10 years, no “soap”

It’s been about 10 years since I’ve bought a bar of soap and boy am I glad  I mean, really, have you ever looked at the ingredient list on a bar of soap that you buy at the grocery or drug store?  The only thing those “beauty bars” do is create beautiful wads of cash for the big commercial companies that make them.  If you can read, or pronounce, the mumbo jumbo written on the back of the label, do you actually know what they are?  Most are chemicals, surfactants, detergents and in some cases carcinogens.  Do we really need more of that stuff in our lives.

I took a look at the ingredient list for one of the beauty bars that says it “rinses cleaner”  and just ONE of the ingredients is Tetrasodium EDTA.  According to this article Tetrasodium EDTA is a preservative that’s made from the known carcinogen, formaldehyde and sodium cyanide.  It is also a penetration enhancer, meaning it breaks down the skin’s protective barrier, going right into your bloodstream.

Now I had no idea about this stuff anymore than the next person.  But, my husband Brian and I took a trip to visit my Dad.  During our stay he took us sight seeing and doing the touristy thing.  One of the places he took us was to a soap shop that did soap making demonstrations.  We sat there mesmerized watching as luxurious oils miraculously started changing into soap by the addition of lye water.  I was even given the chance to stir it  At one point Brian leaned towards me and said “We should start making soap”.  Well, we get back home and I start researching, and researching, and researching some more.  I learned the history of soap making, the properties of the different oils used etc, and so on as well as what I don’t want on my skin.   And that’s how I became a soap maker!!

Originally this post was just going to be a short one to tell you what I’ve got on the curing rack this week, but as you can see, I got side tracked.  So without further ado, here’s what’s on the curing rack

Lavender.  This is my fastest selling bar!

ingredients:  Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Shea Butter, Water, Lye Lavender Essential Oil 40/42, Lavender Buds and Iron Oxide Colour.

Available around April 1st.  No Joke

Mandarine Green Tea.

ingredients:  Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Shea Butter, Water, Lye, Fragrance and Iron Oxide Colour.

Available around April 1st.

This is another batch of Mandarine Green Tea.  You can see how the colouring is different in this batch but it still smells the same as the one above  One of these batches is already sold as soon as it has cured.

This is a custom blend of 3 different essential oils.  This batch, once cured is also sold.

I also have two other batches of custom blended soap that I haven’t photographed as they are also sold once the curing process is completed.

This is what my dining room table, come “curing rack” looks like right now.  There’s not much room left on it so I’ll have to come up with a better system.

For my birthday, my step dad, Dennis gave me a tiered green house that I think will be pressed into service.  I expect it will do the trick beautifully

My soap can be purchased as individual bars, or whole loaves.  If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a message.

TTFN,

Sherry

My Confession

Folks, I have a confession…  wait, let me do this properly…

Hello, My name is  Sherry, and I am an Addict!!  I admit that I have become a raging Soapaholic!

It happened innocently enough.  I started out making melt and pour soap, tweaking it with botanicals, fragrance or essential oils and colouring it fun funky ways, but that wasn’t enough for me…  I still wanted to make soap the “old fashioned way”, by mixing oils with lye to make real honest to goodness cold processed soap.

So, I bought olive oil, palm oil, shea butter and lye.  I’ve got the pot, I’ve got the scale, I’ve got my recipe, I’m ready!  I don my safety equipment, but I’m terrified of the lye… yes, I watched Fight Club… but I dive in anyway if I’m gonna do this.  I mixed the lye, I mixed the oils, I mixed them together and started stirring… and stirring… and stirring some more.  Finally after about 3 hours of stirring I figure, that’s gotta be enough.  So, I pour it in the mold and insulate it.  I’m impatient, and sneak peeks… is it soap yet.  Nope.  So ok, I’ll leave it alone over night and check it in the morning, by then it should have gone through the gel stage and become soap.  I look the next morning and…. AAAAAaaaaaahhhh, it didn’t work.  What could I have done wrong?  I figured it out that I hadn’t stirred it long enough.  So I re-batched it and yes, this time it is soap!!!  But THREE HOURS OF STIRRING wasn’t enough. So I became an occasional soaper.  I continued making the melt and pour, but I’d make my olive oil cold process soap now and then when I had ran out of the previous batch.

Well, in January it all changed.  You may have read my post Squeeee!  I got a stick blender!!  Well, that was the one piece of equipment that changed everything.  This thing has me all consumed with soap making to the point that I’m probably going to stop making the melt and pour soap altogether!

You see, it’s really not my fault, it’s the stick blenders fault, because now I can make a batch of soap, from the second I put on my gloves and safety glasses, to placing the filled mold in the freezer and walking back upstairs in under an hour!!!  Did you hear me?  I said all that in UNDER AN HOUR!!!

Before, it was a batch every now and then.  Now I’m doing multiple batches in a day!!!  And it gets worse (or better depending on how you look at it)  I’ve got wonderful new colours to play with, and I’m making cutesie soaps like cupcakes.  I’ve become obsessed!!  I lay in bed at night thinking what kind of soap to make next.  What scent and how to colour it.  What other recipes can I come up with…  Oh the humanity!!!

Here are a few pictures to show you how far I’ve sunk into this Cold Processed Soap making.

These Cupcake Soaps were made on Friday.  We had a terrible snow storm, so I came home and since there’s nothing good on TV anymore, I tried my hand at making these.

Vanilla Cupcake Soap

These are my first attempt, and you can be sure I’ll be doing more… and more… and yet even more!!  They will be ready for sale around March 23rd.

Then Sunday I made this.

Lavender in the mold

 

Lavender on the curing rack

Lavender close-up

Luckily for me this entire log of Lavender CP Soap is already sold as soon as it has cured.  I have a couple in town who love my soap so much that they buy it a whole log at a time.

I also made my favorite fragrance Rose Geranium.

Rose Geranium in the mold

I coloured it with swirls of pink and green then sprinkled a little gold dust on the top.

 

Rose Geranium cut end

It was a little too soft to cut, but I couldn’t wait any more to have a peek inside.

Rose Geranium close-up

I’ll finish cutting this log tonight and it will be ready for sale around March 24th.

So there, I’ve fessed up, I am a Soapaholic and I LOVE IT!!!  Beware, I Will Soap Again… don’t try and stop me, I don’t need an intervention, and I can promise that this obsession will get worse

Sherry.

 

 

 

On The Curing Rack

As promised here are the pictures of the latest soap on the curing rack.

Rose Garden Olive Oil & Shea:

 

Made of Olive, Coconut, Palm Oils and Shea Butter, scented with Rose Garden F.O.

Ready for Sale around the 2nd of March.

 

 

 

Castile Soap:

Made of 80% Olive Oil with a small amount of Palm and Coconut Oils to give these bars hardness and a nice stable lather.  These bars are left absolutely natural with no fragrance or colour added.

Ready for Sale in 4 to 6 months around June.

Shoot me an email if you’d like to reserve a bar or two

 

 

 

Did You Know?

All of our soaps are vegan.  Our soaps are made using a combination of  plant, fruit or nut oils, no animal fats or products at all.  As a matter of fact most of the oils I use can be purchased off of the grocers shelves.  So whether you are vegan or not you can enjoy a wonderful luxurious bar of moisturizing soap and feel good about it