Anise Soap & The Thin Black Line

After falling in love with the black liquorice scent of my star anise and clove essential oil blend, I made a full batch last week.

I wanted to put some colour blocking into it so I left the top unscented. The bottom is tan owing to the anise oil.  I put in a thin black line of cocoa powder, which I have been wanting to do for a while now.

The line was a bit tricky, but totally worth it.

The Anise & Clove soap will be ready for sale after March 15th.

Pumpkin Soap - take three

New Year's Resolution # 2: I promise to use better lighting.

Above is a trial-size of 12% pumpkin soap.

Previously, I've tried adding 6% pureed pumpkin at trace.  The colour was a very light yellow compared to my regular unscented bars.  I was confused as to why the colour of teh 12% was not darkening like I expected.  Then I read Lovin Soap's Hot Process Pumpkin Soap blog post.  By the way, LUV this blog.  Very well done.

Next soap trial will be replacing water with the pumpkin, then making Cold Processed soap as usual.  This is the same way I make my cow milk soap.  It's a little more tricky, but worth the effort.

On Trial - 6 new scents

The other day I took six essential oil scent blends that I'd been working on and tried them in a batch of soap.  I liked these scents on the cotton balls, but you never know what soap will do with the essential oils.

I made 6 4-oz bars of soap in my handy silicone cupcake mold and here's what they looked like after 2 days:

1) 12% pumpkin
2) anise & clove
3) mint, rosemary and lime
4) vanilla, patchouli & lavender
5) mint, sage and rosemary
6) eucalyptus, tea tree, sage and mint

I think I need to get a tiny whisk, because I'm not happy with how well No. 3, 5, and 6 had their EOs blended in.  Not too worried, though - this is only a smell test!

After a week the best scent is #2.  My daughter threatens to eat it.  It smells like the best kind of Jubejube - black liquorice, but so mellow.  Absolutely mouth-watering.  It's darkened a bit so is now a dark taupe.

Anise and Clove

Waiting on how the others will tone down.  #4 was a lovely earthy lavender on cotton, but still waiting for patchouli and vanilla to come through lavender.  #3, 5 and 6 and smelling so much alike right now!  Lots of refreshing minty-herbal scent, but still waiting for the Oh Yeah.

Hope to get time next weekend to make a couple full batches!

Pumpkin Soap - Curing

Two days in, it looks like I was a bit overenthusiastic when blending - I can see teeny bubbles in the bars.  Not thrilled with the look, but that's why we have trials!  

Okay, so I can't get enough of this batch's scent.  I am forever taking a quick sniff as I walk by.  It is starting to warm up to a slight orange colour, but the pumpkin fragrance has me hooked.  I can hardly believe that just pureed pumpkin smells this way in soap.  Go figure.

Pumpkin soap curing - 2 days

Pumpkin Soap Trial #1

After hearing from a good friend that she has benefited from pumpkin soap, I started trials on my own version.  I started with 6% pumpkin per oil weight.  This pumpkin was grown in my garden until September and I processed it yesterday!  That's a testament to the amount of antioxidants in a pumpkin!

Dead Pumpkin: Peeled, seeded and cubed

Pumpkin Puree: smells yummy!

Added pumpkin at trace.

Trial batch in the mold

After unmolding the soap, there was no significant colour difference than in plain unscented soap.  It smells lovely and turned out beautifully - I'll keep working on this with different percentages.

Ready for Spring 2012

After a hectic year with some big life changes, I am looking forward to making soap again.

I have had to put soaping on hold for the better part of 2011 due to a busy home and work life.  My husband is now working up north for 8 days out of every 14 so I am single-parenting during that time, as well as keeping my head above water teaching.  After finding my new "normal", I am excited to bring out the big stainless steel pot and get creative once again.

Soaps that will be ready for March, 2012:

• Rosemary
• Garden Scrubbie
• Cow Milk

New Vibe

Do you like the wallpaper? I love it - it reminds me of mature dill weed from the garden. I had so much growing this year that I had to wage war against it. Not too many survived to produce seed heads... Anyway, I am enjoying the new vibe the blog has given me and Liliya Soapworks.

I am slowly bringing things over here from my "website-with-a-blog" to this "blog-with-webpages" because the Blogger interface is much more user-friendly. I'm looking forward to a refreshed online presence!