since I was using equal amounts of Shea and Cocoa Butter, I decided to add some cocoa for a darker colour.

Another batch of Linda B's Blue Brush Soap. Amy really likes using this to clean her paint brushes. Seems to have just the right amount of "clean" and "condition" which is so important for paint brushes. Works well for both her acrylic and oil paints.

This batch looks a little pale, but the bottom side has more colour. It's a blue green mix - works well for the brushes.

Apple Vanilla Spice...  

I was very pleased with this one. I allowed the solutions to cool significantly so I could soap at a lower temperature thereby avoiding the dreaded gelling ring I so often get.

Tee Tree & Eucalyptus...

Beautiful light green soap with poppy seeds.

Oatmeal & Honey...

This one is kind of a universal favourite. Oatmeal and Honey is a popular combination, smells nice and great for your skin.

Lavender Calendula Healing Hand Salve. Here I infused a combination of Calendula leaves, eucalyptus leaves and lavender pods into Olive Oil. Added a couple extra ingredients and result - a lovely scented, although quite greasy, hand salve. Its best to use at night or when you have plenty of time to massage it into you skin and allow it to absorb.

Seems like one of my most favoured and most popular bars are the avocado bars. Since I was running out, this became my next batch.

Next up - Dark Chocolate and Cream. Ever since I made the soap with the liquid whey, I'd been wanting to do another. However, collecting the whey is a difficult process as it comes from 12 hours north of here. I went to the health food store, and without knowing for sure if it would be the same thing, I purchased a small amount of powdered whey. I was hoping it would present similarly as the liquid in the finished product.

I used leftover coffee as my water, and added the usual coffee grinds and a bit of cocoa for colour. To my surprise I ended up with a lovely rich chocolate brown shade. The only thing I can think of is perhaps the whey powder helped to capture the colour particles and deepen it through the recipe. Regardless, I love it! And it smells great. 

Hemp and Rosemary...  Hemp oil is not my favourite. It is dark, greenish in colour and has a strong smell. However, I can understand the benefits of the oil and therefore can not write off the goodness which may come from a Hemp soap bar. I thought, since I was using Hemp, maybe I should go ahead and add some extra goodness for the skin and add in some Neem oil, I thought I could call this one The Stinky Soap. Maybe I'm getting used to the Neem oil smell, I don't know, but once I added some Rosemary and Peppermint EO's, it's not too bad. The botanicals are rosemary pods.

This soap almost became my first big oops. I was using some leftover beer - it has been sitting out for weeks so I knew it was flat as could be. I'm going to blame the sugar content, but when I added the lye to the beer/water solution the water heated up so quickly it began to bubble and foam. For a minute I thought it may boil over my container! It quickly settled down, but I think I ended up with the hottest water solution ever. After I waited for everything to cool to soaping temperature, I mixed and poured into my molds. At first I thought it was settling quite nicely, the initial creamy film covered over my exposed end. After a while, I took another look. Low and behold, my soap looked much more translucent. I felt the containers and they were hot! Clearly my soap was hot and gelling away. I was afraid of the great volcano possibility so I immediately moved my soap outside (where it was approx -20 degrees). Whew... close one.

Lavender... I'm still working on getting a nice lavender colour. This time I added a bit of pink kaolin clay and some blue colour. Closer, but still not great. I was a bit too impatient when mixing this batch and ended up with a lovely gel ring up the middle - shucks. Would have been prudent to have more patience.