Unmolding My Soap

The soap fairies have worked their magic and my batch of Honey & Oatmeal soap as been unmolded.

I am really happy with the results.  The silicone cylindrical mold leaves a lovely glossy surface to the soap.

Unmolding the soap from the cylindrical mold

I'm loving the marbled pattern that has been created.

 I wonder what the soap will look like once it has been cut?

Experimenting with patterning on the surface made using a bamboo skewer.

Happy with how this turned out considering how thick and quickly the trace became.

Getting Back In The Saddle

Some say soap making is like riding a bike.  Once you've learnt how you never really forget.  Sure you might fall off but it is important to get back on and keep going.

Where has the time gone?? This year has flown by so quickly that until yesterday I didn't realise that it has been almost 12 months since my last batch of soap.  Why did I leave it so long?  There are a number of possible reasons.

1) I started a new job at the end of last year.

2) We moved interstate and took a long time to adjust to the reality of downsizing from a house to a 2 bedroom apartment.

3) Dealing with the passing of  some special people in my life.

4) Trying to make time to complete work related course work.

5) Supporting my husband whilst he was in between jobs a we settled into our new lives.

6) Travelled back to the UK to visit family.

Or perhaps I simply lost my creative spark.  I don't know what happened but late last week my husband asked me when I was planning to make some more soap as the stash of my honey and oatmeal soap had been depleted and how he really likes it.

His comment took me by surprise as I hadn't realised how much he likes my soaps.  He also noted that he knows soap making makes me really happy.

So with this in mind yesterday I set aside time to make a double batch of my honey and oatmeal soap that is made with olive oil, coconut oil, rice bran oil. cocoa butter, vitamin e, honey, oatmeal, lye

Honey poured into traced soap

On the whole I thought I had it in the bag but boy had I forgotten a few things.

I forgot;

1) That the lye solution takes alot longer to cool down than what I remembered.

2) Using a rand new stick blender can cause the soap to trace more quickly.

3) Honey can speed up acceleration.

You wouldn't believe how quickly my soap turned from a nice thin trace to the beginning of soap custard.  I was able to get it into my molds and thankfully this was planned as a simple log with no intricate patterning to be included.

The annoying thing is that I know all of the factors but somehow let them skip to the back of my mind.  Maybe it was because I have made this soap so many times before that I felt I didn't really need to think about it.

Well my soap seems to have turned out okay.  Time will tell when I remove it from its mold later on.

Has this frightened me away?  Absolutely not.  What I will do next time is be more prepared in advance.  I'll also take it easier with the stick blender and remember that less is more when it comes to using the blender.  I'm also going to make time each week in 2016 to get my mojo back.

Honey & Oatmeal Soap, Yumm

I've just finished wrapping my natural honey & oatmeal palm oil free soaps ready to take with me to show my girlfriends next week when I catch up with them.  I hope they like the packaging.  I love this simple yet exquisitely moisturising soap made up of local Australian honey, oatmeal, saponified: olive oil; coconut oil; rice bran oil and cocoa butter.  It is not fragranced by any essential oils but I can definitely smell the cocoa butter and there is very light aroma of honey.  I first made a similar bar some 7/8 years ago for my husband to use with his dry skin.  I also suffer from dry skin patches and find this bar really moisturises  my skin.  Over the years I've tweaked and adapted the original recipe until I am happy with the one I have now.  Unlike many large companies that mass produce soap, I make my soap using the cold pressed method,  because of this, glycerin a natural by product of the saponification process is retained in my soaps and not removed to be used in other products.



This soap is good enough to eat so to be on the safe side I made sure I placed a label on the back clearly stating "Do not eat" :-)

Too Much Lye Is Never A Good Thing

It doesn't matter whether you are an experienced or newbie soap maker, what matters is how accurately you measure your ingredients particularly when making cold pressed soap.I realised after measuring some of my ingredients for my last batch of honey & oatmeal soap that my electronic scales were playing up.  I hoped for the best and chose to keep soaping.

Yuck, look at what my end result was.  Too much lye in the mixture resulted in something that was very brittle and unpleasant, definitely too harsh to use on the skin as it is.  My trusty old scales have now been sent to greener pastures and a shiny new set are waiting to be used.

What's A Girl To Do?

Hmm, I had a little problem to solve today.  I had just unmoulded a batch of honey and oatmeal soap and wanted to try using an acrylic stamp to stamp into the soap.  I looked high and low for my stamp block to no avail.   I thought I would have to give the stamp a miss until I spied a small jar of vegemite on the shelf, which I promptly put to good use.  I think the stamp didn't turn out too bad.